When Darkness Ends by Alexandra Ivy Page B

would only lead to disappointment.
    â€œMy father will never allow me to remain,” she said, her voice carefully composed. “Besides, I’ll soon be marrying my prince.”
    Levet’s fingers tightened on her arm, his expression filled with open sympathy. “I have learned that trying to live your life to please your family is a certain path to misery.”
    There was something in his lightly accented voice that assured Fallon that he did understand the burden of family duty.
    â€œDid your family want you to wed a gargoyle of their choosing?” she asked softly.
    â€œ Non . They wanted me dead.”
    She sucked in a horrified breath. Good heavens. She thought her father was arrogant and overbearing.
    At least he wasn’t homicidal.
    â€œOh.”
    The gargoyle sent her a wistful smile. “If your father truly loves you, he will want you to be happy.”
    She swallowed a bitter laugh. Sariel didn’t know the meaning of love. At least not the sort of love that humans lavished upon their children.
    â€œHappiness is not valued among my people.”
    â€œThen perhaps you should remain among those who do value it, hmm?” Levet murmured, heading toward the door. “Something to consider.”
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    Enough. Cyn slammed shut the thick book on fey history and rose to his feet.
    He’d spent the past hours in his library, endlessly searching through books, manuscripts, and ancient scrolls in an effort to find hieroglyphs that would match the spell that Siljar had given him.
    So far he’d found precisely nothing.
    Oh. There were a lot of “almost” symbols, mostly fey in origin. But nothing that would allow him to decipher the spell.
    Now he needed a break.
    Grasping the scroll in one hand, he shoved himself to his feet and crossed the antique carpet to step through the door leading into the large study.
    Then, pouring himself a large glass of the blood Lise had delivered earlier, he absently paced across the room to stare at the tapestry that his foster mother had made for him shortly after he’d finished building the castle.
    It was a scene of a glistening white unicorn standing in the center of a flower-filled meadow with a pretty virgin kneeling at his side.
    His foster mother, Erinna, had claimed he needed some reminder of purity to compensate for the debauchery that filled his lair.
    Cyn grimaced as he realized that the female reminded him of Fallon.
    The glorious golden hair. The delicate profile. The essence of innocence that shouted to his jaded soul with a siren’s call.
    His jaw clenched, the growingly familiar jolt of heat blasting through his body.
    The female was rapidly becoming an obsession. Something that hadn’t happened to him since . . .
    Since never, a voice whispered in the back of his mind.
    Polishing off the blood, he set aside his glass with a shake of his head.
    What the hell was happening to him?
    He’d known hundreds of women. Thousands. So why was this particular one driving him bat-shit crazy?
    He was still debating the question when his peace was destroyed by the tiny gargoyle who waddled into the study.
    Usually Cyn took pride in the satinwood furniture that he’d carved with his own hands, and the arched, stained-glass window that refracted the sunlight until it filled the room with a dazzling display of harmless colors.
    Now he barely suppressed the urge to grab the creature by the tail and toss him out of the room.
    â€œWhat do you want?”
    The gargoyle sniffed. “I thought you would wish to know that I completed my duty.”
    â€œYou made sure the rooms are warm enough?” he demanded.
    It was ridiculous, but he couldn’t shake his concern that Fallon might be uncomfortable in his lair.
    â€œI did.” Levet moved toward him, his tail rigid with outrage. “Not that I appreciate being treated as a servant.”
    Cyn arched a brow. “You don’t want Fallon to be kept