Page 54 of Stone Temptation
An explosion from behind us swallowed my words. A ripple of force tore through the room, propelling us onto a bed.
He landed on top of me, his face so close to mine, it was as if fate deliberately shoved us into an intimate position. Just like in a Boys Love show.
Whoops! I tripped and now I’m almost on your lips! Cue the music and the staring.
I trembled instead, stomach rolling. “Think I might puke.”
He rolled off me, leaping to his feet. “This is bad.”
The air reeked of burning without the smoke. And the alarm kept shrieking.
A successful attack on a gargoyle tower meant a chimera lived in the uber stronger category of monsters. Successful tower attacks were rare, the last one possibly about three or more decades ago. I wasn’t sure.
If I were under threat, did that mean this was on me?
So not good.
Oh, God. What if someone I’d robbed was out for revenge? Somehow riding a flying monster, really going for burn-the-world levels of vengeance.
Can I puke now?
I sat up, ripping my shirt open a bit as my stress heat spread. Buttons pinged off, bouncing across the floor. A cool kiss of breeze greeting the exposed V of my chest.
Heaven.
Asher transformed into a rocky powerhouse. His skin pebbled before my eyes, gray rock swelling across every inch of him. He increased in height by a foot, tearing his suit. Wings burst from his back, gray, huge, and bat-like, his tail joining them. The gray, ridged appendage with a pointed spear tip curled up behind him, poised to strike.
Much bigger than Seth’s.
Was that a pink crystal bracelet on his left wrist? It’d stretched with him.
“My poor suit,” Asher moaned, casting his amber gaze over me. “Stay there a sec.” He popped his head out of the ruined door to check the corridor.
“Is everything?—”
“Ah, bollocks!”
A hissing sound forced him back, a stone sword manifesting in his hand.
“What is it?” I asked, wishing I was armed.
What about that lamp? Looked meaty enough.
I picked up it, ready for battle.
Crap.
A lizard-like monster with a cone of bone growing out of its jagged yellow scales scurried on four spidery legs toward Asher. An incredibly long, barbed tongue whipped out at him. He jumped to the side, surging forward with a killing, downward swing of his sword.
Goodbye, lizard.
“One down,” he said.
“One? How many are there?”
Four more charged at once. He took them all out, moving with liquid grace, a real professional.
I stood there like a stunned fish, lamp in hand, completely useless, trying to comprehend this unfolding drama. The mark. Everything.