Gargoyle Awakening (Gargoyle and Sorceress Boxset Book 1) Read online

  Gargoyle Awakening

  Gargoyle & Sorceress Tales

  Books 1 - 3

  Lisa Blackwood

  Table of Contents

  Sorceress Awakening

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Epilogue

  Sorceress Rising

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Sorceress Hunting

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Sorceress Awakening (Stone’s Kiss) © 2011 by Lisa Smeaton

  Sorceress Rising (Stone’s Song) © 2014 by Lisa Smeaton

  Sorceress Hunting (Stone’s Divide) © 2015 by Lisa Smeaton

  This is a work of fiction. Names, places, and characters are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned or distributed in any print or electronic form without the author's permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author's rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  Edition 1

  BLURB

  A modern sorceress and her medieval gargoyle protector battle evil and their own forbidden love in this action-packed contemporary fantasy series.

  SORCERESS AWAKENING:

  When Lillian finds herself facing off against other mythological impossibilities, help comes from an unlikely source—the stone gargoyle who has been sleeping in her garden for the last twelve years. In a heartbeat, her ordinary life becomes far more complicated, and if her overprotective, shape-shifting guardian is to be believed, there’s an evil demi-goddess just waiting for the chance to enslave them both.

  SORCERESS RISING:

  Ignorance nearly killed Lillian once.

  That time, she’d known nothing of magic until Gregory, her Gargoyle Protector, awoke from his stone sleep and saved her from demons escaped from the Magic Realm. They defeated the demonic Riven at great personal cost, one that forced them both to hibernate for months while they mended.

  Healed, Lillian wakes to a world greatly changed.

  SORCERESS HUNTING:

  Some victories feel more like defeat.

  Lillian and Gregory may have defeated the demonic Riven, but human authorities are now aware that something equally as intelligent but far more deadly shares their world. To the Avatars’ dismay, this is not just a guns in the woods, boots on the ground kind of hunt. Scientists are spearheading this pursuit, and Lillian and Gregory are their intended targets.

  If that wasn’t complication enough, Lillian’s little brother, Shadowlight, saves the life of a female soldier and now he must hide his pet human from the other fae for her own safety.

  Corporal Anna Makenzie is no pet, but she’ll be the first to admit, she feels fiercely protective toward the lonely young gargoyle, and if anyone messes with the kid, she’ll go full metal bitch all over their ass.

  Sorceress Awakening

  Chapter 1

  Lillian smoothed the oiled rag down the length of her grandmother’s broadsword and frowned at the newly polished blade.

  “He’s stone. Just a damned statue,” she muttered to the empty kitchen. “Stone, nothing more.”

  The microwave’s clock glowed pale green in the dim light. Not really wanting to know the exact time, she avoided focusing on the digits and returned to sweeping the rag across the blade in a rhythmic motion. “I don’t…”

  Need him?

  That was a lie, though, wasn’t it?

  Tension built behind her eyes and little flashes sparked in her vision, promising one hell of a headache in the making. She pinched the bridge of her nose and closed her eyes. It didn’t help.

  The scent of rich, warm coffee reached her a few seconds before the sound of gurgling announced the coffeemaker was finished. Lillian welcomed the distraction. After a few more swipes of the rag, she set the sword aside.

  Polishing her grandmother’s entire sword collection had seemed like a suitable task when she’d jerked awake from a nightmare at some ungodly hour before dawn and couldn’t get back to sleep. Usually, nightmares and insomnia didn’t plague her, but there was something new—a restlessness that reared its head every night just as the stars faded and the first pink tinted the sky with a hint of dawn.

  Only one thing calmed the restlessness—sitting with him, her stone gargoyle.

  All the signs pointed to the same problem. The inability to sleep, polishing her grandmother’s sword collection in the middle of the night, wanting to spend hour after hour with a stone statue under the shadow of her favorite tree, a growing dependence on coffee… Yep, she’d lost her mind.

  The solitude registered heavier now that her hands weren’t busy. Mechanically, she wandered over to the coffee pot and filled the largest mug she could find.

  She was just putting the cream back when she noticed one of her grand
mother’s dog-eared romances sitting on top of the fridge, half-hidden under a pile of junk mail.

  Taking a sip of her coffee, she eyed the romance. It was one of those hormones-take-notice, blush-inducing covers, complete with drops of water cascading down the hero’s picture-perfect chest. Gran always claimed a little escapism never hurt anyone. With a grin, Lillian tucked the paperback under her arm. As an afterthought, she scooped up her cell phone on her way to the back door.

  Outside, the air—crisp with a hint of last night’s fog—greeted her nose. Gravel crunched under her shoes as she walked the twisting garden path. A cedar maze with twelve-foot-tall walls stretched out before her.

  A few feet ahead, a tan-and-brown blur streaked across the gravel path. As she followed the resident chipmunk deeper into the living corridors, her earlier worries fell away.

  Reaching the maze’s middle, she came to a small clearing ringed by upright, waist-high stones. At its center, a juvenile redwood grew strong and proud, dwarfing its surroundings. Ten feet from the tree’s trunk, a stone statue lurked, partially concealed by dense shadows.

  He crouched over his stone perch with a knee resting on the pedestal and his wings mantled around him like a cloak. While his one hand rested on his raised knee, his other arm gripped his side in a rather odd position for a sculpture.

  It saddened her a little, for there was a narrowness about his squinted eyes and a crease in his brow that hinted at pain. Interestingly, he didn’t look beaten. His shoulders were broad, head proud, legs corded with muscle, strength and majesty in his every line.

  “Hello, old friend.” She looked up into his face, with its burly muzzle and curving fangs. His muzzle merged flawlessly into wide cheekbones. Large eyes were hooded by a broad forehead. Crowning his head were two massive horns that curved back and up like an African waterbuck’s. A thick mane of hair flowed in a stony river midway down his back.

  The gargoyle was one of her first childhood memories. At the age of eight, after a near-drowning accident stole her memories, she’d been drawn to the stone statue as if he was pivotal to her survival.

  Lillian had always assumed her strange need to be near him was a result of her childhood trauma.

  She brushed a few spider webs and tree needles from his pedestal. Then, like she’d done since childhood, she climbed up the stand to settle upon the gargoyle’s knee. While he was a little cold and hard, he still made a good chair. She opened the book and leaned back against his arm.

  ∞∞∞

  Lillian jerked awake to the sound of her book crunching against the gravel. Her heel slipped off the edge of the pedestal, and with a desperate grab at a stone arm, she avoided joining her book on the ground.

  “Insomnia… going to break my neck… my own damn fault.”

  She grumbled while she climbed down and hunched over to pick up her book. Straightening, she realized she’d slept half the morning away.

  “I suppose I should get back to work,” she told the stone gargoyle with a pat to his knee. “Goodbye, my old friend.”

  ∞∞∞

  She’d only just exited her sanctuary when she skidded to a halt. A stranger dressed in a gray business suit strolled along the garden path to her left. Hands clasped behind his back, he studied the perennials on either side of him.

  Occasionally, patrons from her family’s spa would wander over into the private gardens, but the resort was closed, undergoing renovations. Besides, this man looked out of place. Alarm hummed through her veins and sweat began trickling down her spine.

  Lillian eased back toward the walls of the maze just as the lone man raised a hand in greeting. The gesture was normal enough. She relaxed a bit and waited for him.

  He’d almost reached her side when she heard the crunch of many feet on gravel coming from the path to her right.

  She whirled around as more strangers emerged from around a big, ground-sweeping magnolia. There were nine of them: five men and four women. She didn’t know them but each person stalked forward with the smooth grace of predators as they arranged themselves in a semi-circle in front of her.

  Lillian backed up, but there was nowhere to run except into the green, leafy corridors behind her.

  The maze, which had always sheltered her from childhood fears, wouldn’t keep her safe from real danger.

  Chapter 2

  The shortest among the group, the man who had first waved at Lillian, stepped toward her. Dressed in a well-tailored business suit, his appearance spoke of money. Yet his shaggy, gray-peppered brown hair was at odds with his otherwise tidy appearance. Other than that, he would have been an unmemorable fellow—from a distance.

  Up close, she could detect the lie.

  Hostility radiated off him in waves.

  “You may call me Alexander.” The short man smiled, but the cold glint in his eyes canceled out any friendliness that might have been there. “My associates will not harm you if you come with us. I have a few questions for you.” He gestured for his people to give her room. All but two of them moved.

  The remaining two, a woman with dark hair similar to Lillian’s own and a big man with a six o’clock shadow, turned their unblinking gazes to the shorter man. Alexander narrowed his eyes and said something too low for Lillian to hear.

  The man in need of a shave backed off, but the woman showed her reluctance by the way she changed her stance without giving ground to Alexander’s command. She turned her feral eyes upon Lillian and tilted her head to sniff at the air.

  Too frigging weird. Time to leave. “I don’t know who you are, but I think there’s been a misunderstanding. Perhaps I can help you find your way back to the road.” Lillian rushed the words together in her hurry. “The gardens can be confusing.”

  “I assure you, there has been no mistake. I can smell your power.”

  I can smell your power?

  With luck, she could ditch the crazies in the maze.

  A breeze picked up and whipped her hair into her face. While she’d fought to clear her vision, she realized she’d missed something. The others looked past her, deeper into the maze, in the direction from which the breeze had come. The woman with dark hair and feral eyes backed away with a hiss.

  First singly, and then in twos and threes, the others retreated from the green cedar walls. Lillian didn’t know what was hiding in the maze, but it couldn’t be much worse than this group of menacing strangers. Even if they hadn’t blocked her path back to the house, instinct demanded she run into the concealing greenery.

  She bolted into the maze’s entrance and ran as if monsters out of her darkest nightmare were giving chase. The first branch of the maze loomed in front of her. She darted to the right. Two more sharp turns and she was well into the intricate maze.

  The others hunted her, crashing through the narrow rows. By the sounds of snapping branches and swearing, someone was trying to go through the walls instead of around them.

  She was nearly halfway to the center before the noise of pursuit started to fade. If fate was kind, her pursuers were now hopelessly lost. Her slight advantage would only last until she emerged on the other side, but it might be enough to escape into the forest. And the lengthening shadows of dusk would give her an advantage in her home forest. If she got that far.

  When she emerged in the center of the maze, she ran past the first ring of stones. She was under the shadow of her redwood by the time a figure raced from another opening. She froze behind the tree. The man didn’t see her and ran toward the path leading out of the maze.

  Damn, he’d be ahead of her now. She hugged the tree trunk while she caught her breath. This wasn’t going well. Think, think, think.

  A movement at the east entrance betrayed another man a moment before he walked into the clearing. He sniffed at the air as he jogged up to the first ring of stones. His eyes locked on her tree. A smile slowly spread across his face.

  He reached the first stone and rested his hand on it. With a yowl, he jerked back. Smoke rose up from the st
one like grease dripping onto the coals of a barbecue. While that was an unusual sight, she didn’t have time to dwell on it.

  Survival first, weird shit later.

  More strangers appeared, spat out by the maze. No one else tried to enter the perimeter of the waist-high ring of stones, even though there was plenty of room between each stone to cross without touching them. A tense silence engulfed the clearing.

  Alexander entered last, unhurried. With his head tilted to one side, he looked from her to the redwood and back again.

  “I’d thought the ones with strength like yours had gone extinct centuries ago.” He said it as if his words explained everything. After another half-dozen steps, he stopped outside the ring of stones. He frowned at them a moment. “Not that it matters. It’s your magic I want. You have two choices: surrender your magic or swear allegiance to serve our cause.”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about, but that handy circle of stones seems to keep you away. Unless you plan on camping out here for the next few days, I think you’d better move on.” She didn’t believe for a minute they’d do what she advised and doubted telling them to screw off would have much of an effect, but maybe if she kept them talking, she’d eventually wake up from this nightmare.

  He smiled, a charming curve of lips, then tilted his head in the direction of the house and his merriment vanished. “That’s a grand house. And these gardens, they’re rather large for just you to take care of. If I wait, I imagine your family will come home soon. Your husband and children, perhaps?” His expression took on a faraway look as if he were thinking about something else. “Or am I wrong? You have the ageless look of all dryads, but perhaps you’re actually very young, newly come to your powers. Is that why I’ve never sensed you? No matter. I’m sure you have loved ones, and they’ll be along shortly.”

  Lillian couldn’t hide in the shadow of the tree forever. As he’d said, her family would return home and be captured by these freaks. Clearly, Alexander wanted something from her. Her magic, he’d said. She didn’t know what he was smoking, but she wasn’t buying. Even seeing the stone smoke when the other man touched it could have been a trick. However, that didn’t mean they weren’t dangerous.

  “I am patient up to a point,” Alexander said. “If you make me go through these stones to get you, my patience will run out before I reach you. Your choice.”