Page 44 of The Maestro's Mates
The gargoyle roared and reality splintered.
Justin clutched onto Sebastian as the very fabric of world around them burst into fragments. Pieces of log cabin fell like shards of glass, first hitting the wooden floor beneath them, and then falling through the newly formed cracks into the abyss below. The shaking unsettled Justin to his core, disturbing and unmooring him. After a minute, the area around them had transformed into an island, a patch of floor surrounded by inky darkness.
As their platform shifted and teetered, Justin squeezed his eyes shut and buried his face in Sebastian’s chest. He’d seen many violent, horrific things in his life, but this was different, this dreamworld of witchy magic.
And then they fell.
Faster and faster they went; the near-absence of air resistance in the dream made it difficult to understand exactly what was happening. Justin kept his eyes closed. He knew if he opened them, it would just be more darkness,and for some reason, that thought was more terrifying than anything else.
The scream bubbled up inside of him as all sense of up or down, right or wrong, was stripped from him. He couldn’t help himself. The sensation of their descent into nothingness was fundamentallywrong. A long yell burst from his throat, ragged and desperate, and?—
He sat up. In bed once again, Justin was still screaming. From above, his gargoyle mate looked down at him. Pavel’s skin was gray once more, his horns showing and his wings outstretched, filling the small bedroom. His head was framed by an utterly shattered and broken window, and the floor was littered with pieces of glass and wood.
The expression on Pavel’s face was a mix of rage and terror, and although Justin was startled at the sight, his shock quickly shifted to care. The gargoyle was frantic, his wings shaking, his claws outstretched but not touching, desperate fear in his eyes.
“I’m here, I’m awake, I’m okay, I’m okay,” Justin chanted as he threw himself into the stone-strong arms of his mate. Pavel didn’t respond, a low protective growl taking the place of any words.
Sebastian sat up as well. He opened his mouth to speak when a loud pounding rang out from the closed bedroom door.
“Sebastian! Are you there?”
The voice belonged to Sebastian’s mother. Linda must have sensed something was wrong.
“It won’t open,” she continued, her voice growing louder and shriller. “There’s no lock on this door—it should open!”
Sebastian didn’t speak, confusion written across his face. Pavel reached out, scooping the tall witch into onemuscular arm and pulling him close. The gargoyle’s grip was tight against the two of them, but Justin didn’t mind, his face pressed against Pavel’s gray skin. His mate’s gargoyle skin was harder than a human’s, but it was smoother, like the cool, solid sensation of polished marble.
“Veronica must have spelled the door,” Sebastian whispered, finally finding his words. “I have to let my mother?—”
Bang! The house shook as the door flew off its hinges and tumbled to the floor with a loud thud. The opposite side was decorated with scorch marks, parts of it alight with flame.
Framed in the doorway stood a woman looking to be in her seventies, and she was every bit the stereotypical witch Linda was not. Her long, silver-gray hair was wild, unruly tendrils framing a weathered but still beautiful face. She wore a purple robe that fell all the way to the floor, and Justin couldn’t tell if it was a housecoat covering a nightgown or if she always dressed like this.
She strode into the room, her hand outstretched, some kind of powder piled in her palm. Reaching out toward Pavel’s back, she blew the dust forward, and fire burst forth. The orange flames licked at the gargoyle’s wings, but he didn’t move, keeping Justin and Sebastian locked tight to him.
“Neve!” Sebastian squeaked, extricating himself from Pavel’s vice grip. “You blew up my door! And you tried to set my mate on fire!”
The older woman took back a step and had the courtesy to look sheepish.
“I… A gargoyle… Linda said?—”
“We heard the window break,” Linda said, stepping in front of the older witch. She wore the exact same blackoutfit as earlier, which had Justin wondering whether she had ever gone to bed. She eyed the three of them. “Neve didn’t know your gargoyle would be here. Neither did I. Or that he would come through the damn window.”
“Veronica found a dream witch. We were trapped.”
As they spoke, Justin stayed on the bed, wrapped in Pavel’s arms. It wasn’t often in his life he felt truly safe, truly protected. He didn’t want to let go of the sensation.
“Where did she find someone with a dream affinity?” Linda asked, her voice dropping. “I know everyone in the northeast who deals with dream spirits. None of them would work with her. They all owe me.”
“Well, maybe rethink that. Pavel managed to break through into the dream somehow.” Sebastian leaned against his chest of drawers, his arms crossed.
“My people have natural resistance to magic,” Pavel said, speaking for the first time in his gravelly gargoyle voice. “I must have been able to extend that to my…them.”
Justin stiffened at the pause in Pavel’s statement. The gargoyle had been tempted to call them his mates but had stopped himself. Did the man not see his very presence here proved they were his?
“I…I’m sorry about flaming you,” Neve said in a shaky voice. She stepped back, hiding almost her whole body in the hall beyond the doorway. “I should…”
“Go to bed, Neve,” Linda said, not even looking at her fellow witch. The woman disappeared into the rest of the house without saying a word.
