Dior’s hand rested between Verity’s shoulder blades as they began to thread their way through the market. He recognized the gesture from Charon the day before and transferred his grip to Verity’s wrist – he would not have his mate snatched from under his hand as had happened to Charon.
She looked up at him and smiled. “I am not going to run away.”
“It is not you running away that I fear,” he replied. He did not like bringing his mate back to the dingy, bad smelling and crowded place, and even Blaise and Etienne shadowing them did not reassure him.
A group of children ran up, distracting her, their words so fast that they tripped over each other, making it hard to determine the meaning behind their speech. She laughed. “Slow down. Yes, I am okay. Yes, I escaped again from the vampires. Have you seen Charon?” Her eyes searched the crowd around them.
The children scattered, threading through the stalls and crowd, disappearing into the chaos of activity that was the market, as swiftly as they had appeared.
“Hopefully he is still at the hospital,” she murmured, moving forward again, Dior’s grip on her wrist drawing him along with her.
As they moved down the narrow alleyway to the entrance to the hospital and co-op, the children reappeared, skirting around Dior suspiciously, before preceding them into the foyer and disappearing up the stair well.
There was blood on the floor just beyond the doors, and the area was in chaos, the food exchange pushed back to the wall to allow for the triage taking up the available space. The groans of suffering pushed against the walls, echoing in a cacophony of agony, and the smell of stress sweat was bitterly pungent, causing Dior’s eyes to water. Subtly, in the background of the stench, something putrid lingered, the onset of infection, the beginning of flesh turning bad.
Dior released Verity as she began to work her way through the bodies and the people working on them, assessing the injuries. “His ribs are broken as well, be careful when you move him,” she said to someone. “That leg has no blood flow,” she said to another. “I cannot save it, it needs to come off, I am sorry.”
“Verity!” A woman called out looking up at the sound of the healer’s voice. She was covered in blood and used the back of her hand to push her hair back from her forehead. “Charon said the vampires had you.”
“Temporarily,” Verity replied, distracted by the injured. “This one,” she paused by a man and crouched. “There is internal bleeding.” She closed her eyes, focusing her power. “It is salvageable.”
Dior had never seen a healer at work, although he had heard of them. There was glow to her power in use, he noted with interest, that he suspected was only visible due to his Other nature. Her face paled as she healed the man, and she recoiled, her hand against her stomach, and her expression pained.
“He will need his other wounds attended, but the bleeding has stopped,” she said, her voice thready.
Charon appeared in the stairwell door and wove his way through the bodies until he knelt at her side. “Verity,” he murmured, breathing in the scent of her hair without any part of their bodies contacting. “I had feared I had lost you to the vampires.” He pressed some vitamin pills from his secret supply into her hand, along with a bottle of water.
She took the pills with a quick swallow of water and smiled up at him. “I was worried you would try to save me and get caught again.”
“Of course, I was coming to save you,” he said barely audibly. “But I was not intending to get caught.”
“Charon,” she touched the back of his hand. “Thank you.”
His eyes searched hers. “You are wearing the clothing of other men.”
“A long story,” she sighed. “A very long story. I have to heal people. Can we talk about it later?”
“Of course.” He helped her to stand and hovered behind her as she continued through the injured.
Yes, Dior thought watching the other man’s face, Verity was not wrong, the man was hers, his relief and longing raw on his face, though they were not yet lovers from the way the man hesitated to touch her, and the manner in which he kept his touches impersonal.
The lion gargoyle sighed heavily. They were about to become five. He had never heard of it happening before, but it was obviously possible, or they would not be there, with Verity and her protective Charon.
They were going to need a bigger nest.
“You look big and strong,” a woman stopped before him, running her eye up and down him with assessment and non-sexual appreciation. “And not doing anything useful. We could use your help.”
Charon and Verity had been through the injured, and Verity chewed her little finger as she reviewed them, deciding how to distribute her waning energy.
“Verity,” Charon drew her aside leaning against the wall, over the healer. “This man, this Dior…”
“Dior is…” Her eyes flicked to the lion gargoyle. “Dior isn’t a danger to me.” At least, not in the way that Charon feared. “He is here to look after me. He saved me from the vampires.”
“He was here right before they took you,” Charon pointed out. “He could have told them where to find you.”
“I don’t think so,” she assured him. “Dior is not… he is not like that Charon.”
“What is he like, Verity?” Charon challenged her. “He arrives from thin air yesterday seeking you moments before the vampires attack and steal you from me, and now he is here with you under his watchful eye… Are you free? Or does your cage just look different?”
She did something she had never done before, and caught his face between her hands, the gesture far more familiar, far more intimate, than any other they had shared despite sleeping within arms-reach since their escape together. His hands closed on her elbows, a compromise, she thought, on how he wanted to hold her.
“I don’t know,” she admitted. Something she would not say to anyone else, and certainly not if she thought the gargoyles could overhear. By whatever mysterious force it was that defined mates, she had become tied to the gargoyles, perhaps had always been tied unknowing. But whether that connection was another form of prison, she could not tell him, and whether she was dragging him into another cage, along with her, she did not know. “I am sorry.”
“Verity,” his pupils expanded. “I am yours. My life is yours. Where you lead, I will follow.” His thumb caught the tear that spilled from her eye, smoothing it away. “If you tell me to fight for you, now, I will do so. If that means dying, I will do that without regret.”
“Charon,” her heart tightened. “I…” Her face lifted to his, and her hand rested against his chest not in refusal but beseeching. Charon’s breath caught in his chest, the drag of it through his throat heavy.
“Verity,” his voice darkened before his attention shifted, his eyes sliding to the tawny haired giant of a man who passively watched them. “He watches.”
“Hmm,” Verity’s eyes went to Dior. “He does not mean us harm, Charon.”
“Here, pick her up gently,” the woman tugged on Dior’s wrist, to get his attention, gesturing to an injured woman on the ground. He kept his eyes on Verity as he knelt to collect the woman, standing with care. “Second floor,” the woman told him.
“Thank you,” the woman in his arms murmured.
“It is my pleasure,” Dior replied. He paused by Verity and Charon. “I am being used to relocate injured,” he told her. “Come with me.”
“I am okay,” Verity assured him.
“I will protect her,” Charon said through his teeth.
Dior considered him. “You will both accompany me,” he decided. “Verity.” He used his power in his voice and saw both Charon and the healer react to it. Yes, Dior thought as both followed him up the stairs, having four mates was going to be challenging.
He deposited the woman onto a makeshift bed on the second level, and then followed Charon and Verity back down the stairs.
Charon held Verity’s elbow and leaned over her whispering, one eye on Dior. “We can escape them,” he said to Verity.
“Charon,” Verity struggled against the confliction of her position. “Charon… Please. Please. Just… Just wait, until this is done. Come back with us. We will talk.”
“Verity,” Charon murmured. “Talk about what?”
“Will you be helping?” Dior asked Charon as he collected the next patient. “Or just observing?”
“If I am carrying the injured, I cannot protect Verity,” the man replied through a snarl. There was no flash of Other in his eye, Dior noted with interest. His initial assessment of the man as an Other had been wrong. The discovery was surprising, Charon moved like an Other, and not like a human.
Dior wondered what it would be like to have a human in the nest. Would Charon be able to sustain the intense relationship of gargoyles? How would he fit in their dynamic?
“Then perhaps you should carry the injured, so that I may protect her,” Dior suggested. “I am better equipped to do so.”
“And how is that?” Charon bared his teeth in animosity.
“I am a gargoyle,” Dior pointed out. He felt the man he carried shift in surprise, saw the human assess him and then still, not willing to become involved in the dispute between the two powerfully built males.
Charon made a sound of disgust in the back of his throat. “Stone bodies, stone hearts, and stone heads,” he sneered. “I will guard Verity.”
Dior had heard that saying before, strangely said in the same sneering way, he thought, and tried to place where, as he carried the patient up the stairs. When they returned to the foyer, he saw that Blaise had followed him into building and met his eyes across the chaos. Dior inclined his head accepting the goat’s intrusion.
“There is Blaise,” Verity’s face brightened, and she crossed the room to the goat gargoyle, taking his hands in hers and leaning her face up for Blaise’s kiss. The magic of the goat, Dior observed wryly, that so swiftly, despite every inclination, Verity had accepted him as safe. It was not a regard that he, or Charon, shared.
Charon regarded the new arrival scowling, reacting to the competition for Verity’s affection.
“She says that you are hers,” Dior said to him to see what his reaction would be.
“My life is hers,” Charon replied, sliding the gargoyle a look out of the corner of his eye, intrigued enough to enter the conversation but cautious. “I serve her.”
“That is not what I meant,” Dior dangled the statement tantalizingly before the disgruntled man and picked up the next patient. By the time he had entered the stairwell, Charon was in pursuit.
“What do you mean?” Charon demanded.
“How many ways can it be interpreted?” The gargoyle was not going to simply hand the answer to the man. “What do you think I mean?”
Charon remained standing in the stairwell whilst Dior delivered his patient and was not there when Dior returned. Dior whistled cheerfully as he trotted back down the stair well, nodding to people that he passed.
Verity and Blaise were deep into discussion with a small group of humans when he entered the foyer, and Charon lurked in the background, his frown ominous.
“Dior,” Verity called out to him. “This is Dior,” she said to the humans around her. “Dior, this is Sasha, she manages the food co-op, and Thea, her partner. I was just telling them about the rooftop gardens.”
“It is a good idea,” Sasha said. “But it will take a lot to manage. Just getting soil up ten storeys will be difficult.”
“We will bring the bags to the roof,” Dior replied. “It will not be difficult.”
“Maybe not for you,” she chuckled looking him up and down. “I saw you carrying people up the stairs as if they weighed nothing.”
“Ah,” Dior realized that Verity had not told them that he and Blaise were gargoyles. “We will not be bringing the soil by stair, but we will fly it to the roof. We will start with this roof. There are people here to tend it, and a water tank on the roof. We had best hurry, however, as the vampires will be wanting to see Verity after midday.”
“You are joking, right?” Sasha looked from Dior to Verity. “Verity?”
“It is okay,” Verity murmured. “We have a deal with the vampires. They want my blood. In return they will leave me alone. Won’t they, Dior?”
“If they do not, we will kill them,” Dior replied.
“Finally,” Charon muttered. “Something I can agree with.”
“We will take you back to our building,” Dior told Verity. “Whilst we transport the soil.”
“Verity,” Sasha frowned. “I don’t understand.”
“Dior and Blaise are gargoyles,” Verity explained. “Two of the triad that protect this city, and my mates.”