Dior landed on the roof of Elior’s building and set the werewolf Rune onto the concrete with a sense of relief, stretching out stiff muscles and flapping his wings in order to release the tension held through them. Flying the distance between Wade’s werewolf run and the city whilst carrying a passenger had taken many hours, the additional weight requiring the gargoyles to take many breaks and to rotate their burdens with Charon.
He felt the thump of Etienne’s landing next to him, the griffin depositing the warlock onto the roof surface before taking off again immediately, not wanting to linger when they were so close to home.
The werewolf turned to his mate. “Alright, Al?” He asked anxiously, putting his arm around the pale faced warlock. Alatar had not enjoyed flying at all.
“Now that we are not flying, I will be,” the warlock replied grimly.
Tracking Etienne with his eyes, Dior saw that Blaise and Charon had landed on their balcony with Verity and were heading inside. Good, he thought as Etienne landed and shifted back to man form. For tonight, at least, all his mates would be in their city, in their building, and in their nest. There was a satisfaction to having obtained that much.
“Come,” he said to the warlock and werewolf. “I want to join my mates so let’s see you to Elior swiftly.” He led them to the door into the stairwell, ducking his head through the door. The passageway down was narrow, only just fitting the bulk of his shoulders and wings in gargoyle form, and he grumbled under his breath disliking how it pressed around him.
As he opened the door into the foyer of Elior’s apartment, the armed guards that were stationed on Elior’s door came to alert.
Dior stood a respectful distance off. “They are expecting us.”
One of them knocked on the door and after a moment, Ashlynn opened it.
“Hey, Uncle Alatar,” she grinned widely, leaning against the frame. Through the open door, Dior could hear Elior’s voice rising and falling, interspersed with Theo’s and others that he was not as familiar with.
“Your grandparents,” Alatar said sternly to Ashlynn. “Are less than impressed that you were at their run and didn’t tell them that the gargoyles were coming for me. Neither am I, for that matter.”
“A portal opened, Uncle Alatar,” she pouted. “My mates needed me here. It wasn’t worth starting the conversation, and I didn’t know how long the gargoyles would be caught up sorting out the Nephilim with dad.”
“You didn’t want to give me the chance to escape,” Alatar was not amused.
“That too. We need you,” she stepped to the side and gestured for him to enter. The warlock and werewolf exchanged a look and Alatar sighed heavily before taking Rune’s hand and leading him into the apartment. Ashlynn looked at Dior. “Coming in?” She asked him.
“No,” Dior shook his head. “I am going home. I will come by tomorrow to talk to Elior.”
“Okay. I imagine you have some f-king to do,” her grin was wicked. “Thanks Dior. Good job getting Alatar here.” She closed the door between them.
Dior reached the top of the stairs just as Cael opened the doorway. “I felt the building tremor beneath your footsteps,” the vampire hybrid grinned, holding the door open so that Dior could pass him, the gargoyle taking up all the available space.
“It is fortuitous that we meet,” Dior told the golden-haired man.
“Oh?” Cael let the door close behind the gargoyle and leaned his shoulder against it, crossing his arms and his legs at the ankle. “How is that?”
“My mate Charon does not have your ability with the portals – ”
“Few do,” Cael’s grin widened. “My special ability. Why do you need a portal, stone heart?”
“Charon wishes for his family to be transported to this realm.”
Cael’s eyebrows raised. “You want me to open a portal into enemy territory, so that your mate can slip through, find his family, and bring them back through it.”
“Something like that, yes,” Dior agreed.
Cael explored the point of his elongated canine tooth with his tongue. “It will be dangerous,” he pointed out.
“Yes,” Dior did not like it, but he also knew that Charon’s hopes hung on retrieving his family.
“The portal would have to be open quickly, through, and shut, in order to avoid detection by my people – and they will be on the look out for abnormal portal activity because that is what drew their attention to our realm in the first place,” Cael added.
“Mmm.”
“I would have to go with him,” Cael decided. “And Elior is not going to like that.”
“No,” Dior agreed. He didn’t like the idea that Charon would be going, either, but there was little choice. “I will go, too.”
“No,” Cael was definite about that. “Charon and I blend in, wings,” he pointed over his shoulder at his own. “You only have wings when you are in gargoyle form, and trust me, if you went into our realm as a gargoyle, you wouldn’t pass unnoticed.”
“I could be a human slave.”
“Your size and colouring will still stand out.”
“I can’t send Charon alone,” and Dior did not want to risk either Blaise or Etienne in sending them with him.
“He won’t be alone, I will be with him,” Cael pointed out. The door shuddered. “Oops,” the vampire hybrid took his weight off of it to allow the person on the other side to open it.
“Still here?” Ashlynn looked at Dior in puzzlement and then spotted Cael. “Ah,” she said. “Stop flirting with the gargoyle, Cael. Dior brought Alatar and his wolf here, and they are all elbow deep in plans and need your input.”
“Everyone needs me,” Cael’s smiled was brilliant. “We will talk more tomorrow, Dior,” he said. “We could f-k in the stairwell, my wolf, they won’t know the difference if we are a bit later?” Dior heard him say to Ashlynn as the door closed behind them and the gargoyle chucked as he leapt into the air.
He circled over the city block to observe the changes to the landscape since the gargoyles’ absence. There was heavy vampire traffic in the streets, many vehicles, he noted, and wondered if the increased activity was due to the plans Elior was making with Theo and Alatar.
Several of the buildings’ rooftops had people on them. He flew closer to observe their activity and many stopped their labour and waved. They were building planting boxes, he saw, and the sight pleased him. Word had spread, he thought. Tomorrow, his mates would begin to transport soil and pots to the rooftops to assist the residents in growing their own food.
He would also speak to Elior about releasing the food that the vampire had been hoarding.
And he would speak more to Cael about opening a portal so that Charon could see his family and have them prepare to immigrate between the realms… The last activity concerned him. He knew so little about Charon’s realm that he could not anticipate the dangers involved in Charon returning there.
Something to think of tomorrow, he decided as he landed on his balcony. Tonight, he would enjoy having his mates home.
He shifted into man-form and slid the glass door open, music rolling out at him. Blaise was in the kitchen, digging through their diminishing pantry for supplies. He glanced over his shoulder with a grin. “They are running a bath,” he told Dior.
“And yet you are in the kitchen?” Dior observed.
“Ah, for a moment,” Blaise set a few items onto the bench top. “I just wanted to make sure we had something to eat after.” After held emphasis, and Dior wondered what exactly his mates were up to in the bathroom.
“After?” He asked.
“Well,” Blaise’s eyes turned wicked. “Etienne did promise to show Verity what we could do in our gargoyle forms…”
“Ah,” Dior hardened at the thought. “We will be hungry after,” he agreed.
The goat gargoyle caught him by the hand and pulled him towards the bedroom, his eagerness evident in the jittery energy of his movements. As they entered the bedroom, Dior could smell the steam of the bath, fragranced with citrus. He heard a splash and Verity’s laughter.
Etienne, Charon and Verity had not waited for the bath to fully fill before wading into it. The bath was in the style of the gargoyles, and very different to humans. Instead of a small ceramic tub, their bathtub was sunken into the floor, and easily big enough for three gargoyles in stone-form, or five mates in human-form.
Verity was all but lost in the steam, leaning backwards to wet her hair, her breasts pushing through the mist as she arched back. Etienne and Charon watched from the edge of the bath, Etienne’s hand stroking Charon’s c-ck, the winged man’s sucking on the griffin’s neck, their dark hair mingling and merging. A perfect pair, Dior thought, his mind emptying as the blood rushed to his c-ck.
“It is too hot for us,” Etienne met his eyes. “But Verity enjoys the heat.”
“It is perfect,” their female mate agreed from the water.
“It is not good,” Dior commented. “If you are carrying a cub, Verity, to overheat your body.”
“I am not over hot,” she made her way towards him as he stripped and stepped into the water, grimacing at the heat that embraced his calves. “And do you think it really likely…?”
“We hope so,” Etienne replied. “It will be a blessing to have a cub sired during the first mating.”
Especially, Dior thought with amusement, seeing that Etienne had been the first to seed her after her scent had changed. It did not necessarily mean that the griffin’s seed would have taken, but it did improve his chances.
Verity stroked her hands up Dior’s calves, and he reached down, capturing her waist between his hands, and lifting her up to him for a kiss.
Blaise slipped into the water and gasped, blowing out breaths as he acclimated to the temperature.
Dior stroked his tongue against Verity’s before letting her slip down his body until her mouth was on the right level to take him into her mouth and he groaned as she did so, her hands gripping his thighs tightly.
Blaise lifted her hips and stroked into her, and she moaned, the vibration against Dior making him clench his fingers over the lip of the tiles. Etienne lay himself down on the edge of the bath, and Charon knelt on the ledge leaning over him. Dior was torn between wanting to watch Verity’s cheeks hollow under the suction as she pleasured him, and watching Charon do the same to Etienne.
“Baise-moi,” the lion gargoyle’s head dropped back on his neck, feeling the brush of his hair against his back, as he gave himself into the sensation of Verity’s mouth on him. He saw from the corner of his eye as Charon lifted himself from the water, laying his wet body over Etienne in order to kiss him, his fingers tangling into the griffin’s hair, the press of their bodies and tangle of their legs as beautiful as art, Dior thought.
Or as beautiful as his goat, he added as his attention was drawn to Blaise, the white-blonde man’s head thrown back and his adam’s apple working as he came into their female mate. Dior cupped the base of Verity’s skull in his big hand marvelling at how small she was compared to his male mates, and he groaned as he came into her mouth.
“The water is good now,” Blaise announced as he drew Verity back with him and began to wash her hair. “Hurry and wash, and then we can use the nest to show our mates how gargoyles do it in stone form,” his smile was heavy with lusty wickedness. “Before we eat dinner.”