Page 57 of Witches Be Damned

“No. Let’s go.” I pushed her away, marching for Talon’s pickup, wanting to get inside it and drive away.

Raze whined behind me, and the steamroller backed up, then charged forward, flattening my heart again. I cupped my mouth to muffle my scream, knowing it would urge his change, and he would cast Talon aside, injure him, and come for me. Shifters gathered outside at the commotion, and I didn’t want him to frighten them any more than some of them already were.

“Please, Raze,” I whimpered. “Stop. Go back inside.”

His heartbreaking whine spurred me to hurry my pace.

“Are we cool?” Talon asked.

Raze grunted.

“We’ll see you tomorrow, okay?” Talon said.

Another grunt and whine.

“We’ll look after her. Don’t worry.”

Luna and I hit the pickup truck, and I fumbled for the handle, but my limbs didn’t work right, so my friend took the lead, opening the door and ushering me inside. The interior had that new car smell and cushy leather interior. I rolled into a ball and cried. I appreciated that she and Talon gave me the space to grieve as they took off. I never felt more alone and lost in my life. More so than the first time I got transported to the prison.

Sometime later, we rolled into the gated driveway of my old haunt, Nightfire Academy. Water spurted from the fountain, and the gardens were as pristinely manicured as the day I left. Some students read in the garden, other smoked or exercised, and my heart seized, missing my studies and old life. Light streaked into the car when Luna cranked my door open. My heart deadened any sense of nostalgia I might have felt.

Gargoyles perched on the gothic spires, towers, and gables of the European abbey architecture. Some resembled creatures encountered in nightmares—horns, bat wings, demonic faces. While others had the bodies or heads of dragons, lions, and eagles. They blinked and swiveled their heads in my direction, releasing a collective cry, a sound like hundreds of stones tumbling down a mountainside, crashing into each other.

I braced my hands over my ears and hurried out of the truck, standing beside it with Luna and Talon. I glanced up at the entrance to the Academy, where two Tollens flanked the headmaster, escorting him to meet us.

Wings fluttered, and I flinched as stone claws clenched on my shoulder, a solid weight coming to land on me. A beak nuzzled my neck under my ear and a raspy sound cooed at me. The tug of my ear gave away the identity of the gargoyle perched on me.

“Obsidian, is that you?” A question confirmed when I reached up to stroke the raised stone feathers of his head.

My bonded familiar given to me by the Academy, specially trained to reduce my anxiety like a therapy dog would.

“Obsidian! I’ve missed you!” I lifted him off me and cradled him, burying my ruddy, swollen face in his stony plumage, prompting him to go all comfort gargoyle, croaking and rubbing his head into my neck to soothe me.

He nipped at me like he scolded me for leaving him behind. Oh, my poor little gargoyle was as traumatized as I was when they dragged me out in cuffs to a van to deliver me to the Guardians. The feral little guy screeched and drew blood from the usurper headmaster, Kymbal, when they separated us and drove me away.

Something felt different. Was he heavier than when last we met? “Have you been eating too many rocks?”

He croaked innocently and shook his head at my question. I tickled his belly. It didn’t seem larger. I just forgot how he felt sitting on my shoulder.

I turned to Luna, who strode by my side. “Did anyone care for Obsidian since I left? Tell me he didn’t sneak one too many rocks from the garden.” He vomited them up on my dorm room floor when he did that.

Not my room anymore,I corrected myself.I’m a criminal now, going back where I belong.

“He’s been staying with me.” Luna’s warm hand guided me forward. “He’s officially besties with Brimstone and Hellcat.”

Knowing he’d been cared for in my absence and hung out with Luna and Cole’s gargoyles eased the ache in my chest.

A cheeky smile pricked the corner of Luna’s lips. “Though, he gives poor Shelby the cold shoulder. Don’t you?” She poked Obsidian, and he croaked and tucked his head.

I laughed and sniffed at him not befriending Luna’s pet python. “What about Hunter?”

The question sparked a memory of meeting a strange lady in the prison, called Cheyanne, who claimed to be Luna’s cat.

Luna slapped a hand over her forehead. “I forgot to tell you. When I broke the spell the Brotherhood held over this world, Hunter turned into a human.”

“Cheyanne,” I whispered her name.

“You know her?” Luna hurried in front of me and grabbed me by the arms.

---