“I’m not Alliance—”
“Do you think any of them will care?” Marco pushed off the table, sending it screeching across the tiles. “Yann isn’t the only gargoyle who will be out for your head. Hell, if I weren’t your guardian, I’d be one of them.”
Marco let out a sigh and his grimace softened. He’d likely felt Gabby’s flash of alarm.
“It isn’t safe for you here,” he said, gentler than before. “There is a gargoyle named Vincent who will want to take on the title of elder now that Lennier is gone. He is no friend to the human race, and it would be ignorant to think he wouldn’t try to make an example of you to prove his power.”
Marco’s wolfish sneer appeared even more dangerous in the shadowy kitchen.
“Lennier was the first gargoyle to ever speak with the Alliance. The one who brought peace between us. For hundreds of years he worked to keep that peace. But a new elder means new rules.”
Gabby needed to sit. The chairs at the table were too far away, so she simply lowered herself to the warmed slate around the hearth. Nolan had told her about the gargoyle who had ended the wars between the Alliance and Dispossessed. It had been Lennier.
The kitchen door flew open and cracked against the plaster wall. Gabby leaped to her feet as Nolan crossed the threshold, his broadsword thrust in Marco’s direction.
“Get away from her,” he snarled.
Marco groaned. “Human, relax. My tie to her is stronger than my loyalty to Lennier.”
Nolan lowered the broadsword, if only a few inches. “Will they come here?”
Gabby realized that Nolan had already pieced together what Marco had just explained. The Dispossessed were now her enemy.
“Why shouldn’t they? Sacred ground keeps demons at bay, not gargoyles,” Marco answered. “Luc and I can only protect her so much. She needs to leave Paris.”
A chill darted up Gabby’s spine. “I will not.”
Leave Paris and go where? Running from the mess she’d made wasn’t an option. It would be cowardly.
Marco twisted toward the swinging doors that led into the dining room. “Lady Brickton is coming. I’ll attempt to detain her with the riveting details of our evening’s events.” He started for the doors. “I think we rather got along when we met this afternoon, don’t you?”
Marco didn’t require an answer. He knew perfectly well that Gabby’s mother had detested him. Of course, she’d hired him on the spot when it had been made clear to her that he was going to be as much a fixture to the abbey as one of the actual gargoyles set along the roof.
Nolan sheathed his sword once Marco had left, his hand clasped around the hilt. Gabby crossed the kitchen toward him. She wanted to pry his fingers from the sword and lace them with her own. Kiss each clenched knuckle until he let go of the tension that gripped him.
“I’m so sorry,” she whispered, reaching for his hand.
Nolan stepped aside. “I know you didn’t mean to kill Lennier.”
He didn’t look at her and Gabby pulled her hand back. “No, I mean about your father.”
Anguish cut across Nolan’s face. He didn’t respond, but the muscles along his jaw worked with tension. She thought he might say something about his father. A few of the insubstantial words one was supposed to say in situations like these. Not as if witnessing a father getting killed by a hellhound was a situation one often found oneself in. Still. Nolan only took a deep breath and continued to avoid her eyes.
“Marco is right. You need to leave Paris. And if Grayson knows what’s good for him, he’ll do the same.”
Gabby frowned. “What do you mean? Why would Grayson need to leave Paris?”
When Marco had taken her from the closed-in Daicrypta courtyard, her brother had been in hellhound form. Had she missed something?
Nolan held his spine straight as a rod. “He led those hellhounds to the courtyard, Gabby. He was in league with them.”
A snort of laughter escaped before she could tamp it down. Nolan seared her with an icy glare.
“That’s absurd,” she said. “My brother planted himself in front of Ingrid. He was going to fight that hellhound. He would have if—” She stopped. If Carrick hadn’t thrown himself in the beast’s path.
“Rory said your brother had them under his command. Grayson admitted that it was true.”
Gabby refused to believe it. She shook her head, something hot boiling up inside of her. The innate desire to defend her brother. “There must be a piece missing, then. Something we don’t know. Grayson wouldn’t have put any of us in danger, not on purpose.”