Stone Passions Trilogy (35 page)

Melanie relaxed, relief flooding her system. The dark cloud wasn’t nearly as bad as she had thought it was going to be. With a bright smile, she wrapped her arms around Vaughn’s neck, no longer caring that Armand’s stone fingers dug into her hips and his stone erection pressed against her back. “His only crime was trying to protect you and I can hardly blame him for that. I would do anything to protect you.”

Vaughn’s smile was still tinged with sadness, which made her frown. Did he think she wasn’t serious? Cupping his beloved face in her hands, she willed him to believe her, “I love you, Vaughn. I
love
you.”

“I know,” he murmured unhappily, pressing a kiss to her palm. Closing his eyes as if in pain, he whispered, “I know.”

“It’ll be all right,” she tried to reassure him. With one hand still on his cheek, she stroked his hair with her other hand. “I know that giving up your nights has been… difficult for you but I promise that it will be worth it. I'll make it worth it.”

“You already have,” he vowed, bending his head forward and resting it against her shoulder. His body heaved as he took a deep breath and shakily exhaled.

“We’ll take a trip this summer…” she began but stopped abruptly when a low, mournful sound came from the back of Vaughn's throat and a rumble of anger vibrated against her back. The stone fingers clenched tighter, pinching the soft flesh of her hips and she flinched. “What is it? What am I missing?”

“There aren’t going to be any trips this summer,” Vaughn choked out, keeping his head pressed against her shoulder. “In a few days, there isn’t going to be anything.”

“I don’t understand,” Melanie frowned, her hands stilling in Vaughn’s hair as her heart trembled in her chest. It was becoming difficult to breathe and she knew that she wasn’t going to like what was coming. Letting her know about Armand had only been the warm up act.

He stepped back, his spent cock sliding from her body. It glistened with her fluids but Vaughn didn’t seem to care as he pushed the thick organ back into his pants and fastened the closure. Turning his back to her, leaving her alone in her nakedness, he scrubbed his hands through his hair. Suddenly uncomfortable, feeling horribly exposed, she slid off the gargoyle’s lap and awkwardly picked up the lightweight dress. She slid the dress over her head, letting it fall around her body as she kept her eyes on Vaughn’s back.

When he remained mute, she looked at the two gargoyles for answers but they remained silent as well, staring back at her with vacant stone expressions. Panicking, she reached out to Vaughn even though he was too far away for her to touch. “Tell me what it is, Vaughn, please. Have I done something….”

“No!” he said adamantly, turning around and closing the distance between them, taking her hands in his as he shook his head. Squeezing her fingers, misery swimming in his eyes, he vowed, “You haven’t done anything –
anything
– wrong.”

“Then what is it?” Her heart was racing as she silently pleaded with him to tell her it was all right.

“God, I’ve fucked up,” he swore, dropping her hands and once again turning away from her.

“You’re scaring me, Vaughn.” Her voice quavered as she gently laid her hand on his back, willing him her love, her strength. “Talk to me, tell me what’s wrong.”

“It’s temporary, Melanie,” he ground out desolately. Turning around to face her, his eyes glistening with unshed tears, he repeated, “It’s only temporary.”

“Temporary – you mean giving up your nights?” she asked slowly, desperate to understand. At his nod, she asked, “When you say temporary, what do you mean? Twenty years? A hundred?”

“A month,” he broke. “One lunar month.”

She inhaled sharply as what he said sank in; “You have less than a week.”

“Yes,” he confirmed.

She processed this new information, trying to figure out what it meant. Slowly, she nodded, “Okay, so we go back to dating at night….”

He let out a harsh laugh, “No, Melanie, we don’t. You remain human and I become a gargoyle… permanently. Until….”

“Until when?’ she asked, a kernel of hope digging its claws into her chest. If his state as a gargoyle was only until something happened, she would just make sure that whatever needed to happen would happen quickly so he could return to her, so they could be together.

Swallowing, he squeezed his eyes shut, “Until you die.”

Her mouth fell open and she was at a loss for words. Vaughn moved quickly, taking her in his arms and cupping her cheek, “You needn’t fear, Melanie. Part of being bound to a gargoyle is the protection we offer. When I’m stone, you’ll be safe.”

“How will you be able to keep me safe if you’re a fucking statue?” she growled, pushing away from him. Unable to bear being apart from him, she quickly returned and took his hand in hers, needing to touch him. “Tell me, Vaughn.”

“It’s the nature of the gargoyle, love,” he told her helplessly. Putting his hand over the pendant that lay between her breasts, he held her gaze, “Much like this amulet protects you – magic.”

“But what you’re saying is that you’ll be dead to me,” she choked out.

He nodded, “I’ll be a gargoyle in the truest sense of the word: an inanimate statue. That is what is meant when we say we are giving up our nights – we no longer walk as men beneath the moon.”

She glanced at his brothers, both in their gargoyle forms and both watching them intently. “It also means you give up the ability to move as a gargoyle, too, doesn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“So I wouldn’t even have you as a gargoyle.” She bit her lip to keep from crying but a tear slipped down her cheek.

“No.”

“Is there any way to keep you… alive?” she cried, her heart pounding painfully in her chest as she grabbed his hands.

“You won’t like it,” he grimaced.

“I don’t care,” she huffed, her chest hurting from trying to breathe through the fear. “I won’t lose you.”

“We complete the ritual.”

“Yes!” she readily agreed. “How do we do that?”

“On the night of the next new moon, we come together as the sun sets and finish what we began a month ago. You take me into your body….”

“Yes, all right.”

“And accept my gift.”

“You are my gift," she wept. "How can I ask for anything more?”

“You don’t understand,” he shook his head, his eyes filling with despair as he searched her face. “We mate during the new moon to seal the bargain and the moment you come with me in your body my gift is accepted.”

“I already said yes.” Desperation strained her voice as she pleaded with him.

He swallowed thickly, tenderly cupping her cheek in his warm palm. “And when the sun rises, we both become gargoyles.”

“But we’d be human at night?” Hope lit her eyes, sparkling in the blue depths as she thought about being a gargoyle, about being with Vaughn forever.

“Yes.”

“Why is your magic at its height beneath the new moon?” she asked dumbly, trying to figure out the ramifications of becoming a gargoyle. Could she handle being a gargoyle, giving up the sun that she loved so much? A shudder ripped down her spine but then she firmed her resolve. If it meant being with Vaughn, she would manage.

“The light of the moon is only the reflection of the sun,” he explained. “We remain gargoyles during the day because we cannot walk as men beneath the sun so it only makes sense that we are at our most powerful when there is no sunlight at all.”

She nodded vaguely as she tried to think beyond the near future. She’d only be able to see her family at night, so she’d have to figure out what she could tell them when they asked why they never saw her during the day. It could work, they’d manage it somehow. “Okay.”

He inhaled sharply and then let the breath out slowly. Moistening his lips with his tongue, he continued, “I spoke of sacrifice, Melanie.
You’d
have to give up everything.”

Freaking out, she looked at Vaughn with desperation, “I don’t care! I don’t want to lose you.”

“Your family, Melanie,” he clarified almost cruelly, willing her to understand. “You’d have to give up your family, Melanie. The moment you turn, you’ll no longer be human, you won’t be allowed to have any ties to the human world.”

She staggered backwards, only remaining upright when Rhys caught her and held her steady. How could she give up her family? Jenna, who had already suffered so much? Her parents? Her brother? Oh, God! Ferris! How could she give up Ferris, the little girl whom she loved so very, very much? Ferris needed someone who understood her, who would encourage her…. Breathing rapidly, she shook her head in denial as tears slipped unheeded down her cheeks, “I don’t know if I can do that.”

“I know,” Vaughn murmured compassionately.

Anger stiffened her spine and she pushed away from the monkey, pushed away from Vaughn. “How do you know this? How do you know about any of this? If it even works….”

“There are other gargoyles, Melanie, and a few have performed the ritual,” he confessed quietly. At her look of shock, he continued, “Not many, mind you, but a few. This ritual is well known among my kind, as are its results. Only once has a gargoyle’s gift been accepted, Melanie, and that was thousands of years ago, long before I was born."

She slowly licked her lips, her thoughts warring in her head. "Why didn't you tell me any of this sooner?"

"I never expected you to accept." At her gasp, he took her hands and pleaded with her with golden eyes. "I couldn’t stand by and do nothing when I have the power to keep you safe. I can’t bear to see you hurt.”

She sucked in another painful breath, her eyes flying to Armand, who stood stoically by as a griffin, his expression stony and blank. No wonder why Armand hated her. He knew she would have to make this impossible choice. Blinking rapidly, she tried to be rational, to think, but her brain wasn’t cooperating. Her head pounded and she couldn’t think at all.  She needed to talk to someone, she needed her sister. “I have to go home.”

“I understand,” Vaughn said, sounding so damn resigned she wanted to scream at him.

She did scream at him, “No, you don’t! I don’t understand! Why didn’t you tell me this before we ever began this stupid ritual? Why did you let me believe we'd be together forever?”

“I’m so sorry,” he meekly apologized.

“How can you ask me to choose between you and my family?” she cried, starting to hyperventilate. Reaching out, she steadied herself by placing a hand on Rhys’s stone chest as black dots danced behind her eyes and the world spun crazily. “Oh, God, I can’t breathe.”

At once, Vaughn was there, his arms around her, protecting her, shielding her. His broad palm was rubbing her back and his warm, familiar scent clouded her brain even further. “Relax, my love, and just breathe.”

Her breath hitched in her throat as she tried to breathe past the blockade in her throat. How could she love the man that caused her so much pain? How could she not? “I have to go.”

With an arm around her waist, he led her over to the door that would allow her to leave. Softly, he asked, “Will you be back?”

She looked up at him, her eyes glossy with heartbreak and despair. “You’re asking me to give up my family, Vaughn. How can I make that choice with only a few days to decide? God, why didn’t you tell me before you offered?”

He licked his lips with the tip of his tongue, straightening his shoulders as he looked down at her. Finally, he rasped, “I didn’t expect to love you so much.”

She gasped as if he struck her and her eyes filled with agonizing pain as she turned around and stumbled away from him, too shocked to speak, only needing to get out of there. The air had turned to water and she couldn't breathe. She was choking and she just needed to get out of there.

Vaughn swallowed thickly, letting her go and watching her struggle to open the door and then disappear through it. He stood there for a long time, not noticing when the sun went down and his brothers returned to their human form. When Rhys put his hand on his shoulder, he jumped.

“She’s not coming back, is she?” Rhys asked softly.

“No,” Vaughn answered, resigned and stoic. Shaking his head as he stared at the closed door, he repeated himself. “No.”

“Damn her!” Armand swore, smashing his fist against the brick wall and shattering the brick.

Alarmed, Vaughn crossed to his brother and grabbed him, shoving him against the broken wall so that they were facing one another, “No, Armand! Listen to me – Melanie loves me and I think, had she been given enough time, she would have chosen me. A month just isn’t enough time.”

“You still have four days,” Armand growled, his eyes blazing, a mixture of rage and despair. “Why has she decided not to spend your last days with you?”

Vaughn looked away and swallowed past the lump in his throat, “I think it would have been too painful, to be with me knowing that I was going to… leave her.”

“She’s going to come to regret it,” Armand murmured, his tone softening.

“Yes,” Vaughn acknowledged. “And when she returns here I want you to promise me that you will her tell that I love her, that I will always love her, and that I want her to be happy.”

“You ask too much of me, brother,” Armand despaired, clasping Vaughn’s forearms with his hands, his eyes glistening with useless tears.