Page 52 of Stone Heart
She stepped forward, the air becoming electrified from the powers of the clan members standing before her.
Their clan leader was missing, and Rina knew they would fight to defend their lair and their leader.
“Vikuth, we’ll go with Mackad and Tasux.” A large gargoyle with two horns on his head stepped forward, along with a single-horned gargoyle.
“Copay and Stanor. Rhodack will be told of your fierce loyalty.” Vikuth nodded to the two new gargoyles. “Now go. Bring your clan leader back home safe to his mate.”
The four gargoyles nodded toward Rina before turning away and rushing to the edge of the building. She moved toward them and secured her gaze on the winged warriors as they cut through the air, their large, leathery wings carrying them away from the building.
“We’ll get him back,” Vikuth promised.
She turned to him and nodded. The wind blew her long locks in her face. She brushed them back and glanced at Vikuth. A tortured look lived in his eyes.
“Let’s go back inside. We need to strategize our next steps,” he said.
“Anything we can do, the Fae will help.”
Vikuth stiffened at her father’s words, and his gaze flew to her father who came to stand next to her. A growl resonated from Vikuth’s chest, and his eyes narrowed on the king.
The Fae warriors gripped their weapons and moved to stand next to her father. She shifted to Vikuth and grabbed his arm when he stepped forward. She blocked his body with hers.
He snapped at her father from over her head. “It’s because of you this war has spilled over into our realm. You were careless when you arrived,” he spat.
“We took great cautions coming here,” Khantar snarled. “I was coming for my daughter. There was no way that I would have been careless. We. Took. Precautions.”
Gargoyle and Fae turned to each other. They, just minutes before, had been fighting alongside each other, but now hostility grew amongst them.
“Well, we see that your precautions weren’t enough,” Vikuth bit back.
“Enough!” she cried out, placing her palms on their chests to keep them from moving forward.
Vikuth’s muscles were tense beneath her hand. She had to diffuse the situation. “Now is not the time to fight with each other. We have bigger issues on our hands right now.”
Her eyes met Vikuth’s in a silent stare down.
He relaxed beneath her hand and nodded to her. “She’s right. Our clan leader has been captured, and we need to prepare to get him back and find a way to keep the necromancers from taking over this realm.” He brushed past her father and stalked off.
She shifted her eyes to her father to find him eyeing the other gargoyles who had paused what they were doing during the argument.
“Larina,” her father murmured, turning back to her.
She held up her hand to cut him off. He was just as much to blame for the argument. “He’s right. Somehow the necromancers knew you were arriving.”
“You can’t think that our people leaked my arrival,” he sputtered.
“Keep an open mind, Father. Somehow they knew exactly when you were making your way into this realm,” she said quietly.
His eyes met hers before he looked away. “This was not the way that I imagined our meeting,” he muttered.
“Believe me, I had a hundred different versions of our meeting, but not one of them was like this.” She shook her head and couldn’t help staring out into the sky again, hoping she’d see Rhodack flying back to her. But the skies remained empty.
“Let’s go in. There is much we must discuss.”
The cold,hard ground rushed up to meet Rhodack as he was thrown down by the serpents. He released a grunt and knelt on the ground.
He glanced around, not recognizing the area. He stretched out his wings and stood to his full height. He examined his surroundings, finding himself in the middle of a mountainous region.
“Where the hell am I?” He turned around in a circle to find that the three winged serpents had disappeared from the sky.
