Stone Passions Trilogy (23 page)

Someone let out a low whistle and he felt a blush burnish his cheek bones. Females of this generation were so different than what he had known before. They were more open, more sexually aware. More daring. Most of the time he loved the new attitudes, now however, it made him uncomfortable because he had almost lost the woman he loved and they had almost died in the process.

He would have died had anything happened to her.

The thought of how close he came to losing her whipped through his body and he visibly shuddered, tightening his hold on her. Her rain-fresh scent filled his nostrils and calmed his senses and as he walked he pressed his lips to her temple. As soon as they were back in his room, he was never going to let her out of sight again.

“It’s all right,” her voice drifted into his consciousness and he looked down at her, humbled by the compassion and love filling her eyes as she gazed up at him. Placing a palm over his heart, she offered a shaky smile, “You saved me. Vaughn. I’m all right.”

“I know,” he rasped, hugging her once more, no longer concerned with the humans who watched them pass. As he moved, he sent out the subtle memory spell to alter what the humans remembered, if they remembered anything at all. He knew that it might not be enough but it hardly mattered. Besides, who would believe a naked man walked through the winter streets with a luscious woman in his arms?

He reached the entrance as his brothers came rushing out and he was taken aback by the bewildered relief apparent on both of their faces. No, he had expected such emotion from Rhys but not Armand, who never let anything disturb his countenance. Even when he was angry, Armand looked cool and calm and collected. Vaughn was about to tell them he was all right when Armand stepped forward and embraced him in a powerful hug, not caring that Melanie was between them. He didn’t relent even when she squeaked. Instead, he pressed tighter.

“Thank the gods,” Armand breathed, hugging Vaughn with all of his might. “We thought we lost you.”

True, he had cut it very close, but he made it. With his arms full, Vaughn was unable to return the hug but he pressed his head against Armand’s to let him know he returned the love. “There was just enough time.”

“There wasn’t any time,” Armand said, stepping back and draping a robe over Vaughn’s broad shoulders.

With a confused expression, Vaughn looked to Rhys, who surprised him by also stepping forward and enfolding him in a powerful embrace, “We turned the moment you leapt.”

Vaughn’s head jerked back as he looked at his two brothers then down at Melanie. Her eyes were wide in her face as all four sets of eyes slowly looked down to her chest. The stone that was between her breasts was slowly dimming, as if it had been glowing.

Indeed, the creature who gave her the talisman was
very
powerful. Swallowing against the lump in his throat at the realization that he came even closer to losing her than he knew, he closed his eyes as his knees suddenly went weak. Both Armand and Rhys grabbed an arm to steady him until he could stand on his own.

“It worked,” Melanie breathed in awe, her fingers curling around the amulet.

Armand’s jaw tightened as he ushered the small group back into the building. A slender man of medium height was rushing towards them, concern marring his even-featured face. As he reached out to touch Melanie, Vaughn growled and turned so he stood between her and the rat. The bastard was never going to hurt Melanie again.

“Melanie!” he cried, his hands flapping uselessly at his sides as his eyes moved over her, worry and concern etching deep lines into his face. “My God, Lenni, are you all right?”

She squirmed until Vaughn had no choice but to put her down. It appeased him somewhat that she remained by his side and slid her hand into his. Her voice was quiet, hurt, as she asked, “Haven’t you done enough, Peter?”

“Melanie,” he wheedled, stepping towards her and stopping when Melanie moved closer to Vaughn until she was plastered to his side. Peter stood there, looking lost and confused. “Lenni, please, you have to believe me. I've been having so many doubts about the end of our relationship this week and I just came by tonight to talk about it and then suddenly I was saying all of these things and I have no idea what came over me.”

Melanie saw the looks exchanged between the three gargoyle brothers and her brow furrowed as she turned back to Peter. “What do you mean?”

“I don’t know!” he cried, visibly distressed. His face was red and his eyes were watery as he looked at Melanie, stridently ignoring the three hulking giants as he lurched forward and took her hand in his. “It’s like, as soon as I walked through your door I became a different person and I had to hurt you but I also had to have you. I don’t know!”

Vaughn growled low in his throat and Peter wisely stepped back, dropping her hand and holding up his own hands in defense. “I don’t want to hurt you now… I never wanted to hurt you. I don’t know what happened.”

“Did you sleep with Vanessa before we broke up?” she asked softly.

He nodded his head once, “I’m so sorry, Lenni. I was drunk and it just sort of happened….”

And then, he began to change right before her eyes. His expression softened, twisted, and his eyes lost their focus, becoming vacant. His repentant expression turned into a sneer as he rolled his shoulders and stretched his neck from side to side. His voice was… smarmy as he sneered, “Vanessa has such a hot, little body and I fucked her to know what it was like to fuck a real woman, not one who spends her days making chocolate in her parent’s candy shop….”

In the next instant, Peter was flat on his back and Vaughn was standing over him. From the ground, Peter began to laugh maniacally, “I see how it is. She’s fucking all three of you, spreading her pretty, little thighs for the lot of you. I’d give just about anything to see that….”

His eyes rolled back into his head and he went limp, as if he were a puppet and his strings had been severed. It was almost scary and she would have thought he was dead if she hadn’t been able to see the rise and fall of his chest. She glanced from Peter to Vaughn, to each of his brothers and then back to Vaughn. “What happened?”

“Imps,” Armand growled.

“They like to mess with the weak minded,” Rhys added, bending down and grabbing Peter. In a fluid move, he had the unconscious man over his shoulder in a fireman’s hold and was carrying him towards the front door.

“What’s going to happen to him?” Melanie asked in a hushed voice, impressed in spite of herself at the way Rhys’s muscles flexed as he carried Peter away.

“What do you want to happen?” Vaughn asked carefully, more than willing to visit violence upon the man who dared hurt his woman.

Slowly, Melanie lifted her gaze to his, the blue of her eyes pulling him into her. “I want him to leave me alone. Let him have Vanessa, if she’ll take him.”

“You’re too kind,” Vaughn growled, anger still pulsing in his veins as he remembered Melanie’s pale face and soft gasp as the bastard talked about cheating on her, Melanie falling through the air, Melanie nearly dying.

“We’ve been friends since high school,” she started slowly, gaining momentum with each word that she spoke. “I had known for a long time that we weren’t right together but I stuck with him out of, out of….”

“Loyalty?” Armand sneered.

She scowled at him before she shook her head, “Out of comfort, familiarity.”

“Lovely,” Armand sneered once more.

Ignoring him, she turned to Vaughn, “I just want to forget about him.”

Vaughn smiled, “We seem to have difficulty erasing your memory.”

At his words, Melanie’s eyes widened a moment before she chuckled. Placing her hand over the pendant, she grinned, “And I suppose this makes it even more difficult.”

“Fuck,” Armand growled, turning around and starting to walk away.

Melanie watched Armand go and as he walked past the front desk, she paused. Cocking her head to the side, she studied the little man behind the counter with his lovely, shimmering amber skin and long, silky lavender hair. He was watching her with large, purple eyes, a knowing smile on his lips and there was something… peculiar about him. He was well-proportioned but short and slender, perhaps four feet tall and sixty pounds. He was the size of a six year old but with the eyes of an old man. Melanie was pretty sure he was not human yet he was so familiar….

“I know you,” she murmured as she continued to study the odd, little man. Armand paused in his tracks, slowly turning around to look between the two of them, an arrested expression on his face.

“That’s Nod,” Vaughn said with a low chuckle, coming up behind her and putting an arm around her waist, pulling her against his body. He was completely unaware of the tension emanating from Armand. “He thinks he is Cupid and interferes in the human world without realizing that humans live linear lives. He gets confused and connects the right people at the wrong time.”

Slowly, barely paying attention to Vaughn’s explanation, Melanie smiled as memories quickly flooded her brain. She had been walking past the familiar building again, as she did every day before and after work, in the off chance that the extravagant birds would be flying overhead again. They were the reason she parked a few blocks away from the store even though she had only seen them once.

She had almost crashed into the man before she became aware of him standing there. At first, she thought that he was a child, perhaps lost. But as she looked closer, she saw that he was, in fact, an adult, just unlike any human she had ever known. “Pardon me.”

His face lit up with a brilliant smile as he slid his hand into her, his hand practically disappearing in her grip. She was too stunned to pull away and had automatically followed him into the magnificent building, awe filling her when she was finally inside. The atrium was just as stunning as the outside, with its soaring ceilings and elaborate stone work that echoed the delicate scrolled designs throughout. Every surface was covered in works of art and she could have spent hours studying all of the intricate details.

“I have a room for you,” he told her, his voice high and so very beautiful.

“I’m not looking….” She had begun to protest, returning her attention to the little man.

“I have a room for you,” he repeated, leading her over to the desk and passing her the key to room 1401. “If you would just follow me?”

Instead of offering another protest, she followed him, mechanically stepping into the elevator beside him. On the way up, he explained that she would be living on the top floor and there was a secret to getting to the roof. “But why would I want to go up onto the roof?”

He had smiled at her, “To see the beautiful birds up close.”

She nodded her head, accepting his answer without question and listening carefully as he gave explicit directions for getting up there, including the hidden door. Then he had opened the door to her room and her breath caught in her throat. Of course, as soon as she had seen the studio apartment she had fallen in love with the teeny, tiny room and paid the first and last month rents, signing her name to the renter’s agreement and going home to pack.

Returning to the present, she laughed, still shaken from almost dying and thinking that perhaps the situation wasn’t as funny as it seemed. “I remember.”

“It was impossible to erase your memory,” the little man said. With a shrug, a wink, and a mischievous grin, he said, “So I contained it.”

Armand’s jaw tightened, probably pissed that he hadn’t thought of containing her memories instead of erasing them.

“Memories contained eventually break free,” Nod explained, even as his smile faded and a frown replaced it. “I had hoped….”

The little man looked from Armand to her, then to Vaughn’s arm possessively around her waist. His frown deepened as he returned his gaze to Melanie. “But I thought you were for Armand.”

She was about to laugh at such a ludicrous idea but she saw the flash of… pain? Regret? That passed over Armand’s face before the stoic mask was back in place. Armand scoffed, “As if I would want anything to do with her. She is my brother’s woman, not mine.”

Melanie wasn’t sure what to make of that statement, since he had been so opposed to her being his brother’s anything. Was he relenting? Or had she been destined for Armand except she saw Vaughn first? It wasn’t something that she wanted to dwell on because she knew in her heart that she was meant for Vaughn. She had fallen in love with the lion, not the griffin.

Armand must have thought it was rubbish as well, since he walked away and disappeared into one of the elevators. The little Cupid-wannabe was simply mistaken. With a shrug, she turned to the lavender-haired man, “What are you?”

His smile returned to his face, though his eyes remained clouded with distress. He held out his tiny hand to her and in his high, beautiful voice, he introduced himself. “I’m a sprite and I am most pleased to once again meet you, Human.”

She couldn’t stop the smile from forming as she stepped out of Vaughn’s arms and took his hand in hers. Sunshine whispered up her arm from where he held her hand and she realized she was talking to a freaking sprite – how awesome was that? “I’m very pleased to meet you, too. Again.”