Chapter 3
Crag
It was obvious from the first instant that the beings who’d charged into the room had just one goal in mind: tearing Quinn apart. My body immediately sprang into action with the only acceptable response: tear them apart first.
Already in my gargoyle form, I didn’t even need to shift. With a roar, I sprang at the nearest beings. I smashed one’s skull with my rocky fist, its brains exploding into a smoky pulp, and pummeled another’s head right off its neck. Hazy essence gushed through the air from their crumpling bodies.
More shadowkind were flooding into the apartment from what seemed like every direction, many of them animalistic lesser beings interspersed with a few higher beings who made their lunges at Quinn more strategically. Hisses and snarls rang through the air.
Lance whipped around the sofa in his dragon body, incinerating a beast with a gush of scorching breath here, ripping another into fleshy shreds there. Expanded into his demon shape, Rollick gouged out a vampire’s throat with his bare, clawed hand and drove his other fist straight through another attacker’s chest.
Torrent had brought out every tentacle he could while staying upright. The sinewy appendages lashed around us, knocking creatures off their feet, crushing their bones with vicious slaps. He swiped his limbs through the air more frantically as the barrage of shadowkind kept growing in their onward charge, his jaw clenching beneath the hollow of his scarred cheek.
And in the middle of it all, Quinn’s breath rasped as she fired off shot after shot with her crossbow, fumbling for the bolts she’d stashed in her bag in between. I whipped my head around to take a glimpse at her, and my chest wrenched at the paleness of her face, the sweat that’d beaded on her forehead.
How much was this fight taking out of her when she’d already started to feel ill? These brutes were putting even more strain on her heart while it was struggling. What if it failed completely because of this onslaught of fiends?
Anguish and rage seared through my body in tandem. Every being that was threatening the woman I loved should pay in the most painful way possible.
A deeper roar reverberated up my throat. I flung my fists even faster, leaping from place to place, carving a gap with battered flesh and plumes of essence in the incoming flood.
Part of me wanted to hurtle right out into the street and track down the shadowkind who’d led our enemies to us. Smash and pummel the leviathan until even that gigantic menace lay bashed and bleeding. But I couldn’t leave Quinn behind. There were too many vicious maws and sharp talons snatching at her right here.
And more and more kept coming. I had no idea how many the leviathan might have already had under his sway and how many were new recruits, but it seemed as if every shadowkind in Los Angeles must be racing into the apartment with murder on its mind. The air was thick with smoke that pricked at my eyes and blurred my vision. My companions were little more than blurs of motion rippling through the clouds.
A reptilian beast wriggled close enough to Quinn to snap at her arm, and I slammed my heel down on its spine with a fleshy crunch. My teeth set on edge. There were even more swarming us every moment.
Rollick hadn’t given any instruction, but I didn’t need his commands to know what I needed to do. I flung my arms around Quinn, yanking her off her feet into my embrace, and bellowed out to the others, “I’m getting her out of here!”
Quinn froze in my arms, tensed from the battle but obviously not wanting to make it harder for me to carry her. She was always so starkly aware of how her protections against our foes might hurt me, but the silver and iron threads woven into the undershirt Rollick had gotten made for her only sent a faint pinching of discomfort through my skin, not even as bothersome as the beaded vest she’d used before.
It hadn’t stopped these monsters from finding her, though. We had to get her so much farther away from here and the ancient being that wanted her dead.
As I barreled toward the nearest window, Quinn clutched her crossbow to her stomach and hunched her head under my chin. I threw myself through the already broken pane and whipped out my wings to propel us up into the sky. The warm night air rushed over us, sweeping the acrid essence from my lungs.
Unfortunately, the leviathan’s minions had gotten wise to our usual tactics. Several winged beings leapt into the air to soar after us. They must have been waiting outside in case we attempted an escape.
I wasn’t going to let those beasts bring me low this time. Before, that thicker metal vest had weakened me in ways the new undershirt didn’t, and I’d gotten more used to fighting while carrying her. I bared my teeth. These creatures were going to regret ever tangling with a gargoyle.
With vast flaps of my wings, I careened straight upward into the darkening sky. There was no point in heading toward our precautionary meeting spot outside the city until I’d dealt with these fiends, or one of them might follow us and then tell the others to bring another attack down on us.
My thoughts narrowed down to the movements of my body, the feel of Quinn nestled safely against me, and the strikes I’d have to make to end each of the lives closing in on us.
Somehow, my fierce mortal had managed to maneuver her crossbow around to take aim. The moment I swung toward our pursuers, she shot three of them in quick succession. The first bolt slammed into a harpy’s shoulder, making her spasm but not falter more than that. The other two projectiles caught beasts in the forehead and the neck. As they plummeted with blood steaming from their wounds, I tightened my grip around my woman.
The fact that she was so capable, so determined to fight for herself, only made me more furious at the creatures that wanted to wrench her from this world. I bellowed a battle cry that resonated up from my chest and heaved toward them.
While I held Quinn with one arm, I could do damage with my other fist, but my best weapons in the air were my legs. I kicked and clawed, whirling this way and that with rakes of my broad feet. I grabbed the harpy’s hair and rammed her head into my knee hard enough to split her skull open. The talons on my toes tore open a hawk shifter’s gut. My body twisted, jerked, and jabbed with all rage-driven might behind it, lending me strength and speed.
By the time the last body fell, my shoulder was aching where I’d taken a swift but shallow slash and my breath was coming hard, but we were alone. I pushed off a forceful current of air and soared toward the spot Rollick had picked out where we should meet if anything went wrong in the city.
Quinn shivered against me. I glanced down at her with a pang of concern. “Are you all right? Did any of them manage to hurt you?”
Had I inadvertently hurt her while I fended off our attackers?
Before guilt could dig in too deeply, she shook her head. “I’m just… I’m tired of all this fighting. Of always having to be on the run. And seeing so many creatures dying.”
She nestled her head under my chin, and a different sort of guilt rose up through my chest, more an ache than a jab.
I’d dealt out a lot of the death she’d witnessed today. I’d pummeled dozens of creatures without any thought but of her safety, as savagely as I could manage. I didn’t think she’d have told me I’d done anything wrong, but I didn’t like that I’d contributed to the violence that had disturbed her.
“We’ll do whatever we can to make sure they don’t follow us again,” I said gruffly, even though I had no idea how we’d accomplish that. Our enemies kept tracking us down nearly everywhere we went, and the leviathan would be even more desperate to get rid of Quinn now that she’d managed to destroy his partner. Now that she’d shown that she could tackle a being that powerful.
She was in more danger now than ever before. Both from the weakening organ inside her and our most unshakable enemy in the outer world.
That knowledge had me sweeping my wings faster. We careened over the suburbs and onward until the lights of buildings and roads below came few and far between. The chemical tang that laced the city air gave way to fresher natural scents.
“How can you tell where the right spot is from up here when it’s so dark?” Quinn asked, craning her neck to peer at the ground, which was drenched in black.
“I feel it rather than see it,” I said. “The patterns of earth and stone all have their own resonance. I made note of the sensations when Rollick showed us the place.”
My stomach itched with the urge to gulp down some quartz to bolster my gargoyle strength and awareness. I hadn’t had the chance to munch on many minerals since I’d started down this chaotic path with the woman in my arms weeks ago.
I could manage without it. But maybe Rollick would be able to obtain some for me quickly without much hassle if I asked.
I picked up on the vibe I’d been watching for and swerved to the left. A few minutes later, we descended through the air with a rush of wind to land on a rocky hill where several boulders would have hidden us from view even if the sun had been out.
Quinn shifted so she could stand, and I released her carefully, studying her in the thin moonlight for any sign that her heart was affecting her badly again. Her legs held her firmly enough, and her face might have been a bit pale, but her eyes scanned our surroundings with total alertness. Remembering how she’d hunched over earlier this evening, the pain that had marked her lovely face, made my gut twist up.
“I guess it could take a while for the others to get here,” she said. “They’d have left as soon as we did, right?”
“That would make sense,” I said. “There’d be no point in them lingering once you’re not there to protect. If they can catch a ride on a vehicle, it will carry them close pretty quickly.”
She nodded and rubbed her mouth. “I hope the pixie was okay. After she tried so hard to offer us her help… She looked terrified when the other beings burst in. I think she hid under the TV, but I didn’t see what happened to her.”
With a jolt of chagrin, I realized I hadn’t even remembered the pixie had been in the room. I couldn’t recall seeing her after the moment when the attackers had swarmed us, I’d been so focused on destroying them.
Nothing had mattered to me except Quinn. Quinn, and pulverizing anything and anyone that might threaten her.
“I—I’m not sure,” I admitted. “I don’t imagine the beasts would have bothered her. And she was swift enough finding us—she should have been able to slip away.”
Quinn frowned. “I hope so.”
I didn’t know how to answer this soft side of her. It’d always been her softness that’d both called to me and left me uncertain, so different from my own nature.
I would batter, maim, and kill to keep her safe. But even if I managed to avoid ever hurting her by accident again, how could she not see me as the same sort of being as the creatures who’d meant to do the same to her?
And how long would her love last, the more she saw of my brutality?
That question dug into me as sharply as Lance’s claws could have, but it came with a resigned sort of resolve. This was what I could contribute. Defending her with all my strength was what I did best. And with everything that’d happened, the next few days might call on me to become even more brutal than ever before.
If Quinn ended up seeing me as nothing more than a monster after all, that was how it had to be. I wasn’t letting any of those fiends touch one hair on her head if I could help it.