Fuck.
I taste blood around the fabric in my mouth. I blink hard, my brain feeling rattled.
My shoulder is on the floor, but the tie on my arms feels loosened. As my eyes slowly focus again, and their laughter surrounds me, my gaze lands on a heavy metal poker near the woodstove.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Theodore
Ihad quickly managed things at the small homestead, for luckily they had pigs, and caught up with Ben and Arch.
The three of us are flying in formation, scanning for her trail.
“She’s slick enough to use that stream,” I raise my voice to be heard, “Thinking we’d not suspect it because it’s too obvious.”
Arch nods and we dip closer to the trees to follow it.
Arch yells “There’s a small human homestead a few kilometers ahead; we’ll question them.”
We keep our slow, even pace, still hoping to find some small sign that we’re on the right track.Nothing.
When we find her, I’m going to be questioning her on her varied skills in some detail.
Soon, we veer from the river to land in the middle of a small clearing, surrounded by the quaint, well-kept houses. I haven’t visited the folks who live in our lands in a year, probably. I frown.Too long. Arch is too busy to do it and Ben doesn’t have the temperament for it.
I stretch my wings, preparing to fold them in but an angry scream pierces the air.
The three of us instantly rise and cross the distance on our wings. Arch kicks the door in and Ben and I tumble in after him.
The air is warm, stuffy, stale, but what makes my heart stop is the scene before me.
A heavy-set gargoyle with small wings is on his knees on the floor over another being who appears to be kneeling and kicking. The rending of damp fabric fills the air as his arms tear at her clothing and I see the peach-brown skin of human legs.
“FERN!” Arch bellows, just as her body hits the floor, scrabbling forwards on her belly. The gargoyle on top of her grabs her shoulder and she twists suddenly, copper locks flying, bashing the gargoyle with a fire poker upside the head. Arch is moving but I’m watching our bride. She pulls her arm back and jams the poker through her attacker’s wing, twisting viscously. The wet crunch-snap of the upper bone breaking as Fern destroys his wing would be sickening except for the fact that this male was trying to rape our bride.
Arch grabs him violently, pulling him upward, jerking his head sideways to the satisfying snap of his neck.
The heavy sound as his body hits the floor seems to break Ben and I out of whatever is holding us locked in place.
I head for the larger of the two males, an alpha based on his scent, with a purple tint to his skin and definitely not one who I’ve ever known to live on our land. I pull my blade and spin, slitting his throat on the pass, and turn to help Ben with the third.
We dispatch him easily enough and turn to see Archibald still standing over Fern. She’s lying on the ground where she was when Arch lifted the male off her. I, off-handedly, notice his body is lying awkwardly to the side, his dick hanging out of his pants. I grimace.
Our bride has tugged her makeshift skirt to cover her legs but otherwise hasn’t moved. She looks to me, then Ben, and back to Arch, before slowly sitting up and dropping the fire poker with a resounding clang.
Her little body starts to shiver just as she swallows hard. She tucks one arm around herself.
“Thank you,” she whispers.
Arch’s face is thunderous but he steps forward and scoops her up carefully, tucking her into his body. I see her head settle onto his chest and he drops his face forward, burying his nose in her hair and inhaling deeply. He strides out the door.
“Home, chime. Now.”
WE LAND ON THE BALCONYjust before Arch. Ben hurries to the cabinet for the med kit as I go to get a glass of juice.She’s surely hungry and thirsty.
On the flight home, I had replayed her violent attack of the alpha who was going to harm her. I was shocked.Shocked and proud as stones.My mind goes back to the two dead young gargoyles.Perhaps she had defended herself there too, not killed from hate.
Arch lands and strides into the house. Without a word, he tumbles Fern out of his arms roughly. She falls to the floor with a heavy thud, her skirt coming mostly unwrapped. She stays still, silently looking up .
