CHAPTER THIRTEEN
GISELLA
In place of the boiling seas and Sebastian’s dark head, his lips pressed to my skin in an act as intimate as sex, I stood in the cabin I shared on board the ship with Amy without him. A second passed, and another, until his presence faded, leaving me alone with my friend.
The same dim light, the same broken lantern. Warped floorboards rocked beneath my boots in a familiar motion as I crossed the small room, swaying, but the roll of the ship had little to do with my lack of stability.
“You could out drink half the whores in Paris,” Amy giggled behind me. I spun, the room taking my stomach on a round the world tour with it. Amy grabbed my arm, holding a bottle of dark liquor under my nose. “Go on. Have another, whore.”
She doubled over, giggles consuming her, but something about the scene felt horribly wrong. Or maybe it was my stomach. I liberated the bottle, swigging from its smooth glass neck all the same. Dark golden liquid burned my tongue and throat on its way down, but a pleasant, spicy ginger taste resided in my mouth afterward.
“What would you know about whores, girl?” I slurred the words, twirling in a dance that took me to the bed.
Warmth trailed along my chest, lack of clean, fresh air clung to the stale breath in my throat. Staring at the ceiling, I watched shadows lengthen and merge across the exposed beams of the ship.
“A whole lot more than you, stuffed away in your nunnery,” she pouted.
“English.” I shook my head haughtily. “Always think you know everything.”
“Maybe we do.” Amy poured more of the liquid into me.
I blinked at the shadows as they performed their never-ending dance, warring and merging against the rush of the ship upon the open ocean roaring in my ears.
Amy’s lips brushed my ears. “But you’ll be the whore, soon enough. He’ll love you, want you. Care for you.” Her voice filled with venom. The shadows above me danced in a frenzy of limbs, their dance filled with desire and passion. “You’ll let me into his house so I can take everything, destroy everything he wants, and leave him with nothing. Like he left me.”
I blinked, my lips numb, but I had no words to give her. Figures swarmed across the ceiling, scorching the wood there black with an eternity of sins, and I fell into its eternal darkness.
“Gella,” Sebastian hissed, withdrawing his lips from my neck.
I blinked. The overheated cabin air was replaced with the bite of the ocean air, fresh and sharp. His hands clutched me tight to him as I swayed where I still sat on the rocky bench, the roll of the sands alive beneath my feet.
He swore above my head, a string of words in a language I didn’t understand. The air around us charged with the promise of violence in his voice. His mouth glistened dark and shadowed as he stood over me, somehow more imposing than before. Looking up at him was like staring into the face of a dark, vengeful god. His gaze dropped to me, his hooded eyes those of a hunter.
For the first time, I was afraid.
I pressed back, pushing against his hands, but they wound around me, unyielding. My heart racing, I struggled in his grip, but only succeeded in drawing his attention back to my throat. He dipped his head, and I shrieked, my mind jamming as I knew what would come. A ripping, tearing in a beast-like manner that would end my life here, near the muddied waters of nothingness. Maybe my body would end up taken below the sands by one of the creatures, the damage he did to me indistinguishable.
Despite my fear his touch was light, licking, sucking. Soothing, not hurting. I trembled with fear and shock in his hold, my mind still convinced he would kill me while my body fought to trust the man who had more than proven his worth.
After a time, he drew back, his lips clean, and bent his forehead to mine. “I’m sorry, Gella.”
I nodded against him, confused. “What are you sorry for?”
“That she was inside you.”
“What?”
“The blackness. You were right. You should have been afraid. Your body should have reacted the way it does now. She’s hidden something from you—from me. I can’t see it, but whatever she put there, it’s not—it isn’t you.”
My mouth dried. “What do you mean, it isn’t me? What part of me?”
Pity consumed his gaze, and I hated it, pulling away from him. He let me go. “The part of you that accepts me, I suspect. She made you want to love me, Gella.”
“No. No. I—” I searched my mind, running over my feelings for him. I wanted this, the assurance of his safety, his protection. I wanted to feel this way about him, and taking that away…tears sprang to my eyes, tumbling over my lashes in a cascade of grief for something I hadn’t lost yet. “ Non. ”
His smile was sad as he dropped his hands and turned away. I waited for whatever would come next, staring up at his broad back, but he said nothing at all. Finally, he took a step forward, away from me.
“Wait, Sebastian— Are you telling me to leave?” A sob tore from my throat.
You promised me.
He paused, his back to me. Moonlight shrouded his silhouette against the dark of the forest beyond.
“Not yet. Follow the path. It will take you to the house.”
He hesitated a second longer, his head turning a fraction in my direction. Then he strode away, disappearing deep into the forest where I couldn't follow, leaving me alone at the edge of the garden.
My feet took the path he’d indicated without my permission. I watched the ground as I walked, my slippers covered in dark stains. The night quietened around me, sinking into the depths of hours when even the night animals paused and hid away.
My fingers brushed stone limply. I stopped beside the still fountain and sank onto the wide, sandstone lip. I didn’t know how long I sat there, night air numbing my skin, much as he had done before he bit me. I willed tears to come but there was nothing inside me. I was as numb inside, it appeared, as I was on the surface.
Empty, like him.
“He’ll return with the night.” A voice spoke over my shoulder.
I blinked slowly, wondering if I had turned to stone like the gargoyle perched behind me.
“Will he?” My voice was rough. I swallowed. “He wants me to leave, Dolion.”
Light began to brighten the sky in the false dawn, though the sun wouldn't rise for more than an hour.
“He doesn’t know what he wants.” The gargoyle seated himself beside me, stone lightening his darker natural hues. I wondered if his change came with the impending dawn, like Sebastian’s imposed sleep, or if it was his choice. His was a cool, gray stone, which contrasted with the golden hues of the sandstone fountain.
“You were—” I halted, unsure of what sort of term to use, “um, made? By someone other than the fountain.” I frowned, knowing I’d messed it up. “I’m so sorry, I don’t know how to ask...”
Dolion laughed, a deep bellow that bounced around the courtyard. “It’s fine, petite lynx. You are new to the world.” Depths reflected in his eyes.
I canted my head, looking deeper. It wasn’t America he was talking about. “How old are you?” I whispered.
“I was born when the Khan became Emperor of the East.” He smiled, showing a line of stone teeth. “Gargoyles use events to mark the passage of time rather than humans do with their calendar. We measure life...in different ways than humans. Your existence is so brief. Fragile.”
“Gargoyles are born.” I shook my head, the concept so foreign. “I’m not even going to ask how.”
“We are birthed of stone. With love, comes life. If a gargoyle ceases to love—himself, others—to stone will he return.”
“So you’re in love with yourself,” I quipped, straightening damp skirts as the feeling began to return to my limbs.
“I love,” he replied simply.
I regretted my joke, outclassed beside this ancient being. “I’m sorry,” I murmured. The sky brightened a little more, the world I knew beginning to wake. Dolion stirred beside me, climbing with tortured movements to his pedestal. “Do you die—” I caught myself again and wished I hadn’t spoken at all.
“I am not as Sebastian,” Dolion replied slowly. “I can move through the day, but I am tired, and in rest, I become as I was until I wake. Sit by me any time, Gisella.”
I nodded, rising as he settled on his pedestal, resuming his pose of before. A flicker of his eyes reminded me a being lived within the stone. I stood with him a minute more, then turned to face the darkened house, walking to the path that would lead back to the drive. The servants might populate the place, but without Sebastian, I would be alone again, and that tore at my heart.
It’s real, I screamed within the confines of my mind, but I couldn't sense Sebastian’s presence there at all, as though he had blocked me away, locking me out. Amy’s memory left me contaminated and more alone than ever. A bone-deep tiredness overtook me, and I longed for my own bed. Two steps along the path, a thought occurred to me, and I turned back, unsure if he would be able to answer me.
“You know my name?”
A minute nod from the stone man as the sun crested the horizon in a burst of gold that filled the garden with light. “Sebastian speaks of you every night.”
I frowned. “But I’ve just arrived.”
“Not in his mind.”
The gargoyle closed stone lids and was still.
I trudged back to the house and pressed against the door. It opened under my touch, though I was too tired to be surprised. No one was about as I slipped into the murky hall, though the place looked spotless. I was glad, knowing I must look a sight, and made it back to my room without being accosted with questions and concerns.
There I undressed silently, slipping beneath the covers to find a hot brick at the end of the bed. Had Minette watched me return to the gardens? God alone knew what she and the others thought.
I pressed numb toes to the stone’s wrappings but fell asleep before feeling returned to them, my dreams haunted by stone men and men of flesh with stone in their hearts.