CHAPTER TWELVE
GISELLA
I turned back in the direction from where I had come, but I could barely see the poppies, let alone discern their color in the failing dusk. A scream of frustration edged with panic lodged in my throat. I swallowed it down, refusing to let a simple garden maze overcome me.
Follow the poppies, indeed. I shook my head, hoping for more instructions, but Sebastian was nowhere in my head. Stepping towards one of the paths, I bent down, running my hand over the tops of plants. Soft petals brushed my hand. All I had to do was follow them.
Follow, follow, follow.
Such a simple task. Clenching my stomach, I refused to allow the impending panic rise higher. This had to be the right choice, I told myself firmly. The hedges loomed above me as I strode along the path, my quick pace reducing my short pants by a minor amount. Progress meant finding everyone who no doubt thought I’d wandered off at their master’s bidding.
Heart hammering, I took a turn at a row of dark poppies, or at least, what I thought were poppies, then another. Finally, I arrived at a forked section of the maze I didn’t recognize and took the left-hand path.
Without the sun to guide me I was guessing, but in the back of my mind, doubt seeded.
“Stupid, stupid,” I muttered to myself.
I trotted on between the hedges that seemed to close in on me. Small, waxy leaves brushed my fingers. Snapped twigs caught on my skirts. I trotted faster, breaking into an outright run until the hedge opened out into a broad space. My gait slowed as I blinked into the darkness.
Water bubbled nearby, and I almost ran to the fountain in my relief. The gargoyle stood tall, his bulky arms raised. Cold air shifted around me, and I turned to see the castle rising dark and forbidding against the starlit sky.
A void of its own, stealing the light. Relief washed over me. At least I knew where I was, now. I walked around the fountain, then paused, studying the gargoyle. His arms were twisted, muscular, a more masculine shape than I pictured earlier in the day.
I frowned, recalling his shape as hunched, bent. But then, I hadn’t walked around this side of the fountain. Well, I had , but Sebastian and I were arguing at the time, and I doubted I would have noticed much at all. The craftsmanship of the creature was incredible. Whoever had carved him had created the face perfectly—the right mixture of handsome and grotesque in perfect symmetry.
“If you’re done staring.” The face moved, but I couldn’t reconcile it with the voice—until the gargoyle lowered his hands. I shook my head, retreating a step, but he followed me, peering down. “It is quite rude, you know.”
My mouth stretched wide, I sucked in a lung full of air, retreating in a flurry of steps while I tried to remind my voice how to scream.
You told me no other monsters were in your lands!
Another unanswered plea. I should be used to them by now.
I tripped over my own feet, stumbling back into something hard, unforgiving. A hand wrapped around my mouth. The water stopped running, and all I could hear in the garden was the echo of my silenced scream.
“Gisella. Gella, stop.”
The hand squeezed my chin gently, forcing my head back in a slow movement. I shook my head, but the hand kept me still until I was looking up into a pair of dark eyes I’d last seen above me the night before.
“Don’t fight me, hellion,” he murmured, reducing my fear with a single phrase.
Sebastian held my gaze a moment longer, then nodded, lowering his hand. Turning me in his arms, he tightened his grasp, pulling me against him.
I closed my eyes tight, certain I was safe with him.
That’s not something I ever expected to hear from you again.
“Then you should keep out of other people’s heads,” I muttered tartly into the folds of his shirt.
Sebastian laughed deeply, slipping his fingers beneath my bonnet into my hair, holding me tight. Safe . “Dolion. About time you got up. But truly, man, did you need to scare her? She’d been lost for hours by the time I woke.” He spoke over my head.
A deep voice answered him, and I stiffened, pressing deeper into Sebastian’s chest. He squeezed my back with one hand—his almost fit almost all the way across my slight frame.
“I did see her go into the maze, earlier. If I’d known she was lost, I would have brought her out myself.”
I peeked over my shoulder, my body pressed thigh to thigh with Sebastian’s. A man’s silhouette graced the moonlight behind me. Sebastian’s arms flexed again, releasing me when I gave a gentle nudge to the confines of his embrace. I turned to face the man who had been a monster.
Everything about him was the same—the carved muscle, the shape of his body, his bulk—but absent was the twisted, grotesque facial expression. Instead, his was one of kindness, with a mischievous light in his yellow eyes. The stone of his body reflected golden skin, gleaming as though oiled beneath the moon.
I swallowed, attempting a watery smile.
You promised me no more monsters.
I sent the reminder to the alabaster statue of a man of my own at my back, receiving a soft huff of breath I was convinced he didn’t need against my nape. Shivers broke out across my arms. I folded my hands in front of me, trying to suppress the cold that seeped into my body. A broad arm wrapped tight around my chest, pulling me back into him, his coat offering warmth when his body couldn’t.
“I am sorry.” The gargoyle’s— Dolion —voice rumbled deep and smooth, as though dipped in honey. “I get bored there, alone while you have your fun. It’s not like I can jump down and join in, yes?” He smiled as he straightened, heavy, bunched muscles turning lean. Standing tall, his height was intimidating, even against Sebastian.
“No, I suppose not,” I murmured, reaching for my husband’s hand, tangling my fingers tight in his when I located it.
He squeezed back, his other arm returning to my waist.
“Out for the night, then?” Above me, Sebastian’s voice held a hint of meaning, though he covered it well with a casual tone.
“All night, brother. Playing with the old woman’s wolves.” The stone turned man flashed a smile my way before he leaped through the garden with impossible speed, fading into the shadows and out of my sight.
Sebastian’s palm pressed against my stomach, his fingers caressing the gentle swell there. With Dolion gone, we were left alone in the garden, well sheltered from the view of the house. Slowly, he turned me in his arms to face him. My mouth dry, I swallowed back a different sort of fear that trembled through me at the change in his touch.
His gaze darkened as his fingers caught my chin, tipping my head up. With deft fingers, he removed my bonnet, tossing the confection of lace and straw aside. His hand returned to my hair, tangling in the loosened strands.
I pressed my fingers to his cool chest, straying over the curves and valleys there. “Sebastian?—”
He pulled me closer, his breath almost kissing my lips. If I leaned up on my tiptoes, my mouth would meet his, and I knew what would happen the moment he kissed me. The passion between us became a tangible thing that wound us ever tighter in its embrace.
I closed my eyes as my heart raced.
Please, kiss me.
Don’t kiss me and take me inside.
But as frightening as the garden had become, swathed in shadows and dark corners when I had traversed it on my own, it was a place of peace with Sebastian before me, because I knew that above everything else, he would protect me.
I’d been wrong to fight with him, to run from him. There were all sorts of monsters in this world, and not all of them drank blood or died at first light. My hands curled into fists on his shirt, tugging him closer and pushing away at the same time.
“I will never tell you to leave me, Gella,” he growled against my lips before his mouth came crashing down on mine.
Tongue and teeth tangled in a clash of need. I reached around his neck to twist my fingers in his hair, tugging on the dark waves. He groaned into my mouth, his hardness pressing against my stomach. The night passed over us while he bruised my lips and devoured my mouth. When he drew back, my mind and body were still whirling with emotion—both mine and his.
“Why does that happen?” I murmured, dragging dozy eyelids open.
“Because you’re insatiable,” he answered, a gleam in his dark eyes.
I nudged him in the ribs with my fingers, but he didn’t so much as oof. Typical. “Not that. I mean, why do I get what you're feeling?”
Sebastian drew back sharply. “What do you mean?”
I shrugged, uncomfortable to be under his scrutiny again. “When you spoke to me in the garden, I could feel your anger, your rage at being…well, at not being able to join us. And now,” I flapped lamely. “I shouldn’t have said anything.”
“Of course, you should.” He tucked me into his shoulder, drawing me along the path that led back into the garden.
“I just came from here,” I protested, “Maybe we could go back to the house?”
“The house has ears.” He tightened his grip on my arm.
Stubborn man.
“And your garden has eyes,” I retorted. “Is anything else going to jump out at me? Wait—your stone man?—”
“Dolion.”
“Yes. He said there are wolves.” I shivered involuntarily at the thought of sharp teeth and found I couldn’t face the image.
“Not…natural ones.”
I took a moment to ponder that. “You didn’t say native,” I murmured.
“No. I didn’t.” He laughed, a cruel, twisted sound. “I told you I’m the monster here.”
“So you say,” I grumbled, amazed at my own acceptance.
Or maybe it was him. I shivered despite his hold on me.
The shadows have eyes .
I’d never call my thoughts fanciful ever again.
“You’re safe with me, Gella. I won’t let you be lost again.”
“Your directions were dreadful,” I offered, to break the tension.
“Perhaps you didn’t follow them correctly.”
“Perhaps,” I echoed softly.
Perhaps you couldn't find your way around a map with both hands.
Sebastian laughed again, though true humor coated the deep sound this time. Flashes of the day ran back to me—his portrait, the fire. Amy. A tremor ran over my shoulders at the thought of her, my mind whirling at the connotations I hadn’t taken the time to process.
His arm tightened around me. “Gella?”
“I set fire to your gallery.”
He harrumphed into my hair, dropping a kiss to the top of my head. “I know.” He sounded resigned, as though he knew what was coming.
I barreled ahead anyway.
“Tell me about Amy.”
He walked in silence for a few minutes, drawing me deeper into the gardens, along the hedgerow. My teeth chattered. I didn’t want to go back into the maze. Glancing over my shoulder, light framed the curtained windows of the house, warm and welcoming. Despite my need to escape its confines earlier in the day, all I wanted now was to be back within those four impenetrable walls.
At the entrance to the maze, Sebastian steered us to one side, through a grove of trees I hadn’t noticed in my haste before. The slim trees were planted in a circle. Moss covered the ground, squishing beneath my feet. He didn't stop in the clearing but instead led me through the other side, dropping his arm to clasp my hand.
We slipped between the close-knit, twisted trees and stepped out onto a wide ledge that ended in a little shoal looking out across the ocean. Water lapped softly in the muggy air, as tepid as a long-standing teacup, like I imagined from his bedroom. I glanced over my shoulder to see if I could pick his out, but foliage obscured my sight of the house.
When I turned back, he led me to a wide, rectangular slab of rock that rested to one side of the sandy space. His head inclined, he gestured for me to sit. I spread my skirts around me and waited. Sebastian paced before me, treading a worn path he seemed to know well.
“Amy—I know her as Anitta. It’s an older name.” He ran his hand over his head, smoothing loose strands away from his face that sprang back in a show of defiance. “She’s different. Not like me, older than Dolion. My gargoyle. She predates us all.”
I blinked. How many creatures of the night were there? But not all legends stayed hidden under the cover of darkness while innocents only dreamed of the magic that created them.
I frowned. “But she was in the sunlight. On the ship. And she—she didn’t sleep. Not like you, when you…you know, in the morning…” I waved a feeble hand.
“She is not vampyre, Gella.”
It was the first time he had said that word to me, and imparting the knowledge, voicing it—it was an offering of trust.
I’ll never ask you to leave, Gella. You have my promise.
And I’ll never run from you.
The two-way conversation ran over my words. I considered for a moment.
“What is she? She’s lived all these years, my God, centuries—” I paused as he winced. “What is it?”
“Please refrain from mentioning Him, love.”
“Oh.” I quietened. “Do—should I not cross myself, then?”
He laughed. “No, love. Gestures like that hold no power whatsoever. His name, however, regardless of form, does.”
“You avoided my question.” My mind caught up with me. I raised an eyebrow in his direction. “Again.”
“I’m getting good at that,” he mused, studying the stars.
“Yes.” I jabbed him again, though it wasn’t a satisfying barb without earning a reaction. “You are.”
Sebastian sighed, slowing his pace. “She is—I don’t know what she is, only who. She found me when I was…killed. Alive. How ever you wish to say it.” He laughed, a hollow thing that sent shivers across my flesh.
I crossed my arms tightly. Chill night air seeped through my dress. He glanced down at me and slipped out of his coat, laying it around my shoulders. For the first time, I recognized that he had a scent. Something fresh—like dew on a frosted morning, mixed with the earthy undertones of charcoal and smoke.
“When were you…” I bit my lip, unsure if it was polite to ask someone when they were killed.
Sebastian laughed again, but there was no humor in it. “When did I die?” The laughter inside him held for a moment before it crashed, sinking into something dark, suppressed deep, and mirrored in his eyes. “Four hundred years ago. She was there when my body changed, like I was flayed from the inside out.”
I stifled a gasp behind my hand. “The portrait.”
He didn’t look at me this time. “Yes. The portrait. She was there. Watched me from the inside.”
Reveled in it.
His silent confession imparted the horror he didn’t dare to say aloud.
“Like we talk? Inside my head?”
“You’re inside mine, too, Gella,” he murmured.
“Oh.” Disconcerted at the thought of my voice talking in his head, though I supposed it made sense, I thought back to my time on the ship. Sharing a cabin with her. “Does that mean she might be in my head, too? Amy, I mean?”
He looked down with a furrowed brow. “Why would you say that?”
“Well, because we were on the ship for so long, and we shared a cabin for the first part of the journey, and—well, we had a few nights I can’t quite remember,” I mumbled the last part, heat climbing into my cheeks.
“You got drunk?” His voice held constrained laughter, and I was glad to bring a little humor back to him, despite the cost to my ego.
I cleared my throat. “On the rare occasion of a few nights,” I lied. “I wondered if,” I barreled ahead, “if she might have done something? I don’t know, but you keep saying I’m not afraid of you and I should be, but I’m not—” I rambled, cutting myself off. I closed my eyes, shaking my head. None of it made sense. “I shouldn't have said anything.” My hands trembled, and I tucked them out of sight beneath his coat.
“Yes.” He stared straight ahead, considering. I held my breath, unsure where this train of thought would lead us. “I am surprised you allow me to touch you, having seen me as I truly am. Raw. Evil.”
“You’re not evil,” I said softly.
“Am I not?” he barked, sliding a hand beneath his coat to grip my waist, pulling me to him with a jerk.
A cry tore from me as I clung to his shoulders by reflex, unwilling to fall into the murky, reptile-inhabited waters. Thick, tepid air covered us in a layer of sticky salt, reminding me how far from civilization we were, who I stood with. I curled my hands into his shirt, fisting the material.
“No,” I whispered. My heart raced, pressed close to his still one. “Not to me.”
“Last night, I tore you open. I took from you, Gella. Without any form of consent.” His mouth lowered, and he spoke with his lips pressed to my temple. “And I enjoyed it. I terrorize the staff. I've taken you from your home.”
A roughened knuckle notched below my chin, forcing me to look up into his eyes. I glimpsed the points of his teeth behind his deceptively soft, arched lips.
“I have no home,” I corrected him. “My father sold me to someone he didn’t know, by royal proxy. And oddly enough, the staff do like you. All of them. Minette mentioned something about saving them and giving them a place to love and care for. And I—I wanted you to—take from me. Last night.” I bit my lip, looking down at my hands scrunched in his shirt, unable to hold his gaze.
“You wanted me to?” Refusing to be deterred, up came the hand again, clenching around my jaw in a firm, but not painful grip. Desire and hunger warred in his gaze, held at bay, if only by the barest tether. Dark eyes searched mine, the night hiding him from me. His breath brushed my lips that tingled in response. Being so close to him did odd things to my body. “Tell me you want that again, Gella.”
Jagged, dual bolts of need and fear coursed through my body. I said nothing as he flicked the borrowed coat from my shoulders, leaving them bare in the open neckline of my dress. His mouth touched the corner of my lips, trailing from my jaw to my neck.
A clash of sensation assailed me as I leaned into his touch, offering the consent he craved. In silent agreement, his fingers tangled in my hair, tugging my head to the side to expose my pulse to him.
Eyes closed, I wound my hands around his shoulders, taking comfort and no small degree of pleasure in his nearness. Having him so close was dizzying. I rested my head in his hands and waited for the sting on my skin, still tender and raw from his last feeding.
Sebastian hesitated over the mark he’d left, his tongue flicking across my pulse. Heat rushed over me in a prickle of anticipation. Again, the numbing sensation settled into me, soaking deep as his bite pierced my skin. I gripped his arms tight through his shirt, pain and bliss sweeping through me in a heady rush.
Lost in a swarm of voices and memories, I swayed where I sat. His arms tightened around me, holding me up. I was glad of his support in the next second when the ground whirled beneath me. I squeezed my eyes tight, holding onto him, but my hands came up empty. The swirling ground slowed.
I opened my eyes to find the garden gone.