Chapter 24
LUKE
Luke drifted awake, drowsy and comfortable, to the sight of gray early morning light and the feeling of a warm Inga snuggled against him.
The previous day came back in bits and pieces as he woke up. They were in the guest bedroom in Inga’s family home. He felt a few twinges and aches, but for the most part, shifter healing seemed to have taken care of his bruises and sore places from yesterday.
I’m a shifter now.
But he no longer minded it. He felt complete. Somewhere deep inside him, there was a sense of a presence he had never been aware of before, something deep and instinctive and old. But it didn’t feel foreign to him anymore. It was, as Inga had said, a part of him.
He rolled over carefully, not wanting to disturb her. Inga was sleeping deeply with her golden hair, most of it pulled out of its braid, spilling over the pillow. Her face was slack, lips parted.
And as he looked at her sleeping there with his arm over her, a wave of some profound emotion rolled through him. It was fondness and love and protectiveness, and it was also something more, something there was no name for.
And he thought, Oh.
That .... that was what fated mates felt like.
He must have made a noise, because Inga’s dark blonde lashes flickered and a peek of her summer-sky eyes appeared. Then her eyes flew open, and she gazed at him. Luke couldn’t stop looking at her. There was a faint ring of gold around her pupils, striking in the clear blue of her eyes.
“Luke,” she whispered. “Is this ...”
He brushed a strand of hair away from her face. “You feel it too?”
“I do.” She leaned in and pressed her face into the crook of his neck. “I do.”
Getting out of bed was very definitely not an immediate process.
Once they were up and showered, it was still very early, and rain continued to fall, lashing the big windows in the living room.
There was a note on the counter. Inga leaned over to read it.
“Dad says he’s out with the investigators checking out the ship. ”
The ship was still anchored just outside the harbor, visible from the window.
“He also says they’re going to want to interview us again,” Inga said, folding up the note.
“Wonderful. Good time to get out of town.”
“Aren’t we not supposed to do that?”
They had been told to stick around until the investigation wrapped up and preliminary charges had been filed.
Having law enforcement all over Westerly Cove was definitely making the local shifters nervous, and it also meant that Luke and Inga had been telling a carefully curated version of their story that left out shifters, ghost bears, gargoyles, and teleporting dogs.
(Which was to say, most of it.) Inga claimed that she’d been hit with a tranquilizer dart meant for animals and had only fuzzy memories of anything else.
Luke had stuck to the part about being drafted into a private mercenary army he couldn’t leave, but left out the shifter aspect.
There were no survivors of the helicopter crash or the powerboat, therefore no witnesses to try to explain that they had been attacked by flying gargoyles.
The rescued researchers had been medivac’d to St. Johns for treatment.
If they’d had anything to say about gargoyles or shifters, Luke hadn’t heard about it.
The townspeople obviously must have seen a few things, but no one was talking. And no one had seen or heard from Brockton. Luke thought his guess was probably right that Brockton had been on the helicopter.
“So what do you want to do?” Luke asked. “If we stay here, we can probably expect to be interviewed shortly.”
“Actually, I was thinking about going up and talking to Mace.”
“I’m here for it.”
Inga grabbed a couple of rolls from a basket on the counter, and shrugged into a raincoat.
Luke had a vivid mental flash of Inga wearing nothing but a raincoat, and found himself somewhat regretting that her long legs were covered in jeans this time.
He borrowed a rain poncho and boots from the considerable array of gear just inside the front door.
The rain was still lightly falling as they went out.
Rogue came running up from the direction of the harbor.
The dog was soaking wet and his paws were covered with sand.
Looking down over the edge of the dock that adjoined the Nilsson family residence, Luke saw that the tarp in Nita’s boat was partly pulled back and there were some signs of damp fur and feathers.
It looked like Rogue had been playing with the griffins—well, Luke hoped it was only playing, but then he saw one of the babies hop out and scamper across the bottom of the boat, and decided they were fine.
He nearly stumbled across a gargoyle at the foot of the pier. Although they were everywhere in town, he didn’t remember one being there.
“Oh, my goodness,” Inga said. “They’ve moved.”
“Which ones?”
“Most of them, I think.” She pointed at the roof of a building whose sign declared it to be the Westerly Inn. A middle-aged woman was standing in front of it with her hands on her hips, also looking up at the roof. “There used to be several up there. Good morning, Heddy!”
“Good morning, dear,” Heddy said, somewhat distracted. She was still staring up at the roof as they walked by.
“They’ve all moved around,” Inga said when they were a little farther up the hill. “Well, maybe not every single one of them. But enough that people have surely noticed.”
“You’d think all the gargoyles flying around yesterday would have tipped them off,” Luke remarked. Rogue sniffed at a gargoyle statue standing in the middle of the road, frozen in position. There was a cockeyed lei draped loosely around its neck.
“I’m sure plenty of people did see them.
For the old-timers, it’ll just confirm what they’ve always suspected.
” She whistled to Rogue, who had started to lift a leg on the gargoyle statue.
“Everyone else might be tempted to write it off as some kind of prank. People have an amazing ability to fail to notice what they don’t want to see. ”
They climbed the hill. Rogue accompanied them for a while, then bounded off to investigate a smell in the bushes and didn’t come back.
“Are you keeping him?” Inga asked. “I imagine having a teleporting dog is going to be tough.”
“I don’t really see that I have any choice.
Not that I’d want to rehome him anyway, but if I did, he’d just come back.
” Luke decided to keep his private suspicions about the dog to himself for now.
If he’d been stuck as a bear, it was not impossible that Rogue hadn’t started out on the animal side of the research facility.
But there was no way to really prove it for sure, especially with Brockton dead and anyone else with in-depth knowledge of their illicit research either dead, arrested, or missing.
Inga grinned and slid her hand into his. “I think that’s the right decision. We’ll just deal with the inconvenience.”
We. He thought he felt his bear preening somehow, which was a very strange feeling.
“Says the woman who adopted a bunch of seagull griffins,” he said.
“They’re wild animals. They just happen to be living near me.”
“I think right now they’re living in your friend Nita’s boat, actually.”
Inga laughed and rolled her eyes. “I should probably move them out of there. Nita’s gonna kill me if they make a mess.”
“I think it’s too late.”
The row of gargoyles on the roof of the stone house on the hill were all back in place, Luke noted. Well, most of them. There were one or two gaps, like broken teeth. Or maybe there had been some missing before? He was suddenly unsure.
Inga opened the garden gate, and they quietly stepped inside.
“Hello?” Luke called.
The garden was forlorn and deserted-feeling in the rain. Bathed in sunshine, it had been easier to notice its beauty. Now, the spring barrenness of most of the branches, other than the evergreens, made it feel empty and sad.
“Hello? Is anyone home?”
On the previous day, they had been called up to the patio, but rather than going that way without an invitation, they went around to the imposing edifice of the front door.
There was an old-fashioned brass knocker with, naturally, a gargoyle’s head.
Inga reached for it cautiously, as if she thought it might bite her (not unreasonable, after what they had seen yesterday) and gave it a tentative tap, then a more brisk knock.
There was a long wait, long enough that they were about to leave, when the door opened and Mace stood there, broad and imposing in a dark red sweater and gray slacks.
“Welcome,” he said, as if the two of them appearing at his door was perfectly normal. “Come on in, there’s a fire. You can leave your wet things in the foyer.”
At this point everything was wet, but they hung up their raincoats and took off their muddy boots. A small box of house slippers was next to the door, and they both slipped on a pair over their damp socks.
“I’m going to guess this isn’t just a casual social visit,” Mace remarked as they went down the hall together. “Although maybe you’re here to chat about the weather.”
“We could chat about the weather,” Inga said. “Is Thea here?”
“Afraid not. She’s in Italy,” Mace said casually, as if Thea hadn’t just been on the patio yesterday.
Okay, Luke thought, they have some ability like Rogue does. Thea had implied the rolls were fresh from France. After everything he’d seen yesterday, none of that was surprising to him now.
They didn’t go to Mace’s private study this time, but rather into a pleasant stone kitchen, with a long table and windows with small old-fashioned panes looking out at a view down the hill to the sea.
The room was so warm it was almost stuffy after the chill of outside.
Mace had a window cracked, letting in a damp and cool breeze. He gestured them to the table.
“Coffee? I can offer you some light refreshment, nothing fancy. With Thea gone for a few days, I’m living a bachelor’s lifestyle.”
Inga’s stomach rumbled, and Luke’s followed suit. “Sorry,” he said. “I guess we worked up an appetite walking up that hill. You don’t need to feed us.”
“Nonsense. It’s no trouble.”
It was clear that Mace had been sitting at the table; there was a book open, a cup of coffee, and a plate with some crumbs.
He laid out a breadboard with fresh crusty bread, some sliced ham and cheese, jam and rich gold butter in a set of small stone dishes.
If this was Mace’s version of bachelor chow, Luke couldn’t imagine what he would think of the cold beans and ramen Luke had subsisted on in his younger years.
“I am aware you were both involved in the contretemps out at the ship yesterday,” Mace said, pouring coffee for both of them from a silver pot. The smell was heavenly. “Whatever you thought you saw, I’m sure you’re aware that I will not be answering specific questions about it.”
“That’s actually .... kind of not the question I had.” Luke glanced at Inga. “I think Inga and I are fated mates. We both recognize it. And we didn’t until today.”
“Oh, really? Interesting.” Mace smeared butter on a piece of bread for himself and took his seat at the head of the table.
“It’s very possible that as a created shifter, you’re more like a gargoyle than you are like a normal shifter.
We were created, you know—originally. Not me personally, but my ancestors, were humans who agreed to undergo a magical procedure. ”
“Luke didn’t exactly agree,” Inga said, reaching across to grasp Luke’s hand.
Mace smiled enigmatically as he buttered his bread.
“Well, there’s some doubt about how much choice my ancestors may have had, either.
But that’s neither here nor there. Anyway, gargoyles don’t recognize their mates until they fall in love with them.
I’m glad you two have had that experience. Congratulations.”
Inga flushed and looked down.
Before either of them could speak, a sudden familiar zipping sound accompanied a soaking-wet Rogue appearing in the kitchen in front of the fire. The dog shook himself, splattering water everywhere.
“Sorry!” Inga exclaimed. “Uh, so we found out that Rogue can—do that. Pretty sure you were right that he’s not a normal dog.”
“I would say so,” Mace said wryly. He had shielded the bread from the light spray of dog water, but he set it down and pulled out a clean pocket square to dab at his sleeve.
“No, he can stay,” he added as Inga jumped up to try to grab Rogue.
“Especially since making him leave doesn’t seem to be terribly effective.
Anyway, I expect you didn’t come visit me just to share your good news. ”
Luke hesitated. “I have a request. You can say no.”
“I’d better hear it first.”
“I want you to train me, sir,” Luke said earnestly. “I’d like to learn how to use these powers that Rogue and I both have, and I can’t think who else to ask. It’s not like there’s a school for this.”
Mace stroked a hand over his lips. “I’ll have to think about it, and talk to Thea before I decide anything. I have helped newer and younger gargoyles learn to use their powers. But that is something I know intimately, of course. I’ve never trained someone who isn’t one of us.”
“Obviously I wouldn’t expect it for free,” Luke said. “I can’t pay you, at least not right now. But I would do any kind of work you need done. Or I could work and save—”
Mace held up a hand. “Let’s not negotiate details now. As I said, I need to think.” He glanced over at the wet dog who was sniffing curiously around the kitchen floor, occasionally pausing to shake himself. “And perhaps, on second thought, I might get a towel before he dampens everything in here.”