The voices grew louder the closer she got to the entrance. Ingrid stopped a good twenty paces from the vine-swathed stone arcades that led into the courtyard at gargoyle common grounds. She’d approached them through the Luxembourg Gardens at an angle, shielding her arrival from any Dispossessed who might be lurking about Luc’s new territory. It was late afternoon, but the sun still had another hour or so before it slid beneath the western horizon completely. Ingrid had hoped no other gargoyles would be about during the daylight hours. In vain, it seemed.
The voices drifting from the courtyard were harsh and insistent, just shy of shouting. The words weren’t clear, however, and she wasn’t sure she should move any closer to make them out.
An arm wrapped around her from behind, bracing her chest, and a hand clapped over her mouth to stifle her scream. A hot mouth pressed against her ear.
“You shouldn’t walk into a lion’s den without a pair of claws, Lady Ingrid.”
Marco released her, and she threw an elbow back to jab him in the stomach. It was like elbowing a brick wall.
“You didn’t have to creep up behind me,” she hissed.
“And you didn’t have to be so predictable,” he replied, grasping her arm and dragging her toward the arcades.
She stumbled through the patchy snow and kept her voice a grating whisper. “But we can’t go in—there are others inside the courtyard!”
“They have already felt my arrival, though not yours.” Marco jerked her to a halt at the first of several stone columns forming the arcades. “I’ll show myself and then make some excuse to leave.”
He pushed her backward until her spine was against the column. “If you move from this spot before then, I will be forced to take you back to the rectory and chain you to your bed for the rest of your life.”
Ingrid would have rolled her eyes had Marco not looked completely serious.
He stepped away and through the arcades, into the courtyard. A moment later, he was greeted by someone with a slick, sarcastic tone. She knew the owner of the voice at once: Vincent, the Notre Dame gargoyle who had threatened to attack her the last time she had been in Hôtel du Maurier’s ramshackle courtyard.
“Ah, the protector of an abomination graces us with his presence at last,” Vincent said.
Ingrid turned her shoulder into the column and pressed a palm against the cold stone.
“You should really improve the company you’ve been keeping lately, Luc,” Marco replied, ignoring Vincent entirely.
Ingrid’s heart beat faster. Luc was right there, on the other side of the arcades. Her fingers dug into the stone and she closed her eyes, forcing herself to remember Marco’s black glare. Remembering Vincent’s unveiled hatred the last time he had looked at her helped as well.
“Because of your demonic human, the fallen angel Axia has what she needs to come here, to our city.” Ingrid opened her eyes. This voice didn’t belong to Vincent. It belonged to Yann, the Chimera that guarded a bridge over the Seine.
“She will reap her abominations, using them to gain control of our territories,” Vincent chimed in. “Unless we act together to put an end to them.”
Arguments burst out, though none of the voices was familiar to Ingrid.
“Dusters are still human.”
“We cannot touch them.”
“Human? They are diseased with demon blood.”
“The Order would wish them destroyed.”
“And if a Duster belongs to one of us? What then?”
This last comment raised a valid point. Marco couldn’t be the only gargoyle protecting a human Duster.
“We’ve already started.” Yann’s words came through the din. “They’ve been simple to kill. We could wipe out Axia’s army within days if we had the Seer or Constantine on our side.”
As if Vander or Constantine would ever give these monsters aid. At least it seemed as if Yann and the majority of the other gargoyles were still in the dark about Vander. That he was a Duster as well as a Seer appeared to be something only Luc, Marco, and Gaston, Constantine’s guardian, knew.
“You will stay away from my human.” Gaston’s command and the unspoken threat attached to it lifted the hairs on Ingrid’s arms. She wondered how many gargoyles were actually inside the courtyard. All of them?
Ingrid shifted her weight, her feet growing cold.
“Unprotected, these abominations are weak.” Vincent again. “They barely know how to use their powers. I’m calling on all of you here to join me and my brothers to end them. Let us take back this city.”
A round of quarrelling followed but was yet again silenced by a single voice.
“We are here to protect humans, Vincent. Not kill them.”
The sound of his silvery voice, smooth yet brutal, spread warmth through her legs and arms and coiled inside her chest.
“And we have agreed Dusters do not qualify as humans,” Vincent returned.
“We have not agreed on anything,” Luc growled.
Ingrid was tired of standing still, of not being able to see what was happening. Holding her breath, she shuffled as quietly as she could around the column. A sliver of the courtyard came into view. She saw the backs of a few Dispossessed, but none she recognized.
“My fellow Dispossessed,” Vincent bellowed, speaking to all who had gathered. “Is this the gargoyle you desire as your elder?”
Ingrid parted her lips in awe as she realized what was happening. Luc was Vincent’s opposition for the role of elder. The Alliance had been saying everything was chaos among the ranks of Dispossessed, and this was why.
“Make no mistake,” Vincent went on. “There are those among us who enjoy their precious humans too much.”
Ingrid eased over another step and finally saw Vincent. He wore the cumbersome, faded black cloak she remembered. He stood with his profile to her, his narrowed glare presumably set upon Luc, still unfortunately out of view.
“This Dog took his human charge and made her his own,” Vincent spit.
A murmur rumbled through the courtyard. Ingrid’s heart stuttered and her mind raced ahead to what might happen next. She’d seen at least ten gargoyles so far. A group large enough to attack Luc and overpower him.
An electrical shiver combed her arms.
“The girl is a Duster,” Vincent went on, blatantly shifting the fear and loathing he’d just nurtured for Axia’s seedlings toward Luc.
The electrical current fed on Ingrid’s anger, on her desperation. It rolled along the slender bones in her hands, and she lassoed it, envisioning a sparking whirlpool at each fingertip.
She would not allow this wretched gargoyle and his supporters to harm Luc. She would not allow anyone to harm him.
“Irindi was mocking the Dispossessed by giving a human-lover an elder’s territory,” Vincent said. “I have waited too long to take it from you.”
He threw off his heavy cloak and his body cleaved through his clothes, tearing out of his human skin. Vincent fell forward, transforming into a creature with the sleek black body of a panther topped by a pair of snow white-feathered wings, and with the head of a large, grotesque pelican. Its wickedly sharp beak was nearly as long and broad as its panther body.
Vincent raked his hooked beak to the side and bounded forward, out of Ingrid’s view. Senseless of any fear, she raced out from behind the column, into the arcades. She ripped off her gloves, her fingertips sizzling with contained energy. Ingrid spotted Luc on the other side of the water fountain. He was still in human form, Marco and Gaston at his sides, and they, along with a handful of other Dispossessed, were staring down Vincent’s advance—until they saw her and the lightning crackling from her fingertips.
Bold blue branches of electricity snaked across the courtyard and wrapped Vincent’s gargoyle form in a paralyzing embrace. His snowy white pelican wings shook and shivered as the electricity pulsed through his body, until Ingrid drew the current back in, closing her fists tightly as she had learned to do, and he collapsed.
She had made it to the fountain’s empty basin and, as she held her electricity in check, realized there were gargoyles on either side of her. Vincent’s gargoyles.
Vincent himself, lying on the gravel, had melted back into his human form. Ingrid turned away from his naked body and found herself face to face with Yann. The Chimera sneered down at her, his black hair, lightly streaked with white, forming half-drawn curtains around his eyes. He’d never been warm or kind, but he had helped her in the past. After spending a few seconds on the receiving end of his hateful glare, she knew he would not help her again.
Luc slid between her and Yann. “She is a human on my territory. You will not touch her.”
Marco appeared at her side and glared at her as murderously as Yann had. He tugged Ingrid behind him, shielding her from the restless group of gargoyles, every last one of them looking ravenous for revenge.
“If you stand with Vincent, leave my territory. Now!” Luc shouted. “I will not follow a gargoyle hell-bent on executing humans. We might have been murderers once.” He slowly stood aside so Yann could pass. “But we aren’t any longer.”
Yann and a few others hovered over Vincent as the Notre Dame gargoyle pushed himself up on shaky arms. They wrapped him in his cloak; his other clothes were in pieces on the ground. Marco continued to shield Ingrid, backing up a few paces as gargoyles began to come toward them, heading for the exit into the gardens. Vincent shook off Yann’s steadying arm and pinned Ingrid with his small black eyes.
“You will be difficult to destroy, but I will see it done.”
She felt childish and weak, hidden as she was. She stepped out as far as Marco’s unyielding grip on her arm would allow.
“Funny,” she replied. “You were rather easy to electrocute.”
Vincent thinned his lips until they were hardly visible and, without another word, left the courtyard for the Luxembourg Gardens.
The moment he had gone, Marco pushed Ingrid away and stormed to the arcades, muttering under his breath. She stumbled, her legs suddenly weak. Her cheeks were hot, as were the tips of her ears. There were still Dispossessed present, staring at her. And, of course, there was Luc.
She turned, spotting Gaston first. Constantine’s gargoyle wore an unreadable expression. He was neither happy to see her nor angry. He nodded toward the few remaining Dispossessed, and they left through the arcades as well.
Marco shouldered past them as they went, coming back toward her, his fury carrying him like a tempest.
“Put these back on.” He forced her hand out and slapped her gloves into her palm. “And stop trying to get yourself killed.”
Ingrid fiddled with the gloves, her hands dampening the soft kid. Marco lifted his eyes and looked into the space over her shoulder. She knew Luc was right behind her.
“I’ll wait in the gardens. Five minutes,” Marco said, before vaulting his thick, dark brow. “And then it’s to bed with you.”
She recalled his threat to chain her to her bed and groaned inwardly. He wouldn’t do such a barbaric thing, of course, but she knew he would punish her in some way.
Ingrid waited until Marco had disappeared before slowly turning around. She realized that she was afraid. It was ridiculous. She had nothing to fear from Luc, yet her pulse leaped and her breath caught in her throat when she saw him. He was as close as Yann had been, less than an arm’s length away. He’d raked back his obsidian hair, and while Ingrid stood speechless, he allowed his eyes to rove over her. They coasted hungrily from her messy chignon to her lips to her neck and bodice and then up again.
“You should have told me where you were,” she whispered.
Luc abruptly moved back, toward the open ballroom doors. “And now you know why I tried to keep you away.”
Ingrid followed, her body shivering uncontrollably. “I’m not afraid of Vincent.”
She knew Luc wouldn’t believe the lie, but it felt good to say it anyway. Of course she was afraid of him. He was an angry, powerful gargoyle, and he’d just made a public vow to kill her.
Luc stopped in the center of the ballroom, underneath the giant chandelier hanging crookedly from the ceiling. He stood motionless on the dance floor, the cracked and stained tiles covered in filth, debris, and mouse droppings. The rotted piano had lost one of its legs and crashed into a tilt; yellowed sheet music lay scattered around it like leaves.
“He wants you dead,” Luc said, his back to her. He wore the same clothes he always had, the loose alabaster linen shirt and tan canvas trousers. He looked the same and sounded the same, and yet there was something different about him. Ingrid didn’t know what it was.
He turned to face her, the fading sun gilding the ballroom in a hazy golden light.
“And he wants me out of the way so he can be elder, unchallenged. What better way to do that than to prove to all of the Dispossessed that I’ve taken a human?”
Ingrid’s stomach bottomed out as she realized what she’d done.
“Oh,” she whispered, pulling back a step. “Oh, no. Luc—”
She’d entered gargoyle common grounds and defended Luc, attacking his opposition with her demon gift. And just moments after Vincent had accused Luc of falling in love with a human. With her.
“I gave him what he wanted.” She buried her face into her palms. “I’m so sorry, Luc. I wasn’t thinking. I heard him firing up the other gargoyles, and I knew they’d try to attack you and rip you apart like what happened to René, and I—”
Tears stung her eyes, and she was glad she’d covered her face. She hated when her lips and chin quivered in the effort to fight off a sob.
“Ingrid.” Luc had come to stand directly in front of her. He pulled her hands from her face, but she turned her head, not wanting to see how disappointed he was.
He brought their entwined hands down between them, level with his hips, and tugged her forward. With his lips at her ear, Luc whispered, “It’s not that I wasn’t impressed.”
She felt the brush of his lips against her earlobe and forgot her embarrassment. She forgot the run-down ballroom and her dwindling time before Marco came to fetch her.
“But don’t risk yourself for me again,” Luc said, his breath hot against her ear. She angled her head toward him, wanting nothing more than his warmth.
“You risked yourself for me,” she said. “By finding me in the park. Coming for me when Vincent could have been watching your every move.”
He sighed, nuzzling her temple before letting one of her hands go. He stepped back.
“Have you healed?” he asked, rubbing his thumb along the center of her palm. “I wish I could know without asking.”
That was what was different about him. He couldn’t sense her. She felt the loss of that connection, too.
“I’m fine now,” she assured him.
He kept hold of her hand as he started walking, avoiding a pile of old sheets in the middle of the dance floor. He kept on toward the grand, Rococo-style double doors that led to the building’s main corridor. She didn’t know where he thought they could go with the few minutes they had left together. Ingrid wanted to follow Luc through the house anyway, perhaps up the stairs to Lennier’s rooms. She wanted to stay with Luc in this decrepit, timeless place while the rest of Paris dealt with Axia’s imminent return.
“What if Vincent is right?” she asked. Luc stopped on the threshold and she continued. “What if Dusters are dangerous? What if we end up belonging to Axia in the end, doing her bidding, the same way Grayson did after she released him from the Underneath?”
Her brother had had moments of clarity when he’d been under Axia’s control. He hadn’t wanted to harm her or Gabby, but he also hadn’t been able to stop himself. What if the same thing happened to her? To all the Dusters?
“You don’t belong to anyone,” Luc said. He seemed to abandon his plan to take her somewhere within the town home and instead stood with her between the open ballroom doors, one of which hung perilously loose on a single hinge.
“Ingrid, you have more power than you give yourself credit for. I saw it just now; we all did. Axia is evil. You … you’re good. She will not win. She will not take you away. You won’t let her, and neither will I.”
Ingrid felt the muscles in his hand and arm go rigid when she tried to get closer to him. He held her back, even though the low burn in his eyes said he wanted something different.
“Marco is coming,” he whispered.
It couldn’t have been five minutes already.
“I need to know something,” Ingrid said, hating that she felt rushed now.
Luc furrowed his dark brow and waited for her to ask her question.
“Vincent accused you of taking a human.” She forced her gaze on Luc to stay steady and not drift away with nerves. “Have you?”
Luc held still. He didn’t smile; he didn’t tilt his head in consideration. He didn’t do anything but hold her gaze and her hand with absolute security. She felt the heat of a blush staining her cheeks, and she didn’t know if it was from the intensity of his emerald stare, the humiliation of having been so forward, or the sudden fear that he was going to break her heart once and for all.
Luc lifted her hand to his mouth and pressed his lips gently against the back of it, as a gentleman might.
She could only part her lips and whisper his name before Marco’s heavy steps echoed through the ballroom. Luc released her hand and drew away, sending one thoroughly annoyed glance in Marco’s direction. See her home safely, Luc’s silent bidding seemed to say, and then he was gone, retreating through the ballroom doors and into the dim corridor.
Ingrid remained where she was until Marco cleared his throat. He said something sarcastic, she was sure, but the effect was lost on her. She could think of nothing, hear nothing, other than Luc’s voice: I have. He’d taken a human. He’d chosen her. Luc loved her still, even without the gargoyle-human bond.
As Ingrid followed Marco from the courtyard and through the arcades, into the quickly purpling twilight, she could not smile, not even with her heart so gloriously full. Because what Luc had just said—what she had just asked of him—could very well get them both killed.