He landed hard on the rookery’s entrance platform, sending loose stones skittering. The corridors were narrow here, barely wide enough for spread wings. The damp odor of too many gargoyles in too small a space made his nostrils flare.
He roamed through the passages until he found her scent, faint but unmistakable:lemons and herbs and Idabel.
He followed it like a lifeline, through twisting passages and up worn stairs. It grew stronger, fresher, until he stood before a battered door on the lowest residential level. The kind of place given to servants or gargoyles with no status at all.
And at the door, overlaying Idabel’s scent, was another distinctive smell. Male. Gargoyle.
The rage that erupted made his previous anger seem like a candle flame. This was an inferno, white-hot and all-consuming. His mate—HIS MATE—with another male. Another gargoyle’s scent on her door, in her space, probably in her bed.
The roar that tore from his throat shook dust from the ceiling. Doors along the corridor flew open, startled faces peering out, but he didn’t see them clearly. Couldn’t see anything but red.
She’d replaced him. While he’d been fighting, bleeding, holding his dying watchmates, she’d been here with another. The bond meant nothing. He meant nothing. The pain of it was worse than any torture the goblins could have devised.
His fist connected with the wall, mortar crumbling under the impact. Again. Again. Until his knuckles bled and someone wasshouting down the hall, but it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered except the betrayal, the loss, the absolute destruction of the one thing he’d thought was still his.
“Idabel!”
Her name was a battle cry, a plea, a dying word.
The door cracked open.
It was her. Her mouth opened, eyebrows rose. “Brandt?”
At the sound of his name, his mind shattered. Every wall he’d built, every protection he’d erected, came crashing down at once.
Chapter 21
Idabel
Idabel pressed her ear to the door, heart hammering. It couldn’t be him. How did he find her? He was here. After six years, he was here, and he was calling her name like the world was ending.
Maybe it was. She yanked open the door before she could think better of it.
Time stopped.
He loomed in her doorway like a figure from her dreams, broader than she remembered, new scars writing stories acrosshis hide. His hair was wet and plastered against one side of his face. His wings bunched high, his chest heaved, and his gray eyes—Loïc’s eyes, her son’s eyes, the eyes that always reflected her own face—were wide and devastated.
“Idabel,” he repeated, the sound like breaking glass to her ears because it promised so many wounds.
Every instinct screamed to throw herself into his arms. To invite him in, touch the new scars, assure herself he was real. But Loïc slept in his bed. His toy war bat lay visible on the floor behind her, and his small wooden sword leaned against the wall. Evidence of the son Brandt didn’t know existed was scattered throughout the rooms.
They couldn’t have a real conversation if Loïc woke up, and they needed to have some difficult ones before he met his son.
“Brandt.” She stepped into the corridor, pulling the door nearly closed behind her. “You’re here. I can hardly believe my eyes. How did you find my apartment?”
He cleared his throat. “Your scent.”
She smiled, remembering how he’d absconded with her so he could memorize it. He reached for her face, then jerked back as if burned, curling his fingers into a fist.
“Will you come home with me?” he asked, his voice low. “Will you come to our nest tonight?”
“I can’t. Not tonight.” There was so much he didn’t know and needed to know, but this wasn’t the time. His expression made her heart fall. She rushed to add, “We have so much to say to one another. Six years of stories to tell. Can we meet tomorrow?”
He studied her like she might evaporate. New scars crossed his face, and weariness weighted his shoulders. Had he always been so tall and serious?
“Tomorrow.” He said it like he was testing the word. “You want me to leave now.”
“I want to talk properly. Privately.” She tipped her head toward the curious faces peeking from nearby doorways. She couldn’t help herself, though. Under the prying eyes, she reached out, fingers barely grazing his arm. It was wet. He’d flown here in the rain. “Are you well?”
