The Warrior King (Inferno Rising #3) - Abigail Owen Page 0,18
she wrapped her arms around a shaggy white goat with a beard.
“What is that?” Samael demanded.
He didn’t miss the amused smile she hid or how she lowered her lashes over laughing eyes. “This is Vincent Van Goat,” she said without even a snigger. “He’s mine.”
He had no fucking clue what to say to that.
“I found him as a baby. Wolves had killed his mother, and I had to bottle raise him. He couldn’t come with me because this is his home.” She paused. “Though maybe now—”
“I don’t care about the damn goat.”
Vincent, as though determined to change Samael’s opinion, pranced over to him and butted his hand for a pat, his deep-brown eyes soft as though pleading to be loved just a little bit.
Samael clenched his jaw, but almost against his will, he found his hand uncurling to pet the darn thing. “You’re a snack to my kind,” he warned.
“You wouldn’t,” Meira gasped.
His gaze flashed to her. “Of course I wouldn’t—”
At her soft chuckle, he cut off. She was teasing. Meira opened her mouth to say something else but froze as a shadow passed across the window, and then she winced. Samael stiffened, but she hurried to her feet and put a hand on his forearm. Again. This touching-him business needed to stop, or he’d be compelled to return the favor. A betrayal of the man they should be focused on finding.
He went to shake her hand off only to find she wasn’t restraining him but imploring. “Whatever happens next, do not attack, do not fight. Please?”
Attack? The goat wasn’t what was coming earlier? Years of training and instinct had him tensing, ready to fight. “You need to tell me what the fuck is going on.”
Her reticence was turning into a hazard he wasn’t sure he could afford. Her need to protect others with her silence or her help, no matter the cost to her, could also cost him.
She gave him a little shake he’d lay odds she never would have dared before today. “Promise me,” she insisted.
Vincent heaved a sigh.
Samael gazed into Meira’s eyes, which were already starting to darken around the edges, making the whiter centers appear to glow slightly. Her hand did not tremble. Neither did her voice.
She was not afraid.
Samael frowned as realization penetrated his frustration. She was protecting someone. Before he could ask, a large creature burst into the room through the window and grabbed Meira by the shoulders, hefting her off the ground as it flew her across the room.
Samael lurched forward, but he only got a few steps before Meira shook her head at him and he pulled up sharply, despite his dragon going wild inside him. Instinct had taken over, and it took him a full, painful minute to calm the rage. Hands still in hard fists, he finally managed to focus enough to get a closer look at the creature—the back of a winged man, one made of gray stone.
Literally stone. Gargoyle.
He’d heard of them, of course, but he’d never seen one in the flesh, so to speak. Why did Meira bring them to a creature notoriously shy and reportedly of a nasty disposition?
The creature set down, folding his wings behind him with the sound like a stone and pestle, rock grinding on smoother rock.
Vincent gave a happy little bleat and started to prance over, but one look from the creature and he stopped, cocking his head like a dog.
“You brought a stranger to my house?” In the same way dragons sounded of smoke and fire when riled, the gargoyle’s voice sounded like gravel and sand.
Meira grasped the creature’s wrists, less to pry his grip away and more to beseech the thing. At least Samael hoped that was the case. “I’m so sorry, but I had no choice. He’s my bodyguard, Carrick. I need him.”
The word “need” forming on her lips, when talking of him, sent a fire through Samael’s veins. Inappropriate, for too many reasons to count. He shoved it back down deep, his dragon growling low. A sound Samael couldn’t hold on to as it came up his own throat.
The creature didn’t move, and Samael couldn’t see his face. “Something happened?” it asked Meira, ignoring him.
Meira nodded, then her lips twisted. “Do you…mind changing forms?”
Was she afraid of this Carrick in this form? Samael took a step forward, but the gargoyle turned his head to the side, almost owl-like in the movement, eyeing him sideways. Samael stopped, holding up both hands in a gesture of temporary surrender.