Mord glanced back at the man in his grasp. Blood stained his face, and his breathing was shallow - but it was there. He was alive.
Kami saw it too. “Put him down.” Her touch was warm and insistent.
There were only minutes until Mord would turn to rock. If he didn’t leave, take his place back on the building, he’d be found here. Then what? He didn’t want to leave the man alive, but he also wanted to question him, find out what he knew about the gargoyles and their enemies, why he was hunting Kami.
Kami pressed her fingers into Mord’s skin, nodded towards the ground. “Put him down. I’ll be OK. I know now, and he’s in rough shape. He may not make it, and if he does it will be a long time before he can try again.”
She was right, but setting the human down, not crunching her would-be killer’s throat under his foot was one of the hardest things Mord had ever had to do.
And he had to do it because Kami asked it of him. She’d brought him back to life - he owed her, but it was more than that. He wanted to do it because to do otherwise would cause her pain.
He never wanted anything to cause her pain again.
He set the man down.
Relief washed over Kami’s face, and she smiled. “It’s right. I couldn’t . . . thanks.” And she smiled again at him.
Then she leaned forwards and pressed a kiss to his lips. “Go back to my apartment. I’ll talk to the police, then later ...” She squeezed his arm again, her eyes glowing. “We’ll talk.” She ran a finger along his chin. Mord’s hands rose. He had to fight to keep himself from gathering her to him. He could already feel his skin beginning to harden, his blood to slow. Her magic wasn’t working, or had run out. With the sun, he would return to stone.
Would he wake again? Or was this it? His one chance outside the sorcerer’s curse? He should be happy that he’d had this night with Kami. He could feel the sadness that leaving her was causing him.
Up on the building, perched on the ledge, he stared down at her as he began to lose feeling in his feet. All he could think of was how much it hurt to leave her, to know he might never see her again.
Kami had awakened him more deeply than he’d thought, changed not just his frozen state, but his heart - his soul.
Impossible as it seemed, he loved her.
And the next time he woke might be one hundred years in the future. Or perhaps, he’d never wake again.
Kami spent hours at the accident scene, telling her story over and over, or the one she’d made up. The bowed hood of her attacker’s car was hard to explain, as was the passenger door that Mord had torn off her vehicle. By the time an officer discovered the footprints broken through the asphalt, they quit asking, just shook their heads and snapped photos.
It was almost ten the next morning when she was finally released. The Mason had been rushed off as soon as an ambulance arrived. She’d learned he was alive, but in critical condition. No one would say if they thought he would make it or not.
Kami wanted to get home, to be with Mord.
She hurried inside, but the place was empty. Belatedly, she realized she’d locked the door. He’d had no way in. He must have gone somewhere else to wait, but where?
Realizing exactly where he would go — the only other place he could go - she raced back out of the door without bothering to pull it closed behind her. She wanted to see him. Needed to see him.
Beneath his building, she paused, shielding her eyes from the bright light. He was there, right where he’d always been, in all his gargoyle glory. She smiled. All these people walking by and none of them realized he was alive.
She jumped up and waved to grab his attention.
He didn’t move.
She jumped again.
Nothing.
He wasn’t moving. He wasn’t pretending. He was rock. Solid, hard rock. Just like the lump that had formed in her gut.
She raced towards the building, flew past the doorman who tried to stop her from entering and made it into the elevator. The other occupants stepped back, stared at her. She caught a glimpse of herself in the polished metal doors - hair tangled, eyes wild. She looked like someone who’d missed her meds, someone who believed in gargoyles.
She ignored the thought, darted from the elevator as soon as the doors opened. The room that led to Mord’s ledge was empty. It was easy to get in, to slide up the window and crawl along the ledge.
He was there - beautiful, perfect. She whispered his name, reached out to touch him, and felt a hand wrap around her ankle. She heard a woman’s voice shrieking, a man speaking softly as he pulled her in off the ledge. “You’re fine now. Someone is coming.”
But she wasn’t fine. They didn’t understand. She wasn’t fine because Mord wasn’t with her. She was alone. Again.