3
The last placeSurah wanted to go was home to be alone with her thoughts. She left the palace, beginning the walk down a tree-lined sidewalk to the airtran, speeding up when she realized the last service was about to run. But her own steps weren’t the only sheheard.
Surah whirled around, finger hovering over the panic button on her wrist unit. “Step out,” she saidsharply.
Her vision wasn’t quite as good as a full-blooded gargoyle, but she saw the black-on-black movement before a male stepped out of ashadow.
“Nikolau?” She stared at him. A dark t-shirt stretched over broad shoulders, pale eyes bright in the moonlight. His perpetually mocking expression set her teeth on edge, and she wondered why women seemed to think him handsome. He was always sneering, pretty cheekbones or not. Why was he following her? One of Malin’s few friends–mostly by default because he was another who’d grown up with the former Prince, and not shunned him ,once he’d left gargoyle society–he still had never likedher.
“You should be more careful,” the male said, voice laconic. “Petru was followingyou.”
She stilled. Niko was the better warrior–sneaky and quiet as a rattlesnake. But he didn’t like human women much, so why bother protecting her? “Why?” sheasked.
He disappeared back into the shadows, not mistaking her question. “For Malin. He should be protecting you himself if Geza isn’t going to do it. Do us all a favor. If you don’t marry Petru, then just leave here. You’re going to cause bloodshed, for one reason or another. And no gargoyle blood should be spilled over ahuman.”
* * *
Surah went to the lab.It was late but that hardly mattered. Entering the small building adjacent to the university where Lavinia taught political studies, the first thing she noticed was the lights were stillon.
She stopped in the bathroom to clean herself up a bit, pulling out her after-party kit so she could clean her mouth and brush her hair–after dunking her head in a faucet of cold water for a long minute, then stepping in the dry clean unit to disinfect and deodorize. She changed the shift dress she knew reeked of Geza’s preferred fragrant blend of weed, and put on a spare outfit and lab coat, glancing at her wrist unit to check the time. She grimaced. Past two am. What lack-life grad student was still working at this time ofnight?
“Hey, boss,” Cole looked up as Surah entered. Surah's assistant was a bit of a fashion rebel with his multi-colored hair and wire-rimmed glasses. She sat down at her station, blindly reaching under the counter to open a mini-fridge stocked with all kinds of things, among them–ah. She felt the shape of the tiny bottle in her hand, pulled it out and unscrewed thelid.
“This is unprofessional and will get you fired,” Surah said as she knocked back the shot of honey JackDaniels.
Cole’s thin, pierced brow rose. “Then why do you doit?”
“It helps me think straight,” she replied without irony. “And it kills a cold before it even starts. Don’t know why people like the taste,though.”
Cole sighed. “Whatever, bosslady.”
Surah rose, wandering to look over Cole's shoulder at his research. “Why are you still at work on a Fridaynight?”
Cole's expression perked. “One of the trials I ran today looked promising. I wanted to go over the data and isolate different variables, so I could account for thechange.”
Hopeful excitement stirred before Surah quashed it under a scientist’s neutrality. “Move over, I’ll take a look. Did you copy yournotes?”
Cole went home an hour later, shoved out of the lab by Surah who reminded him that a tired lab assistant would mean faulty research. Sometime later, Surah transferred herself to her office with a pot of coffee and began going through several months’ worth of reports, tracking minute changes in data to figure out if Cole's luck that day was a fluke or if it could bereproduced.
She must have fallen asleep because the next thing she knew daylight was streaming through the blinds and her body felt a little less strong, a little less... alert. The only indication that as a half-gargoyle she’d shifted from night to day. The only indication she would ever have since she was forever stuck in humanform.
* * *
Every cellin his body ached; it hurt to walk. That it didn’t hurt to step out in the full light of the late morning was an even worse sign. There had been a time that, like any gargoyle, he had to wear thick dark shades in order to protect his eyes. The thin sunglasses he now wore were all that was necessary. The skin of his human form was brown from the sun, not the pale olive-gold of his people, when notshifted.
He waited for the sensor to scan his iris, and didn’t have to wait more than three seconds for the door to slide open, the female computer welcoming him to the facility by title; the privilege of his birthright. Especially when a chunk of the funding for this place came from his family’s personal treasury. Walking through the hallways to the medical side of the lab where Surah treated a few select patients, he saw the humans who worked in the lab behind glass walls. Surah employed mainly gifted grad students–she still didn’t know how to play well withequals.
Entering her office, Malin paused. She was asleep at her desk, hair in a messy braid down her back. Malin’s nostrils flared and he grimaced. She smelled as if she’d been at the palace in the company of Geza last night. Studying her, the rise and fall of her slender back, Malin’s hand balled into a fist. How many times had he thought her asleep and reached out to touch, only to have her wake and turn a red, gimlet eye onhim?
“Surah,” he said quietly, touching hershoulder.
The shoulder twitched, Malin’s hand tensing to keep from stroking the back of her neck. The dress she wore draped a body honed from years of hard physical training–Surah, even more than Malin, had had something to prove as they all grew up. Geza, once slated to become Prince, was assured of his place in life–he wasn’t half-human like Surah or defective, like Malin. Malin knew it was part of the reason he’d fallen in love with her over the long years of watching her grow from girl to woman–she understoodhim.
“I’m awake,” a muffled response came from the vicinity of her folded arms. She straightened a moment later, tugging on her braid as if that would help her wake, slanting impassive night-sky eyes at Malin before looking at her watch. “Huh. You’relate.”
“My apologies. How isGeza?”
Surah sniffed. “Our mutual half-brother ishimself.”
