Stone Solitude (31 page)

“Well, this is certainly anticlimactic,” she sighed heavily, digging her nails deeper into his flesh. “I expected a fight, a struggle, something that showed your gargoyle strength and protectiveness. I certainly didn’t expect you to roll over and play dead. Perhaps you require motivation to display what it is that makes you a gargoyle, a god among men. Perhaps Daisy would volunteer.”

As her words sank in, breaking through the ice that had temporarily frozen him, a dark smile curved his lips. Straightening his spine, pushing his shoulders back, he ignored the sharp pain in his chest and glared at the bitch. “You touch one hair on Daisy’s head, you’ll see all that I am and more.”

“There you are,” she purred, her eyelids lowering over her black eyes as her pulse fluttered along her neck. Taking a step away from him, a crucial step that left her beyond his reach, she smirked, “Perhaps I should bring the little wolf out here and we could have a little fun with her.”

“Hurt her in any way and I will rip my heart out of my chest with my bare hands and destroy it so you’ll never have your Beloved Osiris,” he growled, his body tensing as it prepared for attack. His fingers curled into the armrests to keep from launching himself at Isis’s treacherous body. There was definitely something wrong with his heart and he had only one chance to take her out before his chest exploded. He was going to make it count. He just wanted to see Daisy one last time.

Tilting her head to the side, she took another step away from him and asked, “You’d take your own life to deny me my heart’s desire?”

“I’m already dead.” Adrenaline was pumping through him now, numbing him to the pain of dying.

She looked at him with pity. “There is a strong possibility you will die, though it will be entirely unintentional.”

“That makes me feel so much better,” he sneered, the weight of loss heavy upon his soul. He could handle death and he would face it with honor and dignity. What he couldn’t handle was leaving Daisy behind to grieve alone.

“You’re a relic of the past, Romulus,” she said, sinking back onto her throne, watching him with renewed consideration. “Did you really think you’d get your happily ever after?” Without waiting for him to answer, she offered, “At least you will not die in vain.”

But he was no longer listening. There was only one thing left that he wanted and if Isis couldn’t give her to him, he’d burn through everything that was within him and kill the bitch. “Where’s Daisy?”

“You would have her witness your death?”

No but he couldn’t leave without saying goodbye. He wanted as much time with her as he could possibly steal, knowing it would never be enough, knowing it would have to be. He hadn’t had enough time with her. An eternity wouldn’t have been enough time.

He didn’t want to fucking die.

“It would have been a kindness to neutralize her as I did the wolves,” she murmured absently, her eyes moving to the side in contemplation as she rested her chin on her fist.

Lowering his lashes, he asked, “What did you do to the wolves?”

“Nothing,” she said, her eyes wide with innocence as a sleeping wolf suddenly appeared by her side. Sinking her hand into the golden brown pelt, she smiled to herself as she said, “I’d never hurt the children of Anubis but I couldn’t have them get in the way. They might have gotten hurt in their foolish quest to protect you.”

“Foolish because nothing could have kept you from fining me, right?” he asked, his eyes on the painfully familiar form of Daisy’s brother. As furious as he was with himself for putting Daisy and her pack in danger, he sighed in relief that they were alright.

“It was a brilliant move to hide behind the wolves,” Isis said, her voice startling him back to the present. “It required a certain level of finesse since I could not use my usual methods of retrieving my Beloved’s body.”

He shuddered to imagine what those methods were. “Why?”

“I told you,” she said slowly, as if speaking to a child. “I’d never hurt the children of Anubis. You may know them better as Cerberus.”

“The three headed dog that guards the underworld,” he muttered, his forehead furrowing into a frown as he stared at Dominic. With all of the commotion in his head, his looming death, it was almost comforting to talk about something so mundane. It gave him time to plan. It would be easier to plan if he knew where Daisy was because no matter what happened, he had to keep her safe. Nothing else mattered if anything happened to her.

“They are neither three headed nor are they dogs,” she said, conversing as if she wasn’t planning on killing him in the near future. “Though, of course, it was an easy mistake to make when dealing with such primitive cultures. Three faced became three headed since it was easier to accept a three headed beast rather than one that had three faces.”

“A man, a wolf, and….” He stalled, his mind drawing a blank as he tried to think of a third. His eyes moved to the large statues of Anubis and suddenly he knew, though he wasn’t sure of the name of the beast that was a combination of a wolf and a man. The classic wolf man from horror movies, he guessed; a beast that looked almost like the statues with the head of a wolf and the body of a man. “A werewolf.”

“Yes,” Isis said with a brilliant smile, nodding her head regally, acknowledging his intelligence. It was surreal to be having this conversation with the goddess as he was dying, especially since he could feel the separation happening within him. His entire body was being ripped apart cell by cell and he knew it wouldn’t be much longer.

“Where’s Daisy?” he panted, his nerves on fire as his heart, his fucking heart, was tearing itself in two and it was killing him.

Her lips pressed together as she stared at him. When he simply stared back, she sighed and said, “She’s been here all along.”

His eyes widened as Daisy appeared in the middle of the room, her eyes the size of saucers as she looked around in utter confusion. Her clothes were rumpled and stained, her hair was falling out of its ponytail and strands were curling around her face, her skin was pale and she was the most beautiful thing in the universe. He wanted to live for her but it was too late and so he would die to protect her and take his fucking heart with him.

With an all-mighty roar, he launched himself at Isis, tackling her and her fucking throne to the ground. From far away, he heard Daisy scream but he had to ignore it as he wrapped his fingers around the bitch’s delicate throat. “Let Daisy go.”

Isis’s eyes sparkled with amusement as she laughed at him, “Oh, my Beloved, I see you so clearly now.”

Roman swallowed the bile that threatened to choke him and he squeezed tighter until her face started to turn purple. Oblivious to the fact that he was about to rip her fucking head off, Isis reached up and tenderly brushed her fingers over his eyes, his cheeks, his lips. Her hand drifted down his throat and over his clavicle, stopping at his heart. As her eyes closed, his heart seized up and it was done. Blackness danced before his eyes and all of his strength abruptly vanished.

In the next moment, he was in Daisy’s arms, listening to her cry and begging him to live. Holding her, breathing her in, he closed his eyes and clung to the moment knowing it couldn’t last. He didn’t even know how he was standing. But Daisy was there and his missing heart beat only for her. “Don’t cry, my love. It’ll be okay.”

“No it won’t,” she sobbed, pressing desperate kisses along his throat, the underside of his jaw. Her fingers convulsed against his back as she held him to her, as if she could spirit them away to safety. If it was day, he could wrap her in his arms and fly them far away. But he was a gargoyle who never should have been born, whose sole purpose was to house the heart of a god. There was no place for him to go, no place for him to hide, that Isis wouldn’t have tracked him down. And in the end it hardly mattered because his heart was no longer his own.

Sinking his fingers into her hair, he gave a gentle tug so she was looking at him, her beautiful silver eyes wet with tears and filled to the brim with misery. “Daisy, I need you to be strong.”

“This isn’t your fate, Roman,” she growled, her fierce soul shining through. “You’re not hers, you’re
mine
. You were created for
me
. Fight this.”

Brushing his thumb over the skin of her cheek, the soft flesh damp with her still-spilling tears, he felt his foolish soul shatter. He was bleeding inside and his strength was already fading but he would be strong for her, only for her. “Daisy, my little flower, I love you.”

His knees gave out as his blood no longer coursed through his body. He held Daisy’s eyes as he collapsed to the ground, taking her down with him because he couldn’t let go. As the world dimmed, he realized Set had lied to him all of those years ago because the heart that once beat in his chest had never belonged to him. But Daisy did. She had brought him back to life, she had taught him how to live, how to love, and he would always love her.

Always.

Love.

Her.

Tears streamed down Daisy’s cheeks as the life drained from Roman’s beautiful eyes and she didn’t know what to do. The faintest trace of a pulse sluggishly beat against her fingers as she pressed them against his throat and only the shallowest breath moved his chest. Wrapping her arms around his body, holding him tight as if she could will him to take another breath, she begged, “Please, Roman, please don’t do this to me. You’re my everything. Roman!”

Distantly, she heard the goddess chanting in a long dead language and rage swept through her. Fire burned in her soul and she wanted to rip the woman’s throat out and bathe in her ancient blood. But if she let go of Roman, if she stopped breathing for him, she’d lose him. Hugging him, rocking him, she glared at the chanting woman and hissed, “What did you do to him?”

“I took back what was mine,” Isis said over her shoulder. Turning around, she faced Daisy with a glowing, triumphant smile. “You see, I found my Beloved’s heart so very long ago but it wasn’t strong enough to sustain him once I brought him back so I placed it in the heart of a gargoyle.”

“
In
the heart of a gargoyle?” Daisy asked, her eyes darting to Roman’s pale face, to his neck where his pulse still trembled. “Roman’s still alive?”

“For now,” Isis said, her eyes dropping to Roman for just a moment. Shrugging her shoulders, she added, “But he’s human now and most likely won’t survive the damage done to his body.”

“He’s human,” Daisy breathed, her eyes flying to Roman, willing him to live with even fiercer determination. If he was human, she could bite him, she could make him a wolf, give him a chance to survive.

If she could bite him.

Please, just this once
, she begged silently, closing her eyes and picturing her wolf in her head.
I haven’t asked anything of you for over ten years but I’m asking now. I’m asking for the most important thing in the world. Please, waken enough to bite him, just bite him. Give him a chance.

“I never wanted him to die,” Isis said softly and yet without a trace of guilt or remorse or regret. “But it was the only way. Besides, the gargoyle wouldn’t have existed without me.”

“Shut up,” Daisy growled, squeezing her eyes shut and concentrating on her wolf.
Please!

One time
, the wolf rasped in a voice rusty with years of disuse.

With a quick cry of triumph, she felt her teeth lengthen, sharpen. Her eyesight sharpened, letting her see every eyelash against Roman’s pale cheeks. Her sense of smell heightened, letting her breathe in the crisp, clean, masculine scent that was all Roman. The smell of pine filtered through the incense filling the Egyptian chamber and she wondered how that was possible. And then she didn’t wonder anything else as she sank her teeth into the curve of Roman’s neck, poisoning him with her bite and giving him a chance to live as a wolf.

If he survived the transition.
God, let him survive
, she prayed as her teeth receded before she had even pulled them out of his neck. His blood lingered on her lips and she closed her eyes, savoring the sharp, metallic taste.

“You would do nothing less to save your love,” Isis continued, watching Daisy with narrowed eyes. “You would risk the wrath of the gods to bring your lover back to life….”

Daisy’s eyes shot open and she stared at Isis in joyous realization. The wrath of the gods! Licking her lips, she forced her gaze to meet and to hold Isis’s black eyes as she bellowed, “Apollo!”