Chapter 14
My brain tried to protect me by insisting Cal was still part of my dream.
My body disagreed.
The arm under my hand was warm and solid, and when I turned my head, he was right there.
Too close. Too real. His hair was mussed as if he had been moving fast and sleeping poorly.
His lavender eyes held that particular kind of alertness that did not belong to people who were simply stopping by for a friendly chat.
He looked at me with calm curiosity, as if waking up in my bed was the most normal thing in the world.
I clutched the blanket to my chest out of reflex, as if it would restore my dignity by covering my collarbone.
“It was just a dream,” I muttered.
Cal’s mouth curved, slow and quiet. “Who were you dreaming about?”
My face went hot so fast I glanced away.
“Why are you here?” I blurted, which was not an answer but was safer than confessing my subconscious fantasies.
He shifted slightly on the mattress, as if he knew I was one sharp breath away from throwing something. “I came to check on you.”
I narrowed my eyes. “That sounds reasonable. Which makes me suspicious.”
His gaze softened a fraction. “You are bonded to the egg. If you falter, it suffers.”
There it was. The steady tug in my ribs answered as if it wanted to remind me that it existed. Even from here, the egg bond pulsed, a quiet line of warmth and strain that I could not set down like a coat.
I swallowed. “You came to check on my health.”
“Yes.”
“And ended up in my bed.”
Cal’s expression went almost sheepish, which looked strange on an ancient gargoyle who could throw corpses into volcano craters. “I could not stay away.”
The words landed in my chest in a way that had nothing to do with magic.
I stared at him, trying to sort through my thoughts. Half of me wanted to demand an explanation, and the other half wanted to ask him to say it again, slower, so I could pretend it meant something different.
“You are supposed to turn to stone at dawn,” I said, because logic was my lifeline. “Why are you not a statue right now?”
He glanced toward my window. “It’s early evening, Salima. You slept the day away.”
I glanced at the window. “The whole day?”
“Yes,” he said. “I flew back and grabbed a vehicle so I could come over.”
“You drove here,” I said.
Cal nodded once. “Mrs. Harriet almost had a heart attack the last time I perched on her roof. I will choose more mundane means of transport here if possible. I do love that woman’s cooking.”
“Who doesn’t?” My heart tightened. “The egg.”
“Stable,” he said, and his voice was steady, but I could hear the effort under it. “Greyson reinforced everything. Still, the calling is pressing. It is not gone.”
I let out a breath I had been holding. “So you came here?
“Yes.”
“To check on me,” I repeated.
Cal’s gaze held mine. “To see you.”
That was worse, somehow. More intimate. More dangerous.
I looked away first, because I was not brave enough for the way he watched me. “You don’t know me that well.”
“I know enough,” he said.
I gave him a pointed look. “You do not.”
His mouth twitched. “You are stubborn. You run toward trouble. You pretend sarcasm is armor. You do not trust easily, and you have good reasons for that.”
My throat tightened. The words were too accurate to dismiss.
“People hate what I am,” I said, voice rougher than I intended. “Even witches. Especially witches. They look at my power and see an abomination.”
Cal did not flinch. “I know.”
“You know because you have heard gossip,” I said.
Cal’s eyes narrowed. “I know because I have seen the way Lucinda treats you. It’s uncalled for.”
That should not have made my chest ache. It did.
I forced myself to sit up a little, keeping the blanket clutched like a security shield. “You said you could not stay away.”
Cal’s gaze lowered, then returned to mine, steady and honest. “I did not think I could bond with anyone again.”
The room felt suddenly quieter, as if even the air leaned in.
“My mate died when I was young,” he said.
I blinked. Young for him could mean a century. Or five. He was thousands of years old. Time was elastic for creatures like him.
“What happened?” I asked, softer.
His jaw tightened. “Violence. A mistake I still replay when I close my eyes.”
His hands rested on the blanket between us, not touching me, but close enough that I could see the texture of stone under his skin where his human form never fully hid the truth.
“I was not strong enough to protect her,” he said.
I hated the way guilt sat in his voice, like a weight he had carried so long it had left scars.
“It is not your fault,” I said automatically, then caught myself. Trust did not come easy, but compassion did, even when it hurt.
Cal’s eyes flicked to mine. “You do not know that.”
I exhaled. “I know what it looks like to blame yourself for things you could not control.”
His expression shifted, like he understood that statement on a personal level.
“I told myself I would never bond again,” Cal said. “It is not just grief. It is what gargoyle bonds are. They are not casual. They are not temporary.”
My chest tightened. “And now.”
Cal’s gaze slid to my mouth for half a second, then back to my eyes. “And now you are in my head. You have been for a long time.”
I went very still. “A long time?”
He nodded once. “Before the egg. Before this chaos. I noticed you. I liked the way you keep moving even when people try to make you smaller.”
My pulse kicked hard.
I tried to speak. Nothing came out the first time.
When my voice finally showed up, it sounded too small for how loud my body felt. “I have been attracted to you, too.”
Cal’s expression stayed steady, but something lit behind his eyes, bright and pleased, like a flame catching. “Yes.”
I swallowed. “It was manageable.”
His mouth curved. “Manageable.”
“It was,” I insisted. “I could file it away under not my problem.”
Cal’s gaze held mine. “And now.”
Now the egg bond sat like a live wire under my skin. Now the earlier glimpse of his desire had twisted something in me. Now my dreams were traitors.
“Now it is different,” I admitted. “Because of the baby. Because I am tied into this. Because I can feel things I should not.”
His voice went quiet. “You can feel me.”
My face heated again. “Yes.”
Cal moved slowly, giving me time to pull away. He did not reach like someone taking. He leaned in as if he were asking.
“Salima,” he said, voice low. “Tell me to stop, and I will.”
I should have told him to stop.
Trust did not come easy. Safety did not come easy. Desire came far too easily, apparently, and my body had already voted.
I did not say stop.
Cal’s mouth met mine, and the kiss was not gentle.
It was the kind of kiss that felt like months of restraint finally snapping.
His hand slid to the side of my face, warm, steady, thumb brushing my cheek as if he needed to confirm I was real.
I gripped his shirt without thinking, pulling him closer, and the egg bond pulsed in my soul as if it approved.
That thought was so absurd I almost laughed into his mouth.
He kissed me harder instead, and I forgot how to breathe properly.
Then my phone rang.
The sound cut through the moment like a knife through silk.
Cal froze. So did I. We both stared at the nightstand like it had personally betrayed us.
It rang again.
I fumbled for it with clumsy fingers. “Hello.”
Mina’s voice burst through the speaker, breathless, high, and pitched on the edge of panic. “Salima, we have zombies at the university quad.”
My stomach dropped so fast it felt like my organs rearranged.
“At the quad?” I repeated.
“Yes,” Mina said. “They are attacking students. People are filming. It is already online. This is bad. It’s going to expose us if we don’t do something quickly.”
Behind her, I heard screaming. Shouting. Someone yelling to run.
Cal’s posture shifted instantly, protective focus snapping into place like a switch.
Mina continued, fast. “I can spin it. I can tell people it is an elaborate flash mob, performance art, like a horror-themed campus stunt. I have a crew. We can control the narrative, but we need you here. Now.”
My mouth went dry. “Are you safe?”
“I’m behind a fountain with two drama majors and a guy who brought a skateboard to a zombie apocalypse,” Mina said. “So no.”
“Call Spencer,” I said. “We need vampires again. We need Delia.”
“I am calling everyone,” Mina replied. “Just get here.”
The call ended.
Silence filled my bedroom for half a heartbeat.
Then Cal was already moving, eyes intent. “Get dressed.”
I shoved out of bed, the egg bond tugging hard as my panic spiked. The baby sensed distress and answered with a pulse that felt like a warning in my ribs.
“I need to tell Greyson,” I said, grabbing my phone.
“I will,” Cal replied. “You dress.”
I pulled on jeans and a sweater with shaking hands, then shoved my feet into boots.
We sprinted out of my suite and into the street. His SUV sat parked near the curb, dark and unremarkable, as if it did not belong to a gargoyle who had spent the night before hauling undead into a crater.
He opened my door, waited for me to get inside, then climbed in and started the engine.
As we pulled away, I called Spencer. He answered on the second ring, voice tight with exhaustion.
“It’s Salima,” I said. “The zombies attacked the university.”
Spencer swore softly. “Delia is still wiping hospital witnesses.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “But this is spreading.”
“I will send a team,” Spencer replied. “Hold the line until we get there.”
I ended the call and stared out the windshield as Cal drove toward Ravenholde University.
The campus came into view like a postcard that had been dipped in horror.
Old brick buildings. Leafless trees. A wide quad with a central fountain. Benches. Decorative lights. It should have looked peaceful.
Instead, students ran in every direction, screaming, stumbling, dropping backpacks. Several had phones up, recording as they ran, because people were incapable of surviving without documentation.
Two undead lunged across the grass near the fountain, moving too fast for stiff corpses. One tackled a student. The student went down hard, and the sound of his head hitting stone made my stomach lurch.
Mina stood near the library steps, hair wild, face pale. Two of her friends held cameras, eyes wide, filming anyway. Another student yelled at people to get back, waving his arms as if he were directing traffic in hell.
Cal braked hard. “Stay close.”
We got out and ran.
A zombie lunged toward a girl near the fountain. Cal intercepted it, grabbing it by the neck and slamming it down. The corpse writhed, snapping its jaw.
Cal’s eyes flashed. He twisted, and the neck cracked.
The body still moved.
Not as violently, but enough.
I felt the wrongness in it, the spirit force that did not belong, the puppeteer tugging invisible strings.
I lifted my hand and shoved power outward, freezing the corpse’s limbs just long enough to keep it from biting again.
“Move,” I shouted at the girl. “Run.”
She ran.
Then I saw the student who had gone down.
He lay on the stone edge of the fountain, blood spreading from his scalp. His eyes fluttered, unfocused. Another student kneeled beside him, sobbing.
I dropped to my knees without thinking. “Let me.”
I placed my hands near the wound and called on my healing.
Warmth rose in my palms.
And then it stalled.
It hit a wall of resistance that made my stomach twist.
It was not just exhaustion. It was as if something in the wound rejected life. Like the calling had left a residue that did not want him mended.
I tried again, pushing harder.
Nothing.
My breath hitched. “No.”
Cal crouched beside me, gaze pointed. “What is wrong?”
“I cannot connect with him,” I whispered. “It’s like the wound is coated.”
The student’s pulse was weak under my fingers.
My healing should have helped.
It did not.
Footsteps approached fast.
High heels on stone.
Lucinda.
She swept into the quad with Caton beside her, both of them too composed for the scene around them, dressed like this was an unpleasant meeting rather than a public disaster. Caton’s gaze scanned the crowd instantly, searching.
“Mina,” he barked.
“I am here,” Mina called, waving from the library steps.
Caton’s shoulders eased slightly, then he glared at the nearest undead as if it had personally offended him.
Lucinda’s gaze landed on me kneeling beside the injured student.
Then her eyes narrowed.
“What are you doing?” she demanded.
“He is hurt,” I said, still trying to push healing into the wound. “I am trying to help.”
Lucinda took two steps closer and looked down at my hands. “Trying.”
My jaw clenched. “Yes. Trying.”
Lucinda’s expression turned cold. “If you cannot heal, what good are you?”
I looked up at her, stunned by the cruelty.
Around us, students screamed. Mina shouted instructions to her crew about angles and story lines. Another undead lunged, and Cal shoved it back, wings threatening to unfurl.
And Lucinda chose this moment to make it about me.
“Something is interfering.”
Lucinda’s mouth curled. “Excuses.”
Caton glanced down at the student, then back at Mina. His concern stayed fixed on his daughter, but I saw irritation in his eyes too, like my failure inconvenienced him.
Lucinda’s voice rose, cutting. “We have no need for an abomination that only deals in death.”
The word hit like a slap.
The student beside me made a small noise, breath shallow, and rage flared in my chest so hot it nearly drowned the exhaustion.
I stood slowly, hands shaking. “Now is not the time.”
Lucinda’s eyes glittered. “It is exactly the time. When the town is falling apart, we see what people truly are.”
Cal stepped closer, stone heavy, voice low. “Lucinda.”
She ignored him completely, gaze locked on me. “The coven will be having a vote about your continued acceptance.”
My stomach dropped.
Lucinda’s smile was thin. “But first, we need to speak with the other council members, so we can deal with this political mess.”
Her eyes flicked to the injured student again, then back to me with open disdain. “Clearly you cannot even do the one thing you claim to be good for.”
I swallowed hard, humiliation and fury twisting together.
Behind Lucinda, Caton called Mina’s name again, checking on her, touching her shoulder as if he needed proof she was unharmed. Mina looked rattled but alive, and she kept talking, already shaping the story into something the mundanes might swallow.
Flash mob. Performance art. Viral stunt gone wrong.
My hands clenched at my sides as I stared at Lucinda.
The egg bond tugged in my ribs, a steady reminder that I could not afford to fall apart.
Not here.
Not now.
But Lucinda’s words sank in anyway, heavy and poisonous.
A vote.
An abomination.
Disposable.
And in the middle of the quad, with students bleeding and undead clawing at the edges of reality, Lucinda had found a new way to cut me open.