“Do you mean the Dispossessed?” Grayson asked.
She brought her gaze back to him, but it wasn’t as soft as before. “It doesn’t matter. What I mean to say is that you are no hellhound. I’ve faced them before. Real hellhounds. And none of them have ever worked so hard not to kill me.”
Chelle kept smiling. Grayson was taken in by the novelty of it. There was a small gap between her top front teeth that he hadn’t noticed before.
“I think you are more human than you give yourself credit for, Grayson Waverly,” she whispered.
He didn’t know where the courage came from—maybe it was from seeing that adorable gap between her teeth—but he reached up and cradled her cheek in his palm. His hand must have been freezing, because her skin was searing hot. Chelle’s eyes fluttered shut and she parted her lips. If it was an invitation, Grayson wasn’t brave enough to accept it. He wasn’t sure of anything, not with Chelle.
Then it was over.
She tore her cheek out of his palm and batted his hand away. She stepped back and touched her face.
“Chelle—”
“My patrol is over,” she said flatly.
“I’ll walk you back,” he offered, knowing it was absurd. She was the one with all the sharp, deadly objects.
“No!” Chelle shouted, but it was from fright, not anger.
She turned on her heel and sped away from him as fast as she could. Almost as quickly as Léon had fled. Grayson was repelling all sorts tonight: cryptic Dusters, beautiful Alliance, irritated Dispossessed.
Maybe it was time to go home.
Luc approached the bowed roof of the carriage house at top speed.
Where was Dimitrie? He hadn’t heeded the last call to Grayson’s side earlier that week, or the one tonight. He hadn’t shown at the arcades, either, when the mimic had attacked Ingrid. Yes, the danger tonight had been trivial, but it had still curled around Luc’s heart like a fist and demanded that he go to his human’s aid. Was it the angel’s burns? Did shadow gargoyles not feel the same awareness or need?
Luc pleated his wings as he glided through the open loft door. Inside, it was roughly the same temperature as the outdoors. He didn’t care about the cold. His human skin was susceptible, but his scales weren’t. He touched down on the rough floorboards and felt a chiming at the base of his skull.
“Dimitrie?” Luc called before he’d shifted completely. The sound had been a gravelly shriek, though any Dispossessed would understand the goyle language.
“Do I have a surprise for you, brother,” came Marco’s voice from the innards of the loft. His muscled form strode into the moonlight, fully dressed.
Luc’s scales melted to flesh, his wings sinking back into his body and disappearing. He felt the prickling sensation over his scalp as hair grew out, fast as a wave of water.
Luc rolled the loft door shut. “Not tonight, Marco.”
He was in a foul mood. For the last two days Luc had felt like a fool, a feeling he deplored above all else.
“Oh yes, tonight. And every night from this one to the end of eternity,” Marco replied.
Luc grabbed his clothes from the cot where he’d been resting less than fifteen minutes prior and tugged on his trousers.
“You’re being annoying,” Luc said, not caring in the least if Marco thumped him for it. A set of knuckles to the jaw might actually make Luc feel better. He’d been such an ass telling Ingrid about Suzette. He had never told anyone, and he shouldn’t have started with Ingrid. He’d confessed everything, poured out his sins at her feet, and she had nearly been sick. Her sudden nausea had been mirrored within him, climbing up his throat, clenching his stomach. He’d never be able to forget the revulsion she’d felt for him as she’d raced from the carriage into the arcades.
“Just wait,” Marco said with a satisfied laugh. “I’m not saying anything more until—”
White light poured into the loft, drenching every corner with its molten heat. Luc collapsed beneath its crushing weight. Beside him, Marco fell into a relatively more graceful bow, his forehead nearly touching the floor. When Irindi finally spoke, Luc felt her voice reverberate up through his hands.
“It has been decided,” Irindi began, her monotone voice strumming Luc’s eardrums. “A second Dispossessed has been chosen to aid you, Luc Rousseau.”
He tried to lift his head, but it felt locked in place. It was a little late for the big announcement, wasn’t it?
“Dimitrie has been here more than a week,” Luc said.
“I am not aware of any Dimitrie,” she said. “You will share your territory with Marco Angelis. Your human charges are now his as well. Receive him accordingly.”
At Irindi’s words, Luc felt as if the floor were falling out from underneath him.