Sorceress Hunting (A Gargoyle and Sorceress Tale Book 3) (19 page)

A current of magic swept past Gregory’s feet and on
out into the surrounding land as he stood at the entrance of the maze. It had
been four days since he’d last been here. He was being neglectful in one of his
duties.

The Sorceress missed him.

“What is it?” Lillian asked as she rubbed at her arms.
She too felt the chill of Spirit magic. “Scratch that. I know what that is. Are
we in danger?”

“No,” he said truthfully. They were likely safer than
they’d been since they’d first come to the Magic Realm over twelve years ago.
The Sorceress was awake and watching over them. He hadn’t expected that, though
perhaps he should have. Normal hamadryads were moderately sentient. Combine
that with the soul and magic of the Sorceress, and a humble hamadryad became
something more.

“No? Care to elaborate?”

“Your hamadryad is becoming the Sorceress in truth.”

“Ah. That totally does not tell me anything more than
I already knew.”

“It might be best to show you.” Gregory gestured her
forward into the maze.

They made their way deeper, plodding through the
familiar passages, until they reached the last bend and stood on the threshold
of a small meadow. In the center the Redwood stood tall and proud.

He narrowed his eyes.

Make that taller and proud.

“Oh my god!” Lillian muttered.

“Goddess,” he corrected for her.

She glanced at him and scrunched her nose up while
giving him a slow shake of her head. After that, she focused back on the tree.

“It’s grown fifteen or twenty feet in four days.
Someone is bound to notice.”

“Doubtful, humans rarely look up. I think your tree is
safe from discovery.”

“But why the sudden growth spurt? And how much bigger
is it going to get?”

“She,” he corrected. “And I think this is likely a
response to your pregnancy. The tree is preparing to receive our child in a few
weeks. She probably wanted to be stronger to handle the gestation. I think this
may mean the child will be a gargoyle, not dryad.”

Lillian gaped at him again, her hand dropping to
protectively cover her stomach. “Weeks?”

“Yes.” He took her hand and guided her over to the
tree. He set the basket of food on the ground and motioned her over to the
tree’s base. With her hand still captured in his, he pressed her unresisting
palm flat against the trunk.

Above and all around them the hamadryad shifted, her
branches swaying even though there was no breeze.

Lillian jerked her head up to watch. “That’s new.”

A branch brushed Gregory’s shoulders, the soft
feathery needles tickling his skin. He turned his head enough to touch the
branch and then gave it an affectionate rub. “I missed you too, my Sorceress.”

The tree quivered, every branch shifting and swaying.

“Is my hamadryad about to uproot herself and go for a
stroll? Because someone is sure to notice.”

“Of course not.” Gregory wondered where Lillian got
some of her strange ideas.

“Uh, Gregory?” Her tone turned questioning as she
slowly backed away from her hamadryad. A mass of questing branches followed
her, attempting to pull Lillian back toward the trunk. “I thought you said she
wouldn’t want the baby for weeks yet. She seems pretty eager to grab me now.”

Gregory laughed at Lillian, but was forced to keep
half his attention on the hamadryad. The over-eager branches had nearly knocked
his feet out from under him twice now. “She is just happy to see us. We have
been through a lot. This is how she is showing her affection.”

Several branches entwined around him, snapped taut,
and hoisted him off the ground before he could warn Lillian. The tree shifted
him higher up within seconds.

“Gregory!”

“I’m fine,” he called down to her. “I’ll be but a
moment while I extract myself.” He attempted to do as he said, but found for
each branch he pushed away, three more would take its place.

Since struggle got him nowhere, he relaxed in the
tree’s grip and let her do as she wished.

Three smaller branches emerged from the tangled mass
holding him in place to flutter around his face and head. Realizing what the
tree wanted, he tilted his head back so she could reach his neck.

Delicate needles stroked his throat and he felt the
Sorceress’s magic flow over his body. The tattoo ringing his neck flared to
life and snapped out at the hamadryad’s magic. The tree seemed unconcerned.
Well, from what he could tell. Never in all his long lives had he seen what a
concerned tree looked like, so he had nothing to compare it to.

The hostile power circling his neck flared a second
time, burning the skin in an unpleasant way.

“Gregory! My tattoo is getting pissed off about
something.”

“Easy. The Sorceress is examining the tattoos. She
will not allow us to come to harm.”

“You know that for sure because…?”

Gregory sighed at her flippant tone. The hamadryad’s
magic flowed over him in another stronger wave, sinking into his muscles and
bones. Unable to help himself, he reached out for his own link to the Spirit
Realm and was surprised when it answered his call without needing Lillian to
first give him an order. Hope burned hotly in his gut.

Gregory’s lips pulled back in a toothy grin. Perhaps,
his Sorceress would free him from the cursed collar earlier than he’d thought
possible.

The tree shifted him off to one side and then with
another great shifting of branches he heard Lillian squeal. It was in surprised
alarm, not a sound of pain, so he waited, and as he expected, her sounds of
disgruntlement grew louder as she joined him up in the tree’s canopy.

If it hadn’t been for the unpleasant heating around
his neck, the hamadryad’s chilled Spirit Magic would have been soothing and
renewing. Between one heartbeat and the next something changed. He stiffened,
gasping as the wellspring of his Spirit Magic flowed into him faster than he
could release it into this realm. He only had a moment to realize something had
gone terribly wrong, and then even the trickle of magic he’d been bleeding off
into the Mortal Realm stopped, but the magic rushing into his body didn’t. Too
much. It was far too much power for any one body to contain, even his.

His wings quivered, as his body instinctively fought
both the hamadryad’s hold and the magic continuing to flow into him. “My
Sorceress, please stop this.”

“Gregory! What’s wrong?” Lillian cursed long and loud.
“Talk to me!”

“My Sorceress,” he continued reasoning with the tree
between waves of pain. “I appreciate your aid, but if you force this slave
collar into killing me, we all will be returning to the Spirit Realm in defeat.
I, for one, would very much like a chance to raise our child.”

The hamadryad didn’t respond with words or thoughts,
but Lillian was suddenly thrust in front of him. When her wild-eyed stare
landed on him, her brows scrunched up. “God Gregory. What the hell?” Then her
lips parted in understanding. “I order you to stop drawing magic from the
Spirit Realm. Stop now!”

Blessedly, the magic flowing into him slowed and then
stopped. Yet, he still felt like his body was going to split apart at any
moment.

“Beloved, talk to me. Tell me what the hamadryad did
to you.”

“I don’t know.” Which was true. Gregory was still
panting in pain and shock, so said the first thing that came to his mind. “Your
tree, did you sense anything unusual about her just now?”

“Besides your pain! No. But I’d say death by homicidal
tree counts as unusual.” Lillian fought to free herself. When that failed, she
reached out to touch him but stopped, clearly horrified. Then in a softer tone,
she whispered, “Beloved, you look like Frankenstein’s monster.”

Gregory groaned as the tree loosened her hold on him.
He didn’t know what monster she spoke of, but he felt instant sympathy for it
if it suffered half as much as he did at this moment. Blood welled up and
flowed across his skin from a thousand tiny stone-ridged fissures. Even as
painful and ugly as they were, the surface wounds were minor. It was the
internal ones that were of greater concern. His body was already going about
the business of healing them, but it would take days at this rate.

“Gregory, please talk to me. Why did my insane tree
just try to kill you?”

He met her gaze and saw the fear in hers, fear for
him. Then he glanced down at himself. Yes, between the hamadryad and the slave
collar, they’d made a mess of him. He understood why Lillian might think her
hamadryad had tried to harm him. “I will recover. And, no, the Sorceress wasn’t
trying to kill me. She was trying to free me from the slave collar, but
triggered some kind of trap.”

“You know that for a fact? Because from what I’m
seeing, I’d say she has another agenda.”

“Order me to heal myself.”

“I don’t think more magic will solve anything.”
Lillian had liberated her upper body from the hamadryad’s embrace and was now
trying to leverage her legs free.

“I have internal injuries.”

Lillian swore again. “Heal yourself. I’m here now and
won’t let my hamadryad harm you again.”

A warmer magic filled him at her words. He’d never
been so happy to call on the warmer, less turbulent power from the Magic Realm.
It was a much slower process, but he was more than happy to simply sit and wait
for it to heal him.

He grunted in another pained gasp as the hamadryad
shifted him closer to Lillian’s position. His beloved uttered an unladylike
profanity and then she was suddenly within touching distance.

Slowly the magic engulfing him withdrew.

“Do you know what happened?” she asked a second time.

“Something changed the slave collars, mine at least. I
can no longer summon magic from the Spirit Realm, not without killing myself
and possibly anyone near me.” For the first time in any of his lifetimes, he
found himself afraid of his most primary power. He could only hope the
Sorceress had learned something valuable from all his pain.

As the warrior-protector half of their pairing, he was
formidable and skilled in his own right, but in the past, the Sorceress had
exerted an iron-like control upon her magic which he’d envied. Lillian once
challenged him to admit the Avatars were equal in power—and yes, he was a great
worker of magic, but he secretly thought the Sorceress’ strengths were greater.

Now with his primary power out of reach, he needed to
rely upon the Sorceress. Dare he trust her?

With another shuddering shake of her branches, the
hamadryad began to lower them to the ground.

“Gregory,” Lillian’s voice drew him from his own pain
and he heard her deep worry. “Tell me you’ll be okay.”

“I will be.” Gregory pressed his forehead against the
trunk’s shaggy bark and then studied the fine white lacing of scars which now
crisscrossed his skin. Lillian helped brace him while he gathered the strength
to stand on his own two feet. “We will be.”

But only if Lillian was wrong, and the Sorceress
hadn’t just tried to kill him.

Commander Gryton stood at the maze’s north exit, his
magic held carefully in check. He was nearer to his enemies than was safe, but
he’d felt the hamadryad calling the Avatars to her and he had been coming to
investigate when his slave collars blazed a warning, telling him someone was
attempting to tamper with them.

For once fate had been kind and he’d arrived in time
to avert a disaster. The hamadryad Sorceress had been examining his slave
collars, and by the intricate currents of magic he felt shifting through the
earth and air, she had been far too close to unravelling his spells.

And that was not part of Gryton’s plans. It should
have come as no surprise though. Containing something as powerful and elemental
as the male half of the Avatars wasn’t a static task, but an ongoing, ever-evolving
one.

Even without the hamadryad’s help, the Gargoyle Protector
could override Gryton’s spells given enough time. That was the nature of magic
from the Spirit Realm. It cleansed that which did not belong, and nothing could
withstand its power. Nor could anything, not even Gryton’s greatest spell-work,
prevent the Gargoyle Protector from calling to that great power and having it
answer.

So the Protector’s near escape shouldn’t have come as
a surprise.

But it did. The hamadryad’s interference in this was
most unwelcome. Worse, somewhere deep inside, in a tiny flawed part of Gryton’s
being, he felt betrayed by the hamadryad as if she had welcomed him and offered
a mother’s protection and then took it all away. It was foolish. He’d known
within moments of his birth he could trust no one, not if he wanted to survive.

This little incident just solidified his wavering
resolve. He would root out and crush that tiny seed of weakness. It wouldn’t
happen again. He would deal with his personal weakness just as brutally and
swiftly as he’d corrected the flaw in his slave collars. Just a minor change to
each collar was enough to prevent the gargoyle from harnessing and controlling
his Spirit Magic.

And should a power that vast just happen to lack any
kind of outlet? Why, there could only be one fatal outcome.

Gryton’s lips stretched into the slightest of smiles.
The Lady of Battles might not be happy with him should the Protector be killed
by his own power, but somehow, Gryton didn’t concern himself with that. The
Battle Goddess would just have to start over once the Gargoyle Protector was
reborn.

Gryton’s collar should now, if not completely
neutralize the Gargoyle Protector, at least make him somewhat less
lethal—though he didn’t know if his fixes would keep the hamadryad from
meddling. Likely not.

After all, the Avatars were still powerful enemies,
ones he wasn’t yet ready to attack openly. He needed to separate Lillian and
Gregory from the hamadryad Sorceress without getting himself captured or
killed.

The hamadryad had allowed him his freedom for now, but
if he threatened her dryad or her beloved Gargoyle Protector farther, there was
no guarantee she would remain peaceful.

Gryton eased away from the threshold, heading deeper
into the maze as he debated his options.

A direct attack was out of the question. Yet, a more
subtle trap might be discovered by the Gargoyle Protector, or be neutralized by
the hamadryad long before Gryton could use it to capture the Avatars.

He cautiously exited the maze and was heading for
better cover in the forest when his magic stirred with interest. Never one to
ignore its guidance, he followed where its tug led and found himself gazing
toward the stone cottage where the Avatars sheltered. A small drama was playing
out in a window on the topmost level of the abode. A human female was hanging
half out of the window when River’s son slapped a hand over the human’s mouth
and dragged her back inside.

The human was of little interest to him, but seeing
the gargoyle child opened up other possibilities.

There just might be another way to return the Avatars
to the Lady of Battles. Fate was being abnormally kind to him of late.

While the Avatars might be too much for him to take
unaware, the gargoyle child would be easy enough to capture and returned to the
Lady of Battles’ domain. Once the child was within the Lady’s grasp, Gryton
would bet his life Darkness and River would come to his rescue. More
importantly, Lillian wouldn’t sit idly by if her little brother was in trouble.
Presently the Sorceress or not, where Lillian went, Gregory would follow.

All the Battle Goddess’ plans might still come to
pass. Gryton might just live through this whole debacle. It just hinged on
capturing one young gargoyle. Easy prey.

Gryton just needed time to lay the ground work for a
trap. A day or two should suffice even in this magic-starved realm.