A Very Levet Christmas (Guardians of Eternity)

He held out a hand, shoving aside his pride as he pleaded for her understanding. “I’ll be back for you.”


She shook her head. “Don’t bother. Even if you succeed I won’t be your queen.”

Icy fear trickled down Damon’s spine. “You don’t mean that.”

“I do.” Her chin tilted to a militant angle. “This is wrong. I won’t watch you follow in your father’s footsteps.”

Damon flinched at the deliberate attack. Gia knew better than anyone how deeply he hated his father.

To be compared to the bastard was the worst insult she could offer.

“Haven’t you always condemned my mother for using emotional blackmail?” he said, his cold voice making her frown.

“This isn’t blackmail.”

“It’s an ultimatum,” he growled. “I do as you want or you’re finished with me.”

She heaved a resigned sigh. “I suppose it is.” With a grimace, she turned and headed across the marble floor. “Go challenge Salvatore. Get yourself killed just because you’re too stubborn to work through your guilt. I’m done.”





Levet watched the interplay between Damon and Gia with a growing sense of outrage.

Mon Dieu. Had the Were lost his mind?

The beautiful young female had done everything but get on her knees and plead for him to stay.

What sort of man turned away such obvious devotion?

Levet abruptly wrinkled his snout, recalling his own lack of female companionship.

Obviously, he was no expert on relationships. And he was beginning to suspect that he never would be.

Most gargoyles might choose consorts for political or financial means, but he would never be capable of such a cold-hearted, calculated joining. He adored women. All women. He would never use one for his own advantage.

He was slowly beginning to accept that he was meant to fly free.

Still, he had seen plenty of mated pairs. They were miserable when they were apart.

Even the cold-blooded vamps were obsessively devoted to their mates.

It was their only redeeming quality as far as Levet was concerned.

“Well, that was . . .” He struggled for the perfect word as the dark mist began to form and the man next to him jerked back to life. “Pathetic. You do realize you are an idiot?”

Damon sucked in a strained breath, his face hardening as he tried to clamp down his emotions.

“You know nothing about my situation.”

“I know that you just turned away a beautiful woman who was begging you to stay and simply be with her.”

“Shut up, gargoyle.”

Levet sniffed, his wings fluttering as the mist thickened. “Not many men can claim a true mate. You are just throwing yours away.”

The Were was rigid, his hands clenching and unclenching as if battling the urge to reach for a weapon.

Predictable. Weres were incapable of sharing a perfectly reasonable conversation.

Levet could only assume that their hormones were unbalanced.

“This is none of your business,” Damon growled.

“Maybe not, but I know a broken heart when I see one.” Levet sent him a chiding frown. “She was devastated.”

The muscle of Damon’s jaw twitched as he gritted his teeth until they nearly shattered. “I will return for her. She—”

“Will forgive you?” Levet completed Damon’s sentence as his words faded away.

Damon grimaced, the raw agony he was trying so hard to disguise flaring through the champagne eyes.

“She has to,” he breathed.

“Non,” Levet countered. “She does not.”

The Were stubbornly refused to listen to reason. “She’s my mate.”

Levet threw his hands in the air. “Then you should behave as a mate. Which means you should put her needs above your own.”

The air prickled with the heat of Damon’s wolf. “They aren’t my needs.”

Levet snorted. He’d allowed his own mother’s disapproval to torment him, although he’d hidden the pain behind a fa?ade of indifference. It hadn’t been until he’d returned to Paris to confront the old bat that he’d at last put the ghosts of his childhood behind him.

Or, at least, he thought he’d put them behind him until tonight....

His tail twitched as he shoved aside the unpleasant doubts that had threatened to ruin his holidays. In this moment it was his duty as a temporary Christmas angel to make Damon see reason.

Surely that’s what Sera intended him to do?

“They might have started as your mother’s needs, but she is dead.” Levet refused to back down despite the wolf ’s furious glower. “If you continue this quest you have no one to blame but yourself.”

Damon cursed, his eyes glowing as his wolf struggled to take command. “Get us out of here.”

Levet gave a click of his tongue. Really, how many times had he told the stupid Were that he . . .

His annoyed thought was interrupted as the mist abruptly thickened to a choking blanket of black. Then with a sickening jolt they were being hurtled through time and space, the speed making Levet’s tail stand on end.





Chapter 4