Page 48 of Gaga for the Gargoyle
“She’ll be helping us out at the hospital during your shift,” Locheran adds.
Her eyes light up, and I can already see all the questions she’s wanting to ask my sister.
Elara is going to hate it, which amuses me to no end.
Once I finish preparing the breakfast burritos, we all eat in silence, savoring the meal and fueling up on coffee. At a quarter to seven, Evangeline leaves for her overnight shift.
I stand at the windows of my penthouse, watching the sun set through the UV protective glass. It’s slow and torturous and, before now, I’ve never cared how fast the sun faded to night.
I’ve been texting Josh and Gary—my human assistants—for updates ever since my kitten left. They’ve been answering in a timely manner, but unease refuses to leave my body. My chest aches with anxiety. As I become weaker, I grow more concerned that I won’t be able to rightfully defend this city if a threat were to arise.
Evil is breathing down my neck.
When the sun’s final ray disappears, Locheran bursts through my door.
“I’ve figured it out,” he says and slams the journal down on the kitchen island. “We need to break Evangeline’s mother out of the hospital.”
“What are you talking about?”
He flips through the pages until reaching an entry halfway through. He taps on the paper. “The story about the woman lost in the woods, lured by the evil that wants to steal her soul. The journal says she falls in love with the sun and is saved from the darkness. I don’t think it meansthe literal sun. When Evangeline’s mother gave her the mark of protection, she told her it would give her light.”
“Evangeline didn’t mention her mother saying this. What does it mean?”
“I don’t know, but I think that mark is going to need to be...activated or something.”
“And we do that how?”
“Again, I don’t know, which is why we need to break out Evangeline’s mother and bring her here.”
I pick up the journal and skim the words. My mind reels, but what Locheran is saying makes sense. I’m not about to question the one and only lead we have to understanding the writings of a witch and seer.
“Do it. Go now.”
“I thought you’d say that. Elara should be with Evangeline now. Thorne will meet you on the hospital’s roof.”
We leave the penthouse and take the elevator to the building’s rooftop. Locheran launches north, heading to the institution to retrieve Evangeline’s mother, and I fly a few blocks away to the hospital. I land on the helipad where Thorne is waiting.
He’s one of my best soldiers and intimidating as hell. He’s got battle scars all over his dark purple body, including one diagonal across his face when a soul-suckingdemon tried to slice him with a warspear. He was sick for months with iron poisoning.
His midnight hair is braided down to his lower back, and he’s as tall as me but with more muscles, which is saying something, because I’m the biggest gargoyle king in history.
Once our human forms are intact, we take the elevator down to the emergency department on the first floor. It’s a busy night and people are everywhere, running around and attending to patients.
“Do you see Evangeline? Or Elara?”
“No,” Thorne grunts. “Do you sense her?”
I close my eyes. Sensing my mate when we haven’t completed the bond is difficult but not impossible. That invisible string that tethers our souls constantly tugs at my heart when she’s not nearby.
“I cannot sense her.” I clutch my chest and fall to my knees. “I actually think I might be having a heart attack.”
Thorne pulls me to my feet and sets me on a chair so as not to draw attention to ourselves.
I’m struggling to breathe.
“She’s...she’s gone. I think they got her.”
Chapter 13 – Evangeline
