Julian bounded off the boat. No humans were around, so they’d missed the whole freaking gargoyle show. And that gargoyle, it was moving helluva fast. Already the thing was a mere speck in the sky.
“Leo is up there,” Rayce said, still sounding too confident. “He’ll have the guy in his sights.” But then he shook his head. “Gargoyle. How the hell did that guy get involved in this mess? And how is he even alive? I thought the witches took out the last of them centuries ago. I mean, shit, I remember the old wars…the witches cursed the knights to change. They were shifters not born but made and…” His words stumbled to a stop. “Oh, damn.”
Not born but made. Just as Rose was a vampire who hadn’t been born but made. She hadn’t been created through a bite—but by magic. Just like a gargoyle.
“I think we might have been missing a few things with the Collector.” Rayce wasn’t sounding so confident any longer. “A few other things that good old Leo neglected to mention to us. Like, you know, the fact that the Collector had a gargoyle at his beck and call.”
Julian’s nostrils flared. “We need to track, now.”
“I told you, Leo has sights on them, he has—”
The water erupted to their right as Leo shot up from the waves. A drenched, bleeding Leo. “Freaking gargoyle,” he muttered as he slammed onto the dock.
Rayce closed his eyes and squeezed the bridge of his nose. “Shit.”
“It’s okay.” Julian rolled back his shoulders and let his claws slide out. “I can track Rose. I can always track her now.”
Shock flashed on Rayce’s face. “Oh, no, man, tell me you didn’t. Tell me you—”
“I can always find what’s mine.” He marched toward the small building that waited to the right—Luke’s building, the one the guy used to store their vehicles for use on Key West. Julian unlocked the door with a quick twist of his hand. His motorcycle was waiting inside, exactly where he’d left it when he and Rose had first gone sneaking toward the Pandora. Two other top-of-the-line motorcycles were nearby. And a dozen other high-end cars. “Pick your poison,” Julian said. Then he jumped on his motorcycle. Moments later, he was revving the engine. “And try to keep up.”
***
The stone beast flew to the ground, and his grip never eased on Rose. When he hit the earth, she heard the heavy thud of impact, and she was pretty sure the ground sank a few inches beneath his weight.
Her breath heaved out of her lungs and her heart raced in her chest. She looked up at him, wondering what would happen next. There was only one word for that guy…scary. He was so beyond anything she’d seen before.
He put Rose on her feet. “Don’t…run.” When he spoke, his voice was deep and echoing.
Run? Where was she supposed to run to, exactly? Rose risked a look around—she was in the swamp. No, the Everglades. When they’d flown, she’d looked down and noted the saw grass marshes and mangrove forests—stretching for miles. She’d seen the snaking wetlands. She’d seen the gators. She’d heard the cry of a million insects.
Her captor roared and her gaze shot back to him—only to realize that he’d completely turned to stone. No more weird half-man, half-stone combination. He was pure stone. She inched forward, lifting her hand to touch him because he appeared to be a giant, snarling statue.
Just when her fingers were about to tap against the stone, a man’s hand broke through the statue.
She jerked her own hand back, jumping a bit.
Then his second hand broke free. As she watched, he smashed his way free of the stone. Soon the beast was gone, and a man stood in his place. Tall, muscled, with dark brown hair and blue eyes. And naked. Because, of course, wasn’t that the way with shifters? And this fellow…he was definitely some kind of shifter, just a kind she hadn’t seen before.
“You…didn’t run.” His voice wasn’t quite so thundering now. Still deep but, not beast-mode deep.
“Why would I run?”
He raised one brow. “Because you were just kidnapped by a gargoyle?”
“Is that what you are?” She studied him again. Yes, it fit. “Interesting.”
He grunted. Then he caught her wrist in his hand. “You should have run.”
“But I’m in the middle of nowhere. And I haven’t gotten what I came for.”
The guy slanted a wary glance her way. “What’s that?”
“The others. I’m ending his collection.”
His gaze hardened. “He’s going to end you.”
The words didn’t really sound like a threat. More like a sad fact. The guy even looked sad in that moment. But he was still dragging her through the Everglades. They cleared a particularly vicious twisting path and then…
She saw it. The hidden base. No, not a base, a prison.
“It used to be a government research facility,” he said, his grip hard on her. “Guess it still is…only the research isn’t quite so scientific any longer.”
She counted two armed guards at the entrance to the facility. It was a long and squat building, snaking back toward the tall grass. There was a helipad to the right, and a chopper sat there, its blades still moved gently, as if it had only recently landed.
“I’m sorry,” he said.