Heart of Stone Read online

  “Fine, let me see what I can do,” Lana said. “I guess that means Tommen doesn’t get to have his gargoyle flight.”

  “I’ll take him next weekend,” I said with a conciliatory smile. “Call it an early birthday gift.”

  Lana smiled back, but I didn’t miss the sadness in her eyes. I would miss her as much as I knew she’d miss me.

  “I’ll hold you to it, stony-boy,” Lana said, flicking my right wing spur. “Time to make some emergency phone calls.”

  Turning on her heels, she headed towards the exit of my private booth.

  “Lana,” I called out as she reached for the door. She looked at me over her shoulder. “Thank you.”

  She smiled, winked, and then walked out.

  2

  Brianna

  Heart pounding, I tried to keep a stoic face while Lana Dalghren ushered me inside The Darkest Hour. When my firm received her message this morning, I all but begged my boss to let me take on this project. I’d been trying for years to get close to the mysterious owner of the exclusive club, but to no avail. Others before me had been allowed to have private conversations with him. Not me. Never me. For some reason, I appeared to have been blacklisted. And yet, I’d never acted demanding or aggressive, unlike some of the people who actually got to meet him.

  The last time I’d tried, two years ago, Lana had been polite but firm in stating that Mr. Drayvus had no desire to speak to me, now or ever. That had stung. No, that had broken my heart. What had I done to be so brutally rejected? Rather than deterring me, it further fueled my theory that he might be the one I’d been looking for and that he feared a potential reunion.

  After all this time, I wondered if Lana would recognize me, and if that would prompt her to turn me away. Her heavy stare confirmed she did remember me, but showing her my business card sufficed to gain me entry. My eyes flicked around the place, taking it in for the first time properly lit and devoid of the masses of bodies that usually swarmed it. The silence felt eerie, our footsteps echoing loudly in the mostly empty former church.

  A few waiters ran around, setting up the tables for the restaurant service which would begin a couple of hours from now and go until 8:00 P.M. when the place would turn into a nightclub again.

  “This way, Ms. Brent,” Lana said, leading me towards a thick door at the back. “Alkor wants to expand the club with thematic rooms in the old catacombs. Unfortunately, you might recall the mess that occurred a few years back which caused part of them to collapse?”

  I nodded, remembering all too well the lawsuits that had ensued for the gross negligence which could have cost lives.

  “Good,” Lana continued as she opened the massive door, revealing a large stone staircase leading into the catacombs. She began her descent, and I followed in her wake. “When my boss sets his mind on something, he wants it yesterday. In this instance, he actually needs the first room opened up within the week for a very special event. For now, you do not have to worry about having a full design of the rooms and layouts, we just need to help make sure the construction workers remove the rubble in that first room without jeopardizing the integrity of the building.”

  “Yes, of course. However, we need permits—”

  “We will pay whatever extras are required to expedite the process,” Lana interrupted. “I understand we can get an urgent one delivered in twenty-four hours. Money is not going to be an issue, as long as you get that room opened up within seven days.”

  “All right,” I said as we reached the basement.

  “You are the third firm I’ve met this morning about this project,” Lana said, turning to face me. “The first one stated in no uncertain terms they couldn’t deliver within our time frame. The second said they would get back to us with a firm commitment by 14:00 today. Would you be able to do the same?”

  “Based on the schematics you sent with your message last night, and the inspection reports attached, unless something has radically changed since they were drafted, I see no reason we can’t deliver as per your request,” I said, confident about my assessment. I wanted this job, really badly, but not so much as to risk my career on false promises. “Naturally, it will cost you substantially more than if we were trying to offer you a competitive price with a laxer timeline. But if, as you say, money isn’t an issue, then by the time I finish looking at the place, I should be able to confirm that we can indeed do this for you.”

  “Good answer,” Lana said, with a broad smile.

  I smiled back, instantly liking her. Even during my previous encounters with her, she’d always been a polite, classy lady. Peering around the rectangular room made of dark, beige stone in which we had landed, I smiled at the familiar feeling of being transported back in time whenever I visited old churches. The dusty, musty scent of closed off places greeted us as we entered the room which had four hallways branching off, two on the left and right sides, and a longer corridor straight ahead that was almost completely blocked off by rubble, Lana indicated for me to proceed to the second passage on the right. Gravelly stones crunched beneath my feet as we walked on the floor made-up of the same stones as those used in the walls.

  To my relief, despite the collapse, the structure seemed as sound as the post-incident reports had stated. Up ahead, I could see the first signs of rubble obstructing the room. As we approached the opening, Lana’s phone went off. She picked it up and listened for a few seconds.

  “Dammit,” she cussed. “Fine, I’m coming.” Lana hung up then turned to me. “I must go handle something upstairs. I’ll be back in a minute. The room is straight ahead. This is a dead end, so you cannot get lost.”

  “No problem. I’ll be fine,” I said, smiling reassuringly.

  It actually suited me not to have someone hovering over my shoulder while I tried to get work done. Lana nodded then backtracked her steps to the upper floor. I crossed the rest of the way to the room. No doors closed it off, only a huge arched doorway with a big pair of sconces illuminating the entrance. Although they looked like ancient torches, they were actually electric wall lamps.

  Stepping inside the room, my heart nearly stopped. On the left side, on an oddly placed pedestal, a massive, stone gargoyle stared into the room. I yelped in surprise and then my brain froze.

  I knew this face. The face that had haunted my dreams for the past twenty years.

  I found you!

  Knees trembling, I approached him with wobbly steps.

  Not him, it.

  Who would have carved such a large, life-like replica of the man… creature that had saved me so many years ago? From the first time I’d heard a description of Alkor Drayvus, I’d wondered if he could be him. I’d never been able to get a good look at him, and he never allowed anyone to get a proper picture of him. But even from a distance, he appeared too young to be the one who had saved me from drowning… unless he hadn’t aged a day.

  I raised a trembling hand to the face of the gargoyle. Cold stone met my touch, the texture oddly soft and polished. My fingers roamed over its eyes, its nose, and strangely human lips, then back up to the short, pointy horns that adorned its head almost like a crown. They reminded me of the ones from those aliens in Star Wars—like that Darth Maul guy. It had to be the most handsome gargoyle I’d ever seen, with almost human features. Hands clasping the edge of the perch upon which it crouched, its muscular chest and bulging arms had me drooling. In the years since Alkor Drayvus had opened The Darkest Hour, he had starred in many of my naughtiest nighttime fantasies, where he looked exactly like this gargoyle.

  With a will of their own, my palms leisurely explored his broad chest. The sculptor’s attention to detail—down to the nipples on the statue—just blew my mind. My fingers were tracing the lines of his eight-pack when movement at the edge of my vision startled me. I glanced down between his arms at his crotch and stared at a strange bulge—too conveniently placed—that I hadn’t noticed before. Looking back up at his face… rather its face, I recoiled slightly. His lips seemed to form
a bit of a sneer, with the tips of sharp fangs protruding. I didn’t recall seeing those either earlier. Were my eyes playing tricks on me?

  You were too busy drooling over those sexy muscles.

  I lifted my hand back to his face and ran my thumb over his lips. For some irrational reason, I pressed the pad of my thumb on the tip of his fang. It proved far sharper than I’d expected, nicking me. With a slight hiss, I pulled my hand away and sucked the pearl of blood seeping from it. Looking back down, my jaw dropped.

  That bulge wasn’t THAT big seconds ago. I’m sure of it!

  But stone didn’t shift like that. Or was it stone? Ever the ‘act first, think later’ kind of girl, I reached for his… its crotch and squeezed the bulge.

  Stone.

  Cold, hard, and unyielding beneath my touch, my imagination was clearly running wild.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Lana asked, the sound of her—very upset—voice making me squeal in surprise.

  I yanked my hand away from the gargoyle’s groin and spun around to look at her. I didn’t need a mirror to imagine the guilty and mortified expression plastered on my face. How did you explain to a potential client that you’d been molesting a statue because you thought it had grown a boner?

  “I’m sorry,” I said, my cheeks burning with humiliation. “I shouldn’t have touched the statue. It’s just such an incredibly realistic piece. And… the model greatly resembles someone I knew before.”

  She narrowed her eyes at me. “Someone you knew?”

  “It’s… Well, I didn’t know the person, but… Do you know who the model was for this statue? His face looks exactly like the man who saved my life twenty years ago. I’ve been looking for him ever since to thank him. So seeing his face on that statue threw me for a loop.”

  A strange expression crossed her features. In that instant, I believed she knew who the model was, or maybe even the man. I wouldn’t press my luck just now, but I believed that man was somehow related to her boss.

  “I’m sorry, the statue came with the building,” Lana said. “So, about the work…?”

  “Right,” I said, snapping out of my daze, “I will need about thirty minutes, then I will be able to give you my answer.”

  “Perfect.”

  3

  Alkor

  My blood boiled with a rabid hunger. Had Lana not entered the room when she had, I’d have emerged from my stone form, thrown the foolish engineer onto the floor, and ravished her right there and then. My cock throbbed with unsated need. It wasn’t bad enough that the moment I saw her my mating glands went into overdrive; she had to touch me, too. How could Lana have let her in? Surely she’d recognized the female?

  Brianna had blossomed into a beautiful woman. Twenty years ago, during one of my nighttime flights, I’d witnessed a drunk driver losing control of his vehicle and ramming into another car. The vehicle had barrel-rolled before falling into the river. Brianna’s mother had been killed instantly. Her father had been injured and unconscious, although he did come around shortly thereafter. Brianna had been uninjured but trapped in the back seat while their vehicle sank. I’d pulled them both out, leaving the mother since she was beyond help. The little girl had watched me with bulging eyes, from both shock and disbelief. Being on the smaller side, I’d assumed her to be about six years old but, according to the news in the following days, she’d been eight.

  For years afterwards, I’d thought she would have forgotten about the strange being that had flown her and her father back to safety before disappearing into the night. Or perhaps she would have believed that shock had made her invent a mythical figure to explain how they had survived. But when she showed up at The Darkest Hour, soon after its opening nearly ten years ago, I realized she remembered and was committed to tracking me down.

  Then, like now, the instant she had come within range, my mating instincts had awakened, causing my mating glands to become active. Only a female meant to be a Khargal’s life mate could trigger such a response. When I rescued her, twenty years ago, I had no idea that I was saving my Hondassa. As much as I ached to claim her now, to put an end to my loneliness, I’d done everything in my power to keep her at arm’s length. The Prime Directive dictated we keep our existence secret from humans. Anyway, what kind of life would I be able to offer her or our potential offspring? They’d be forever condemned to living in hiding with me, as I’d had to do for the past thousand years.

  But the sigils becoming active changed everything.

  Remaining still on my pedestal, willing my hard-on to subside, proved a torture of Spanish Inquisition proportion. The feel of her hand on my crotch lingered while I watched her inspecting the room, taking measurements, and jotting down notes. As upset as Lana had been, she now cast mocking glances at me whenever Brianna had her back to us. She knew what Brianna was to me and had given me plenty of lip for not seizing the chance to be with her.

  The women finally left, and I rose from my pedestal. I’d only intended to watch the candidates to help Lana decide which one to hire. I simply hadn’t expected Brianna to show up as one of them.

  I should have known, though.

  Indeed, I should have. It always struck me as too much of a coincidence that she would go into architectural engineering specializing in churches and historical monuments. What better place to find and interact with gargoyles?

  The thought of her groping other gargoyle statues the way she had me stirred an irrational anger within me. I knew she hadn’t encountered any other Khargals. I had warned them of her interest in us, and they would have told me had she run into any of them. Then again, seeing how the few of us still alive were scattered all over the world, the chances of her meeting any of them were slim to none.

  I waited a short while before making my way up. Lana would have taken Brianna to the entrance or to her office, clearing the way for me to sneak back to my quarters upstairs. Listening to Brianna talking, I already knew we would hire her. Even without her confidence in being able to deliver on time, I was done avoiding her. The feel of her hands on my body haunted me. I needed more. I would have more.

  Thanks to the sigils reactivating, in a few weeks, I’d be going home. Taking Brianna with me would somewhat bypass the Prime Directive. She didn’t have anyone. Well, she still had her father, but last I checked, they had become estranged over the years. Would she consider leaving her home world to follow an alien being she believed to be a gargoyle?

  Pacing for what felt like an eternity, I waited for Lana to finish with Brianna and come give me an update. Losing patience, I was reaching for my phone to send her a text message when the door to my private quarters finally opened. Despite the amused expression on her face, her eyes held a far more serious glint.

  “She’s a lovely girl,” Lana said. “Still obsessed with meeting you, although she did a good job of not being too obvious this time. She also seems incredibly competent despite her youth.”

  “She did seem talented,” I said noncommittally.

  “When?” Lana asked, the mocking tone resurfacing. “When she was groping you or when she was describing the work that would need to be done before removing the rubble?”

  I glared at her to hide my embarrassment and how the reminder had blood rushing to my groin again.

  “Brianna wasn’t groping me,” I mumbled, wondering why I felt the need to lie in her defense.

  “Really?” Lana said with an eyebrow raised dubiously. “I distinctly recall her hand rubbing all over your crotch.”

  I huffed—although it came out sounding more like a growl—and turned away from her to hide the fact that my boner was rearing its head again. Picking up my perception filter from the shelf of my living area, I pretended to fiddle with it.

  “You saw wrong,” I said, putting an end to that topic. “So, we’re hiring her? Her firm?”

  Lana nodded. “Yes. Brianna is surprisingly efficient. She already had the ball rolling, putting a whole lot of people on standby in case we gave her the
contract. She’s confident the work can begin the day after tomorrow.”

  “Two days wasted?” I asked in protest. “I need this dug up within a week.”

  Lana gave me the ‘stop being such a diva’ look and plopped herself in my black, leather chair in a deliberate attempt to rile me up. She knew I didn’t like it when people sat in my chair. The matching couch, and the stools by the bar, offered plenty of other seating for guests—not that I ever really received any.

  “Relax. Frankly, that’s record time considering she’s also getting us the construction permit,” Lana said. “The poor thing probably won’t sleep for the next 48 hours to get everything ready in time. This is a career-making deal for her. She pulls this off for her firm, you better believe they’ll make her a partner.”

  “For digging out rubble?” I asked, confused.

  “No, silly stone head,” Lana said, rolling her eyes. “For the expansion in the catacombs. It’s going to be a major undertaking, with lots of bragging rights once it’s done… in a few months.”

  “Right…”

  I put the perception filter back on the shelf and flexed my wings. This would indeed be a career-defining project. Would she pick it over me?

  Why in Lar’s name am I thinking about that?

  Okay, she had gotten my glands excited. That didn’t mean she would have any interest in me. We probably had less than a month before I had to leave. That was hardly enough time for us to get to know each other enough for her to make an informed choice. For the first time, I kicked myself for not following Lana’s advice, all those years ago, to seize the day.

  “She will want to meet you once the work is under way to discuss your plans for the various rooms in the catacombs so that she can start working on some layouts,” Lana said in a soft voice.