Forged: The World of Nightwalkers by Jacquelyn Frank Page B

girl. I can take it.” She wheedled himwith a small, teasing smile. It made him laugh and he found himself dropping his guard.
    “I well and truly look like a Gargoyle. As though you might have ripped me from the top of an old cathedral. It’s different for all of us, the way we look, but the one constant is wings. We all have wings.”
    “Wings! You mean, stone wings? How the hell do you make stone aerodynamic?”
    “Wings are wings, and ours are strong enough tae take flight despite the weight of our bodies.”
    “Oh my God,” she said, her jaw dropping open. She was a smart girl. She could easily imagine, he knew, just how strong that meant he was. “So … you’re ugly?”
    “I am,” he said with a grim nod. “And when I turn tae stone I’m worse.” He winked at her and she laughed in a surprised burst.
    “Oh!” She shoved at him slightly. “You’re not ugly and you probably know it.”
    “Aye, but it has been some time since I’ve heard a lass tell me so.”
    She seemed to think on that a moment, her teeth coming to worry at her bottom lip thoughtfully.
    “Why the
h?
In your name?”
    Now this was a touchy topic for him. He deflected instinctively because the answer would only start them down on a wild path that promised to be very painful for him.
    “You first. Why did you quit? Doona tell me ’tis because you’re weird. Why are you weird? What’s so wrong abou’ you?”
    The worrying turned to full blown biting of her lip. He could tell by the volume of pain in her eyes that she had just as much reason for avoidance as he did.
    Stubbornly she stood up and walked away. Ahnvil cursed himself for being cruel to her, but he couldn’t have it any other way. He didn’t want to talk abouthow, once upon a time, he’d had no name. No identity. No value as an individual. Perhaps it was because he’d just come so close to being in the same conditions that he was sensitive to it. But he would not have been made a slave this time. This time he would have died. And they wouldn’t have batted an eye while allowing it to happen. He still had the taste of fear in the back of his throat because of it. A fear that would not be erased until he got back in contact with his touchstone.
    He felt a tremendous urge to trail after her, in spite of his desire to keep his business to himself. The impulse truly surprised him because he was such a close-to-the-vest person. Yet here he was, blabbing about all things supernatural. Although, the horse had already been out of the barn once she’d seen him turned to stone. That and the fact that he was even conscious after so much blood loss.
    But a Gargoyle could only die from massive amounts of trauma, like say a spear to the heart or a transected aorta or the ever charming beheading. Complete blood loss was probably deemed a massive trauma. But he knew he’d come very close to death … or would have if he’d been left out in the storm bleeding to death. The other way a Gargoyle could die? If someone took a wrecking ball to them in statue form. Or damage equal to that. It was every Gargoyle’s worst fear. To be frozen in stone, totally helpless, watching certain death come at them.
    Ahnvil shook the morbid trail of his thoughts away, hunkering down into the bed once again, wincing at the blossom of pain the movement caused. He needed to rest and heal and he needed to do it as quickly as possible. When the storm let up he would have to be on his way immediately. But it worried him, this storm. He had to get all the way to New Mexico, and after a storm airports were bound to be shut down for a while. Normallyhe would fly on his own, but this time he couldn’t. Not without risking permanent being. He could put off being away from his touchstone perhaps a few more days as long as he didn’t turn into his grotesque state. At this point even his stone state was taking a risk.
    And then there was the issue of a compact little beauty with eyes the color of bourbon and