Hidden by the gargoyle d.., p.1
Hidden by the Gargoyle (Devil Springs Book 3), page 1
Hidden by the Gargoyle
DEVIL SPRINGS
BOOK THREE
C.C. WOOD
Copyright © 2024 by Crystal W. Wilson
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Any similarities to real persons, living or dead, are coincidental.
Contents
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
Epilogue
About the Author
Also by C.C. Wood
Prologue
My heart was pounding in my chest as I packed clothes and toiletries in a bag.
Dax Tremaine was on his way here. For me.
My hands shook and I nearly dropped the bras I was pulling out of my dresser.
For years, I’d wondered how it would feel to be waiting for Dax to pick me up. Only, in my daydreams, he was picking me up for a date. Not because I needed protection from a threat that I didn’t truly understand.
I’d long since gotten used to Aunt Minnie’s premonitions. She saw things that I couldn’t and refused to talk about them.
Like the time she forced me to stay home from a party that I’d really wanted to attend in high school. She was more insistent than I’d ever seen her. We had a huge knockdown-drag-out fight about it. I’d been so angry with her.
Then, the next morning, we heard about a single car accident in the same area as the party was being held. On the road I would have taken to come home. A witch had gotten power-drunk from practicing black magic and crashed into a tree. She hadn’t survived.
I knew then that my aunt had seen my death in that crash. That was why she’d kept me home. Since that day, I almost never argued with her when she had premonitions and asked me to follow her instructions. I trusted her with my life because she’d probably saved it on more than one occasion.
Now, I was about to go home with the gargoyle I’d had a crush on since I was old enough to understand sexual attraction. The gargoyle I’d secretly been in love with for nearly a decade.
All because my aunt had a vision about the blood god sleeping beneath the mountains near our town, Devil Springs. A god that I would somehow awaken with my magic.
Magic that I never thought I would possess, since I didn’t manifest my powers during puberty.
Then, there was the problem of Leona Mansfield, a lion shifter and local businesswoman. For some reason she had a vested interest in this god and his powers, and she would do whatever was necessary to gain access to them, including finding a warlock who would help her for the right price. Edgar Sommerton had never been my aunt’s favorite person. Now, she loathed him because he had agreed to help Leona free the blood god. Somehow, they believed that they could control him and, thus, his magic.
It wasn’t until they kidnapped Sela Ward, the human mate of the wolf pack’s alpha, that Minerva realized what they were trying to do. Only Sela wasn’t human. She was a witch. A powerful one who had suppressed her powers her entire adult life.
Their plan had failed, but Minerva and I knew them both well enough to understand that they weren’t giving up. They were going to find another way to achieve their goal.
Now that Minerva had a premonition of my destiny to wake the blood god, it was only a matter of time before they discovered that I was the key to getting what they wanted.
They had already kidnapped one woman. We both knew they wouldn’t hesitate to do the same to me if they got what they wanted in the end. Which meant I needed to put myself beyond their reach.
Hence, the gargoyle who was coming to pick me up. They were guardians by tradition and nature, which made him the perfect candidate to keep me safe.
“Ally, Dax is here,” my aunt said from the door to my room.
I stuffed a few more things in the bag and zipped it.
“I’m ready,” I told her. The lie sounded almost believable coming from my lips.
Aunt Minnie walked over, cupping my face with her hands. It was strange, really. She was only eleven years older than me, but she had taken on the role of my surrogate mother with ease after my parents died.
"Call me every day,” she said.
“I will.”
“And listen to Dax. He’s been a guardian his entire existence. If he tells you to do something, please do it without question. I want you to be safe.”
“I will,” I answered, barely refraining from rolling my eyes.
She smiled at me, leaning in to kiss my cheek.
“I love you.”
I hugged her. “I love you, too.”
She released me, her golden eyes gleaming. In that moment, she looked so much like my mother that my heart ached.
“Time to go.”
I followed her downstairs, carrying my heavy bag in one hand and my backpack, which held my laptop and purse, slung over my shoulder.
Dax Tremaine stood at the base of the stairs, his huge arms crossed over his chest. His pale skin gleamed in the sunlight streaming in through the windows. His dark brown hair was cut short and close to his scalp on the sides but longer on top. Deep blue eyes that were nearly purple locked on me as I came down.
My knees went weak as I reached the last step and I stumbled. I dropped the bag and landed against a hard chest with an oomph. Two hard hands closed around my biceps, keeping me steady even as my backpack slid down my arm to bang against the back of my legs.
“You okay?” Dax asked, looking down at me with concerned eyes.
My heart raced and a blush rushed to my cheeks because I knew he could probably hear the pounding of my runaway pulse.
“I’m fine,” I said, straightening and stepping away. “Thank you.”
His gaze tracked me as I slung the weight of the backpack over my shoulder and went to pick up my bag.
His hand closed over the strap at the same time mine did.
“I’ve got it,” he said, his voice gravelly like the stone he could turn into at will.
My face heated even more. “It’s okay—”
He didn’t let me finish. His other hand hooked the top loop of my backpack, taking it off my shoulder, and he hefted the duffel bag that held my clothes as though it weighed nothing.
“I’ve got it,” he repeated.
Without another word, he carried them out the door and to the SUV parked in front of Aunt Minnie’s house.
I glanced at her, feeling hopelessly awkward. She smiled at me, her expression reassuring.
“It will be okay,” she said. “Just trust me.”
“I do,” I told her, blowing out a breath.
It was me I didn’t trust. I was nervous enough around Dax the few times I saw him a month. Being around him all the time was going to be much, much worse.
Then again, maybe I would be able to get over this ridiculous crush if I was near him for an extended length of time. Maybe some of his gross habits or personality flaws would come to the fore and I would get over the wild longing that filled me whenever I saw him.
Dax came back to the door and nodded at Minerva. “I’ll text when we arrive at the resort.” His impassive eyes came to me. “Let’s go.”
I gave Aunt Minnie one more hug, taking comfort from her lavender and sunshine scent. Then, I followed him out the door into the unknown.
Chapter
One
The ride was quiet. But that wasn’t unusual when I was with a certain gruff gargoyle.
Since I’d turned seventeen, I hadn’t been much of a talker around Dax. I was always so worried I would say something embarrassing.
As I stared out the window, I remembered the times before I became a teenager and realized that I liked Dax as more than a friend. I’d never been a chatter box, but Dax had always managed to bring me out of my shell just a bit.
When I’d come to Devil Springs at the age of eleven, I’d been in the throes of the deepest grief I’d ever experienced. Both my parents had died in a car wreck. Apparently, all the safety and protection charms in the world couldn’t protect witches from a head-on collision with a drunk driver.
I remembered walking through the days in the fog of sadness and silence, missing my parents so fiercely that I felt as though I was dying.
Minerva had done everything she could to ease my transition but, after six months, I wasn’t getting better.
Until Dax had come over to fix her gutters.
I’d never met a gargoyle before, so the novelty had pierced the cloud of pain hovering over me. Barely.
It was his calm, quiet presence that had eased me. He seemed so strong and big, as though nothing could hurt him. Especially when he’d partially shifted to allow his wings to come out.
He’d asked me to hand him tools as he worked on the gutters. Sometimes, he worke
After he was done fixing the gutters, he’d come back to replace a few of the shutters on the house that had been damaged by a hailstorm and he didn’t have to ask for my help. I would drift outside when he arrived and stay until he left.
Between his quiet strength and Minerva’s gentle and loving efforts, I’d finally emerged from beneath the fog of grief and begun living again.
I’d always felt like I could talk to him about anything, until I reached the age of seventeen and my eyes had suddenly opened to the opposite sex.
My platonic love for him had morphed into something I didn’t fully understand. I felt hot and flushed around him. Tongue-tied. It took me a while to realize that my physical reactions were attraction. Probably because I’d never experienced them before. None of the boys my age interested me. In fact, most of my classmates, male and female, didn’t interest me. Books did. They were my companions far more than the people around me.
Dax had changed toward me then, as well. Which made me even more self-conscious because I knew that he saw my crush and was trying to discourage it as gently as he could.
He kept his distance. He’d never been a hugger, but he would occasionally squeeze my shoulder or tug my ponytail when I was younger. Once I turned seventeen, that all stopped completely. He never so much as brushed against me.
He also didn’t carry on those easy conversations with me as often. And he made sure that Minerva was always within earshot when he was around me.
I wasn’t sure if he was afraid that I would throw myself at him or if he wanted to reassure Minerva that he wasn’t going to take advantage of my sudden crush, but it had been so embarrassing.
So, I’d stopped spending time around him. I made sure to vanish whenever he came over. Or bow out of public conversations with him as quickly as possible.
But my crush hadn’t died.
Even throughout college, my feelings continued.
Now that I had been back in town for nearly two years since I completed my master’s degree, I wasn’t as tongue-tied around him, but Dax made sure to maintain his distance.
We’d never resumed our easy friendship. And, somehow, even nine years later, it still hurt.
“It will be okay,” he rumbled next to me, pulling me from my thoughts.
“What?” I asked, my head turning toward him.
His dark blue eyes glanced at me before returning to the road. “I said it will be okay. I’ll keep you safe.”
He thought I was worried about myself. Which made my face heat. I should have been worried about myself and not lamenting the fact that I hadn’t had the same relationship with Dax for the past nine and a half years.
Clearly my priorities were all screwed up.
“I know,” I replied.
I felt Dax’s eyes on me, but he didn’t say anything else.
Until we came around a curve and saw a maelstrom of black and grey smoke shot through with arcs of purple lightning. It churned above the road in front of us. Edgar Sommerton hovered in the center.
How on earth had he found me? Had he discovered that I was the key rather than Sela?
Dax slammed on the brakes when that purple lightning shot from Sommerton’s hand and tore through the asphalt right in front of the SUV.
The amulet hanging from the rearview mirror flashed with bright white light and an iridescent grid of sparks flared to life over the vehicle.
We were close enough to see Sommerton’s expression and the spiderweb of black veins surrounding his eyes.
My heart slammed once in my chest before taking off in a galloping rhythm.
He was using the blackest of dark magic. The kind of magic that was nearly sentient. It infected the user like a virus, multiplying until its motives took over the witch or warlock. Until their personality disappeared and all that was left was evil.
“Stay in the car,” Dax said.
He sounded completely calm, as though he were going to shoo a herd of ducks off the road rather than face down a warlock who could use purple lightning to fry him with only a wave of his hand.
I opened my mouth to tell him to keep driving, that Minerva’s spell would protect us, but he was already out of the SUV, slamming the door behind him.
I watched in terror as he strode toward the hood of the SUV. His skin took on a light grey cast and his already huge frame grew even larger. Black, leathery wings exploded from his back, arching over his head before extending out to the side.
Thick horns spiraled from his forehead before curving back over his skull.
I gaped at him. I’d never seen Dax shift this much. I’d only ever seen photographs of fully shifted gargoyles, but I knew that he wasn’t completely changed.
But this was still the most I’d ever seen him alter his appearance.
He grew another foot in height and his shoulders widened and thickened, as did his arms and legs. His shirt and jeans stretched until I feared the seams would split, but they miraculously held.
Even from behind, he was a terrifying sight to behold.
Yet Sommerton continued to ignore him, his black eyes locked on me in the car.
Somehow, he knew what I was. That I was the key to waking the blood god.
Then again, I shouldn’t be surprised because the dark magic he was using could be used in many ways. It could augment a warlock’s natural abilities, or it could grant him powers he didn’t naturally have. Like the gift of premonition.
Light and smoke shot from Sommerton’s hands and slammed against the hood of the SUV again. The iridescent grid threw it back toward him.
Sommerton jerked in the air to avoid the ricochet of lightning, his face twisting into a scowl.
Still, he ignored Dax, who was closing in on him.
At least until Dax reached an arm behind his head and into the neck of his shirt. The hilt of a sword appeared in his hand, as though he’d conjured it out of thin air. In a slow motion, Dax drew out a longsword, the blade flashing with brilliant blue light as it cleared his shirt.
My mouth dropped open at the sight. I knew that he wasn’t wearing a sword behind him but somehow, he’d drawn it.
Sommerton’s attention turned to him, and I sucked in a breath as the black and grey smoke thickened around him, swirling wildly. I could no longer see the warlock, but I knew he was gathering for a strike.
I couldn’t prevent the scream that escaped my lips when the violet electricity burst from the maelstrom, aiming right for Dax.
Dax’s skin turned fully grey as the light hit it, absorbing the ferocious attack like dry soil absorbed rain. I gaped at the sight. I’d heard rumors that gargoyles were impervious to magic and that’s why they made excellent guardians, but it had never been confirmed. Gargoyles were nearly extinct, and they guarded their secrets as fiercely as they guarded those that earned their loyalty or paid for their services.
Dax picked up his pace, jogging toward Sommerton as though he had all the time in the world. I watched as Sommerton gathered another sphere of magic between his palms, this one nothing but a shimmering ball of amethyst light with no grey smoke mixed in. It was a huge magical attack, and he was going to hurl it at Dax again.
My heart pounded in my chest as Dax began to run full-out at Sommerton, moving faster than I’d ever seen him.
I held my breath when the warlock drew back and heaved the amethyst sphere, aiming for Dax.
Something shifted inside me, like a door opening, and the overwhelming urge to do something, anything, swamped me, but I wasn’t sure what to do with this sensation. It was like pure energy filling me up from the inside out, swelling until it felt as though I would explode.
Dax didn’t even pause as the lightning crashed into him. He just kept moving, rotating the wrist holding the sword in two circles, as though he were warming up his wrist.
