Page 1 of Gargoyle Defender

Chapter One

“Ronen, what in the name of all that is holy are you doing?”

Cassiel leaned against the doorframe of the weapons room, located deep underground in their Boston lair. Ronen glanced up from where he sat, holding an etched steel dagger. The blade had been a gift from Archangel Michael at the ceremony for his promotion to Lead Warrior Defender. In the other hand, he gripped a sharpening stone, his knuckles white from clutching it for so long.

Cassiel crossed her arms, staring at him with a furrowed brow and pursed lips. With a sigh, he set the weapon down on the oak workbench that was scarred from decades of use.

“I would think that was obvious.” Ronen winced at his terse words. “I apologize. I didn’t intend for that to come out the way it did.”

She snorted. “You’ll have to work harder than that to offend me. After almost two centuries of being a slayer, the snark is sharper than that blade you’ve been working on.”

The tension left Ronen’s shoulders. She had a point. He’d only been part of the warrior gang for about a year, and the first thing he’d noticed was what a bunch of smart-asses they all were. Of course, he imagined the intense stress of battling both rogue demons and gargoyles who’d turned to the dark side could do that to even the most resilient supernatural creature.

He had his own reasons for anxiety, however, ones for which he was too proud to confess.

Ronen cleared his throat, then chuckled. “You’ve got a point.” He held up his dagger. “No pun intended.”

Cassiel gritted her teeth, then shook her head. “Yikes. You’re gonna have to up your game if you want to keep up. We’ve had decades to hone our skills, to perfect that cutting edge.”

Ronen groaned. “That was terrible.”

They held each other’s gaze for barely a few seconds before they burst into laughter.

“All right, all right,” she said with a grin. “Now, maybe you can enlighten me on what you’ve been doing in here for several hours? There’s more to life than weapons.”

“Not for me,” he mumbled. Ronen pushed off the stool he’d been perched on, then seated the blade in the sheath attached to the belt on his waist. “Don’t worry, I’m fine. It’s just that everything has been eerily quiet for the past few months, ever since Danny was rescued and Mal took him away. It has me on edge.” He shot up his hand, palm out. “Please. No more bad puns. My heart can’t take it.”

Cassiel gave him a wry smile. “Duly noted.” She jerked her head toward the hallway. “Let’s grab some coffee in the kitchen. The sentinel is guarding the entrance, and most of the others are patrolling the skies. We should have the room to ourselves.

“Sure, sounds good.”

He was terrible at masking his emotions, a trait that most gargoyle warriors shared. However, his introduction into the slayer order had been more brutal than most.

They made their way to the lair’s large kitchen, the uneven walls patched over with shotcrete, the same as the rest of the maze that made up their Boston headquarters. As was true with all the gargoyle lairs, they’d been built beneath churches and missions, sacred places for them to protect. Rarely were their locations breached by shadow gargoyles, but they’d always been successful in fighting them off.

Which circled him back to why there hadn’t been any trouble in either Boston or the other lairs around the world.

“What kind of coffee are you up for?” said Cassiel as they entered the room. “I’m all about the vanilla hazelnut lattes these days.”

The large, commercial-grade espresso machine had been installed only recently. With the day-to-day slayer life becoming so mundane, Cassiel had immersed herself in the joys of gourmet coffee creations. He almost told her not to worry about it—he’d simply have a cup of black, brewed coffee—but decided not to disappoint her. After all, that’s the reason he’d been in the weapons room. Sharpening, rearranging, cataloging. Every manner of activity that didn’t really need to be handled, yet he’d done them anyway.

“Umm… not a hazelnut fan, but the vanilla part is fine.”

She smiled. “You got it.”

As she set about making the fancy drink, Ronen pondered whether he wanted to divulge any of his inner turmoil. Out of all the slayers, she was the one he felt the closest to. He was a long way off from fulfilling his kill quota, so meeting his mate anytime soon was off the table. And any gargoyles he’d formed attachments to hadn’t been recruited to the Shadow Slayer order. Most days, it was only himself he had to turn to for advice.

He grunted. Unfortunately, his inner therapist had permanently gone on vacation.

Cassiel glanced over her shoulder, speaking above the hiss of the steam wand. “I’m going as fast as I can. You can’t hurry perfection.”

“Huh?” Ronen took a sec to realize what she meant. “Oh, sorry. No, that wasn’t about the coffee.”

“That’s a relief,” she said as she wiped down the nozzle. “I was going to get snippy.“ She brought both cups over, then sat across from him. “Here. Don’t you dare tell me it isn’t the best coffee you’ve ever had. I’m not in the mood for a battle.”

His lips twitched. “Liar.”

She shrugged, then took a sip of her coffee. “Yeah, well. I’m practicing in case everything truly has been resolved. I might need to expand my horizons.” She tapped her chin with one finger. “I wonder how difficult it is to make scones?”