“I did not tell him,” Verity said immediately to Charon.
“She did not have to,” Dior added, before the winged man could say anything more. “Stone bodies, stone hearts, stone minds – it is something I have heard before.”
“Shit,” Charon cursed, edging warily so that the couch was between him and the gargoyles.
Etienne stepped neatly to the glass doors onto the balcony and shut them, baring his teeth at the winged man in a feral grin. “Pigeon dans une cage.”
“I am assuming that is an insult,” Charon replied baring his own teeth. “I can take you, you poorly crafted piece of granite.” He opened his wings, the feathers flaring in their sudden release, the span of them grand, the feathers black as a raven’s. The winged man rocked his head from side to side, releasing his muscles, and took up a defensive position.
“No one is going to fight,” Verity said firmly. “Everyone is going to take a seat on the couch, and we’re all going to discuss this sensibly, like mature adults.”
“Faire ce qu’elle dit,” Dior said firmly to both goat and griffin. Etienne’s eyes flashed green as the griffin considered objecting, and Dior growled, low in his throat in warning.
The griffin subsided, and edged away from the balcony door, sulkily taking the furthest seat from the winged man, with Verity seated at Charon’s side, her hand in his, and Blaise on her other side, the goat titillated by the addition and already eyeing Charon up speculatively.
“Speak,” the lion gargoyle commanded the assembly of his mates.
He looked along the long line of them sitting orderly on the couch, with a sense of smug pride. His many mates, he thought, there was a lot of satisfaction to the sudden growth in number. Soon, there would be cubs too, many, many cubs if they were lucky, to help preserve their waning species. It was appropriate to have many mates to look after their many cubs, he decided.
All eyes looked to Charon and Verity, and the winged man shifted his wings against the couch, searching for a comfortable position seated, before sighing and retracting them so he could lean against the back of the couch, returning their regard with a baleful glare.
Verity sighed. “I am not sure where to begin,” she said when it was evident that Charon did not intend to fill the expectant silence. “I encountered Charon in the bottom of the vampires’ building, where they kept their prisoners.
“Charon was injured… Everyone there was injured, truly. The vampires would use them for blood, but in between they would interrogate them and,” she swallowed heavily shaking her head. “I don’t want to go into it. I healed Charon. He was in the next cage to me. I guess you could say…”
She looked at the winged man, and Charon’s expression softened. “There was an instant connection,” she finished. “Later, when the opportunity came, I freed everyone in that room, but I…” She gestured helpless. “I was really there for Charon.
“We escaped together and found our way to the co-op and hospital. We sort of fell in with them, helping to organize their efforts, and I would heal them, but it was always us and them,” her eyes hadn’t left the winged man, nor his eyes hers. “And then you came Dior, and the vampires found us…”
“Alright,” Dior inhaled through his nose and released the breath heavily. “That makes sense of how you and Charon became connected. But,” he looked at the winged man. “It does not explain why Charon is here.”
“The rules of the game,” Charon replied grimly. “I was felled during battle, and did not make it to the exit point, therefore I am to remain here, a prisoner of war, until the games end.”
“Games,” Dior picked up on the word as Verity had, his tone becoming sharp.
“The games are not voluntary,” Charon looked at Verity as he spoke, his words were for her and not them. “Every year a member of each family is expected to enter or pay an exorbitant fine. If you are the only fighting fit member of your family and you cannot pay to be exempted, you do not have the option to refuse, or you are issuing a death sentence to whoever would be forced to take your place.
“The players gather at the gates,” he shifted his gaze to Dior and his eyes held shadows in them. His experiences had been dark, Dior thought. “And we are given a time period to move from entry to exit point. Where the gates open is randomly set amongst the realms. This year, they have included this previously forbidden realm.
“The purpose of the games is to keep the species in the other realms cowed and under control, but it is also to control our own population. It is really only the poor that fight in the games, the rich pay the exemption and watch.
“The gates open, the players go through them, and whatever the realm presents us as a challenge, we must survive. If we return via the entry point, we as disqualified and dishonoured. If we do not die, but also fail to reach the exit point, we remain where we are until the games conclude, to survive the best we can.
“Once the games conclude, we can return home.” Charon’s eyes returned on Verity’s. “I do not participate in the games out of blood thirst. I am,” his lips twisted wryly. “Or was until I became the only able fighter remaining to my family, an artist. I would prefer to create, then to destroy.”
“When do the games conclude?” Dior asked the most important question.
“When the next games begin,” Charon’s eyes returned to Dior. “And the survivors must join the fight for the exit point of the realm where they are in order to return.”
“Charon intends to return,” Verity said, and there was anger and despair in her voice.
“I have a duty,” Charon replied, his tone regretful and agonizingly gentle, making clear that it would not be his choice to do so. “If I do not return, my fourteen-year-old sister will be my family’s next entrant to the games. She will not survive. It is my duty to survive and return. We are not wealthy, and we cannot pay the fines they require if your family does not represent.”
“Cael knows this,” Etienne murmured to Dior under his breath. “About these games,” he said the word with distaste. “Elior and Ashlynn would also know.”
“And yet, it has not been shared,” Dior agreed quietly.
“A perpetual battle with the winged enemy where our deaths are a sport to them?” Etienne pointed out with a griffin’s clear sight and accompanying pessimism. “All pretence at order and civilization will be lost, people will go insane and tear this world apart in their madness and panic.”
“Where does that leave us?” Dior replied, looking to Charon. An artist, he thought, with amusement. That would be an interesting addition to the nest. And an honourable man, who would fight to keep his younger sibling from having to do so. Yes, he decided, he liked this new mate, and he intended to keep him. “We cannot sustain this war indefinitely without starving our population.”
“That is the point,” Charon replied, his tone grim and his eyes unhappy. “It is known as the cull amongst my people. Its purpose is to deplete all populations to the point that slave races must focus on their survival and not relation, and my people do not rise against our hierarchy.”
“The cull is what the vampires called it,” Verity reminded them, and then her expression shifted, almost at the same moment that Dior scented magic, the metallic stink of it sharp.
He saw Verity’s mouth open on a cry of alarm as a portal opened, and she was dragged within.
Dior roared in outrage that someone would open a portal in his home and seize one of his mates, as Etienne and Blaise shifted into their winged forms, and Charon’s lips peeled back from his teeth in a snarl, but the suction of air cut off as quickly as it had begun, leaving their fury without a target and the couch empty of their female mate.
“That type of magic,” Etienne said to Dior with angry urgency, his colour returning as he shifted back to man-form, the rags of the clothing he had been wearing sifting to the floor, destroyed in the shifts. “It can only be warlocks or witches, powerful ones with perfect control.”
“She has feared her coven since this war began,” Charon told them. “They were pursuing her as a means to gain access to her brother, Ala something. She says he is important in some way, and they want her in order to get to him.”
“Alatar,” Dior filled in the spaces. “She did say that.”
“So, we just need to track down her coven?” Blaise suggested, undaunted. “To bring her back?”
Etienne’s eyes were less hopeful. “They will not want to part with her,” he cautioned Dior. “Until they force Alatar to do what they wish of him.”
“But will he?” Charon looked between the two predator species gargoyles, already having determined the dynamics between the three. “Verity said he is her half-brother, and they are not close. Will he even care?”
“Alatar is a good man,” Blaise assured him soothingly. “He will care.”
They heard the elevator doors ping and then a loud knock at the door. Dior inhaled.
“Vampires.” He recalled Elior’s children, and the phlebotomist waiting in the lobby and cursed. “F-k.” He strode to the door, throwing it open.
“This is ridiculous,” Rebecca snarled at him, but he snarled back with greater ferocity, causing her to recoil. “You cannot -”
“A portal just opened in our home, and Verity was taken from us,” the lion gargoyle told her. “If you wish to end your life, continue that sentence, because I am furious enough to deliver upon that desire.”
“Shit,” she was immediately penitent. “I am sorry, Dior. We will help you retrieve her.”
“Do you know the location of her coven?”
Rebecca was still for a moment, her eyes unseeing. Communicating, Dior knew, telepathically with Elior. After a pause, she refocused on the lion gargoyle. “There is a group within the city that we have been watching,” she admitted. “I can take you there.”
“Very well,” Dior turned and regarded Blaise and Charon speculatively.
“I am not staying behind,” Charon read into his expression.
“You are, by your admission,” Dior pointed out gently. “Not a warrior, but an artist.” Leaving the goat with the winged man would also afford Blaise the opportunity to seduce him.
“My people train from children to be warriors,” Charon replied firmly. “Despite our other inclinations. I know enough to be useful to you. I kept Verity safe for two of this realm’s weeks, despite her being pursued by vampires and her coven.” Whereas Dior had lost her within a day, went unsaid between the men.
“I don’t want to stay behind either,” Blaise added.
Dior sighed regretfully and met Etienne’s eyes. The griffin shrugged. “Very well,” the lion gargoyle conceded.
His eyes went to the balcony as Cael and Ashlynn landed and he huffed a breath at their disrespect. Twice now, the pair had invaded his perch. The first he had brushed off as impetuous youth not knowing proper etiquette, but this second aerial invasion was an affront as they now knew better.
“Before you say anything,” Ashlynn said hastily as she pushed open the glass door. “We know we are not meant to land on the balcony, but Elior told us what happened, and we have come to help in the spirit of the alliance and accord between vampire and gargoyle of this city.”
Ashlynn’s skills as a witch may be, Dior conceded, useful in facing the coven. “We appreciate the offer of help.”
“Hey,” Cael sniffed Charon. “I have drunk from you. You are of my people.”
“Cael,” Ashlynn murmured under her breath her eyes flicking to Charon’s dark scowl, and the protective stance all three gargoyles assumed. “Not a wise conversation topic.”
“On the subject of interesting conversation topics,” Dior said, his eyes on the vampires’ faces. “Charon has just finished outlining the rules of the games.”
He saw Ashlynn pale. Unlike her winged mate, she understood the politics that Elior practiced. “Elior has good reason,” she started, protective of her absent mate.
“We understand,” Dior replied. “But that does not mean we appreciate being left in the dark.”
“You are not supposed to tell the natives the rules,” Cael scolded Charon, still edging around the other man. “Trust an angel to cave upon finding himself a prisoner of war.”
Charon watched the other man out of the corner of his eye. “You are a mutated sacrilege,” he replied. “And should not speak to me about breaking the rules. I know who you are, and I know what became of your family because of your reckless disregard for rules. And now I see you, what you have become – a monster polluted by slave blood.”
Cael hissed, his wings flicking and his lip lifting to reveal his sharp canine and pre-molar teeth.
“Hey,” Ashlynn scowled at Charon. “Slave is a dirty word to us. We don’t use it. And that is my mate that you are talking to. If you don’t want me to let him drink you dry, mind your manners.”
“Ahem,” Dior cleared his throat. “That is our mate that you are threatening, Ashlynn Cohen-Jovil,” he indicated with his head at Etienne and Blaise who had both transitioned to gargoyle at the implied threat.
“Shit,” Ashlynn’s grin was wicked. “And we thought our bed was crowded.”