CHAPTER SEVENTEEN #2
“They aren’t like this. Aren’t this…coordinated.
” He slumped against the wall beside me.
“This is a natural cave system, but there’s an extension into Falcos.
If they got in here…through the blood lock…
” He trailed off, his hair swishing against the stone as he shook his head.
“If there’s more, and they somehow get the portcullis up and the gate open? Falcos will fall.”
“Good.” The word was as reflexive as a swift kick after a jab to the knee.
His voice grew darker. “No, it is not. If Falcos falls, it will be humans who suffer. And there will be no one left to save them.”
I felt his hard stare boring into me like a pair of hot coals.
“And like it or not, you need us. Your first foray into Stone didn’t go so well.”
I scoffed. “I just won’t shift. Look at that, I don’t need shit from you.” Except Solstice.
His chuckle sent a shiver down my spine. “It doesn’t work like that. Stone is a cruel master, and it will not be denied. Try, and it will punch out of you like it did last night.” He left the unsaid words dangling in front of me: And you’ll fail to control it. Again.
My hands flexed. The da’kai had scarcely been seen since Solstice—just another thing gargoyles owed humanity an explanation for.
I’d almost begun to wonder if they had ever existed at all.
But I couldn’t deny a tide of them waited in the valley to swallow this continent whole.
Or that I would help them do it the next time the monster inside me made an appearance.
“I’ll help,” I ground out.
“Good.” He shoved off the wall, and his presence vanished from my side. “Light this.” The words came from in front of me.
“Light what?”
“I can’t see any better than you, Lydia.” His voice was husky, a hint of playfulness in his words. “And while I’m happy to be the one to grope around until I find your hands—”
I flung said hands out and was met with his hard body beneath my palms. I patted across the solid plane of his chest until they landed on the swell of his biceps.
My neck tingled with a reminder of the strength in these arms. I ground my teeth and dragged my hands down to his, fumbling for the thin object he held.
“Enjoy yourself?” Oh, there was definitely a smile in his voice.
I yanked the object out of his grasp, my cheeks heating in the inky black.
“I didn’t even have to close my eyes to imagine you were Beck.
So, yeah, I did.” I was rewarded with a low growl.
The thing in my hands wasn’t much larger than a twig and my brow scrunched.
“What is this? The tiniest torch in existence?”
“Yes.”
I snorted at the change in his tone. “Alright, then.” I set the smallest flame burning at the tip of my finger and lit it before passing it back to him. The flame was near blinding in the pitch black, despite being smaller than my thumb.
“Stay behind me and don’t shift,” Griffon said, his gaze trained on the tunnel ahead of us. “The last thing I need to worry about is you rampaging through the cave.”
“I don’t need to shift, asshole.” I waggled my fingers in front of his face. “And I hide behind no one.”
His gaze slowly pivoted to me, a grin spreading over his face. My heart tripped. He was achingly beautiful when he smiled—really smiled, not that arrogant smirk that made me want to torch him.
A lock of tousled hair fell over his forehead and dangled over his eye. “Remember that in a few minutes.”
Wings dusted a soft bronze burst from his back as he shifted, the color so much like his golden-brown skin. I cringed at the memory of my own bones being forged into that shape. He took a step toward the darkness, but turned back to me.
His smile slid into that cocky grin. “Oh, and you could have just lit your finger to find the torch. Amateur.” He left me standing with my jaw flapping like a fool.
I nearly missed the shadow that peeled itself out of an adjacent passage as I gaped after him. It spared me one cursory glance before launching for Griffon’s exposed back.
I unleashed my magic. Heat flooded the narrow space as the da’kai went up in a plume of hellishly bright fire. Griffon whipped around when the heat smacked his back, his eyes pinned wide.
The beast turned and surged toward me, screeching in pain but very much not writhing on the ground with it like I’d expected.
“Oh, shit,” I breathed. My muscles went rigid as it closed the short distance between us, my gaze darting between it and the cave wall. I flung a molten sphere toward it and lurched sideways.
The ball exploded in its face and showered me in a flurry of sparks.
It screeched and lunged after me, far more nimble than I’d expected, but was wrenched back by a thick tendril of smoke that garroted its neck.
Its screech morphed into a choked wheeze.
The noose jerked taut and hauled the da’kai to the ground, another shifting thread of Griffon’s magic slamming a dagger beneath the beast’s chin. It went limp, and I released my magic.
I stared at the monster before me, straight out of a nightmare and so much worse than the depictions I’d seen.
If Griffon was smooth marble when he shifted, this thing was basalt, its midnight skin rough and pockmarked.
By the grace of the gods, the sickly gray wings crumpled beneath its back were far too small to ever heft its bulk into the skies.
I shuddered at the bony spurs that sprouted from the middle joint of each finger.
Their smooth surfaces and dagger tips gleamed in the soft light of that ridiculous torch Griffon still clutched.
“I’ve never actually fought a da’kai before,” I breathed, my gaze plastered on the corpse. Nothing had ever taken the full force of my flames and kept its feet.
“I couldn’t tell,” he muttered.
I tore my eyes away and angled a grin in his direction, still panting as adrenaline pumped through my body. “You thought I was going to deep fry you.”
He snorted. “I might have.”
I tossed a finger toward the grotesque corpse lying between us. “I suppose this makes up for your timely intervention with the Shadows, then.”
His eyes narrowed. “I’ve rescued your reckless ass twice. And got torched for one of them. You still owe me.”
“Oh, no,” I said. “Consider the torching payback for trapping me in an endless nightmare.” Not to mention nearly choking me to death. But I had no intention of giving him the satisfaction of complaining about that little incident.
He considered me for another moment. “Fine. That’s fair.”
I skirted the smoking corpse and faced the darkness beside him.
“Scared yet?” he asked.
I swallowed. “Mildly concerned.”
“Good.”
We made it all of ten steps before another da’kai stalked around a corner a few dozen paces ahead.
We drew up short. A stone skittered over rock behind us and I whipped around.
Two more crowded the tunnel. The clicking of claws down a second offshoot announced a fourth, all drawn by the screams of their kin.
“Make that fucking terrified,” I breathed. I shuffled until my back was against Griffon’s and tossed a few globs of fire around us, illuminating the beasts with disturbing clarity.
“Remember how I said not to shift?” He reached back and gripped my forearms, then pivoted us so that he faced the two—soon to be three—and only one stood before me.
“Vaguely,” I whispered, my voice quivering as I stared at the nightmare creeping closer.
“Forget I said that. Ditch the armor and shift now.”
“I can’t,” I hissed, my fingers flying through the buckles down my front. “I don’t know how!”
“Lydia,” he growled, “shift or die. You are too fucking soft in Flesh!”
“How!” I whisper-screamed back. I peeled off my armor and hurled it out of the way. “It just happened the first time!”
“You just do it!”
The fourth da’kai prowled out of the passage beside us. As one, they moved.
“Now!”
I flung up a wall of flames and slammed my eyes shut, calling on anything inside me that would listen as I screamed, “Stone!” in my mind. Pain erupted—