Chapter 12.
NATHANIEL.
My mind was spinning like a top. What on earth was going on?
I lifted my hands up, feeling the warmth of the sun on my skin. “I don’t understand.”
My brothers and I were all... human. And the sun was up.
My Beloved, Rose, reached out for me again. Her hand slid up my arm and she stepped closer until she could touch my face.
Her skin was warm as she touched my cheeks. My eyes slid closed on a wave of wonder and gratitude. Maybe we really had died at the hand of those assassins today and we were indeed, in heaven.
What else could explain this?
“How is this possible?” Roman asked aloud.
We were all still standing on our stone circles. Part of me afraid to step off, after all, the pain that was endured if we weren’t in the right spot was meant to be horrific.
“Maybe...” Rose gulped, “Maybe this is because you’re not in New York anymore?”
I didn’t think so, but I didn’t say it aloud, instead laughing and saying, “Then we’re never going back.”
I gathered my woman into my arms, still refusing to step off the stone circle. My brothers were doing the same thing. I glanced across at them, wondering who would be the first to say it aloud.
Gabe lifted his head and looked at me, “Do you think we’re dreaming?”
I snorted. “Or we’re all dead, and this is heaven, because this makes no sense.”
Angelique rushed to the coffee table, tripping over the area rug in her haste. She stumbled and fell.
Gabe took a step towards his mate, his foot touching the carpet, “Sweetheart, are you...” Then he stopped and looked down at the floor.
I gulped. “Gabe, are you okay?”
He looked up at me and nodded, then he did the unthinkable. He put his other foot down on the carpet and walked over to his woman, helping her to her feet once more.
“I was just going to check my phone for weird weather patterns, or something to explain this,” she said, sitting on the couch and rubbing her knee.
I looked at my other brothers and took a deep breath. We could do this. I could do this.
Rafe wasn’t moving, which I could understand. He was the only one of the four of us who’d tried to spend a day out of stone form and had endured horrendous pain.
Rose moved back and I lifted my chin, grabbed some courage out of nowhere, and stepped off my circle.
My knees threatened to collapse beneath me, but I walked forward, feeling nothing more than a slight exhaustion from the days events.
Roman was next, walking with Chrissy around the stone area and to the small bar. “I need a drink.”
He poured some whiskey into multiple glasses and although I was tempted to go to Roman first, I walked over to Rafe, who was still frozen in place. Out of all of us, Rafe had suffered the most, and I wasn’t sure how he was going to do this.
“Rafe?” I said, walking up to him where Bella stood, holding his hand. “How you doin’?”
He was shaking, that was obvious. “I... can’t...”
“You don’t have to.” I said, holding my hands up. “You can stand there all day. No-one’s rushing you. Want a whiskey?”
He jerked his head rather than nodded.
Roman brought me a glass filled with alcohol and I took it, then offered it to Rafe. “Here, brother.”
Rafe’s arm moved slowly, reaching for the glass like it was a bomb. When his fingers touched the glass, he was shaking. But I didn’t pull away, I held onto the drink until I was sure he had it, then let him lift it up and put it to his lips.
He sloshed it over his chin and down his shirt but managed to get most of it into his mouth. Then he tipped his head back and swallowed. When he handed me back the glass, his arm was steadier.
“How do you think this happened?” Angelique asked, still sitting on the couch with Gabe.
“I have a theory,” Bella said, her gaze shifting from Rafe to me again. “You know how you all talk about your shifting during the day, being like... a curse?”
“Yeah, we do.” There was no other way to describe it really. It wasn’t like it was a positive of any sort.
Roman and Chrissy came up next to us, joining the conversation.
“Why?” Roman asked. “What are you thinking?”
Bella went on, “Well... I was thinking that none of you have ever done anything to deserve the curse, and that most shifters can just, you know... shift when they want to. They’re not bound to a time, or a day, or anything.”
Roman crossed his arms over his chest. “That’s true.”
“So, I was thinking that maybe if your curse was broken, you might be able to just shift when you felt like it.”
Roman looked at me, then back to Bella. “Okay... so if we’ve broken this curse does that mean that we can turn into a gargoyle when we want to?”
I shrugged, happy to be the guinea pig. “I’ll try. Why not?” I walked back over to my stone circle and crouched into my normal position. “So how do you think it’ll work? Do I just concentrate? Or...”
Roman’s lips quirked into a smile, “I don’t know. Maybe just think about yourself as stone?”
I closed my eyes and visualized my wings and my claws and my teeth. When I opened my eyes, I felt exactly the same. Well, that hadn’t worked. But when I went to move, I couldn’t.
“Oh. My. God.” Bella said as she walked slowly around me. “You did it!”
I couldn’t move, and when Rose came over and put her hands on mine, I wanted to speak to her, but I had no voice.
“Are you okay, my love?” Rose asked.
Frustration built inside of me, so I used the same technique in reverse, and imagined my human body. My arms, my legs, my voice speaking to my beautiful Rose.
A loud gasp rose in the room as I turned to look at Rose, “Now that’s cool.”
The room burst into clapping, laughter and hugs.
“But how?” Rose whispered, reaching out to touch my face once more.
“I think it was us.” Chrissy said, speaking for the first time.
“What do you mean?” I asked her. “You... being, our Beloveds?”
She nodded her head. “Ever since I met Roman, I felt... like he was my missing piece, and I was his. And when they came for him I...”
Angelique reached out and grabbed Chrissy’s hand. “What did you do?”
“I tried to protect him, but they hit me...”
Angelique persisted, “But when they tried to shoot him, where were you?”
Chrissy blinked at me. “I was... I was...”
“In the firing line?” Bella asked.
Chrissy spun around to look straight at Bella. “Well... yes.”
I fought back tears. “Rose protected me too.”
“And Bella me.” Rafe whispered.
Gabe walked up to Angelique and threw his arm over her shoulders. “So you’re saying that you think that we broke the curse by finding women who would truly die for us?”
Rose nodded. “Well... yeah.”
I wrapped my arms around my Beloved and said, “I love that idea. That you all saved us and we were given... what?”
“The choice to shift when we want?” Roman said. “The freedom to walk in the day?”
I turned towards Rafe, who was still standing on his circle. “Come on brother. Join us in the sunshine.”
Rafe glanced around at his family and inhaled sharply through his nose. “All right.”
Roman offered Rafe his hand and Rafe stepped off the circle. His knees were shaking and they almost gave out, but between Rose and Roman, Rafe stabilized and we all moved to the couches to sit.
“So what’s next?” Bella asked. “If you don’t have to shift into a gargoyle every day, I suppose we don’t have to go to Whitehorse anymore?”
“We don’t know anything about this new... development.” Roman said, “We’ll need to wait and see what happens I think.”
I pulled Rose into my arms, my mind expanding with possibilities. “Well, I don’t know about all of you, but I think I’m going to take my Beloved for a walk in the sunshine.”
“You want to go outside? In the sun? Already?” Rose asked, sounding worried.
“I do.” I stood up and stretched my back. “Seems like as good a time as any.”
Rose got to her feet and together we walked over to the front door and opened it up. A tingle of fear shot down my spine, but I shook it away. There was no room in our life for fear. Not anymore.
I stepped across the threshold and closed my eyes as the sunshine hit my human face for the very first time.
I inhaled deeply, loving the scent of the trees on the wind. “This is amazing.”
Tears burned my eyes and I let them fall. Never, in all of my dreams, had I thought that this moment would ever become a reality.
She giggled and grabbed hold of my hand. “Come on. Let’s go.” After one hundred and thirty years in the dark, my Beloved pulled me outside and into the light.