Page 109 of Hearts of Stone

“Jade?”

I was obviously actually having that psychotic break I’d thought I was having before, but that didn’t change the fact I needed to help Daniel. Her hand went up to stop me, just as I pressed the unlock gate button.

“Come in, Adam,” I said through the intercom. “We’re up at the main house.”

Chapter 60

Graven

A gargoyle was cursed to be frozen in stone during the day, but sometimes we could push the limits of that curse. Not by moving, not by doing anything, but we would remain conscious, aware of what was going on, despite our static state. Most gargoyles avoided this half-awake/half-asleep state because it resembled too closely the feeling of sleep paralysis humans experienced. You were doomed to watch, to wait, and there was nothing you could do about it, but hope to drop back into sleep.

But not this time.

I stared out across the grounds of The Eyrie, not able to blink for even a second, so that’s how I caught it. This Adam, who wore the face of my friend, he opened the gate cautiously, which was strange enough in itself, but when it became clear it would not hurt him, he…

I had spent so much time tied to this house, at the beck and call of my masters, that I had learned them well. Their quirks, their mannerisms, the tiny tells that alerted me to what I needed to do next, without them even having to verbalise it. So, as I watched Adam walk down the footpath, I saw it instantly.That walk, that cocky stride, I’d seen it before. I hadn’t seen it recently, and I hadn’t seen it when I’d seen Adam at the Whiteley building. But I had been very familiar with it in the past. That slight hitch in his gait from a bad break that hadn’t healed quite right.

Luther Whiteley.

My mind didn’t bother trying to make sense of something that had to be impossible. A body had been removed from Z Ward, blackened beyond recognition, but we’d found his signet ring fused to its hand, the puckered scar on his hip intact. It’d been Luther we committed to the grave, a solemn service that all of witchkind had attended at the time. He had died and the estate had passed on to… My claws flexed, just slightly, the stone grinding against stone, because as he got closer to the house, his blue eyes flicked up, dancing with a hectic light, before he went to the door. Aghast, I watched him school his face to seriousness, saw him put on a perfect mask of concern the moment before Jade opened the door.

She was in danger.

That thought dropped inside me like a stick of dynamite thrown into a lake, exploding out. And all the terrible memories that I’d tried so hard to keep down came flooding through me. Luther had been the worst in a long string of masters that were bad, exploitative or, at best, banal, and now he was in the house with the one woman I loved.

I was going to lose her the moment I’d found her. As I realised it, my heart felt like it was being torn in two inside my stony chest. The pain was all the worse because I could do nothing about it. I saw images of her, over and over, stretched over one of Luther’s many apparatuses, screaming in the same way so many others had. I’d hear the moment her voice broke along with her will, when she just begged him to stop. He lovedthat moment the most, that absolute surrender of hope. Where the one he abused gave up all pretence of fighting him.

Just like he had with Daniel.

That realisation hit me like a blow to the gut, but it was my mind that was reeling, not my body. My entire purpose was to keep my mate and my flock safe and I’d failed utterly. I should’ve seen the signs. Who else would dedicate themselves to ruining human flesh in the same way as Luther? And whywouldthe bastard lay down and die? If he’d found the secret to living forever, he could keep perpetuating all of his sadistic fantasies, over and over until…

Wulfstan.

They wore the same face for a reason and it went beyond the bond Luther had forced upon Wulf. “He must go and I must stay,” the big gargoyle murmured over and over again when he was having a bad night. I realised with horror that somehow Luther had managed to fuse himself with the gargoyle, taking some of Wulf’s strength, the speed, the determination of a gargoyle…

But with none of the limitations we worked within.

My consciousness bucked and reared inside me, commanding my body to relinquish stone and take flesh. Never before had I been needed so acutely. I cursed the first witch for dooming us to watch what went on during the day. I cursed the sun for hanging low in the sky, its glow muted by the shifting storm clouds, but still burning. And, most of all, I cursed myself.

I’d be too late to save my Jade, because the moment we awoke, Luther would take control of us and then the torture would all begin again.

Chapter 61

Jade

“So, you think you know how to find Daniel’s attacker?” I asked.

The house had felt too big, too empty, when I came home, but somehow that was made worse when Adam stepped inside. He didn’t look around himself in wonder at the place, though I guessed that made sense. Perhaps he’d visited here with Ashley, the previous owner of The Eyrie.

“Not going to offer me a coffee?”

That catlike smile, the hard glitter in his eyes, I fought hard to decipher them. Did he actually have information that would help or…?

“Sure,” I said, turning away from him and that made my skin crawl. It felt like turning my back on an apex predator and that’s what started me thinking. He’d accepted that we’d just be friends very readily, but that had been said in public. Had he come here to—? I turned around to scan him more closely, only to find him standing behind me.

“That’s some coffee machine,” he said. “Must be a new one. There was never anything like that in The Eyrie before.”

“When you visited Ashley?” I asked.

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