Heart of Stone Read Online Free

unlike gargoyles, humans tended to land with a splat.
    This one added a thud, then lay still. In the battle between the stones of the terrace and his skull, the stones had predictably won.
    Turning to the woman whose screams had woken him, Kees examined her curiously. Her distress should not have been enough to penetrate his magical slumber and draw him back to consciousness. Only the threat of great, demonic evil unleashed on the mortal world should have done that.
    So what was he to make of this ordinary human?
    She was smallish, the way humans always looked to him, though he judged her even smaller than most, barely a couple of inches over five feet. Her features were soft and even, her lips bow-shaped, her hair light brown and fine. Skin fair enough to glow in the moonlight framed eyes wide and gray with no hint of blue or green to muddle their purity. And in that moment, they stared at him in pure, frozen terror.
    Lifting a hand, he stepped forward. “I won’t hurt you.”
    Even to his own ears, his voice sounded harsh and coarse from centuries of disuse. It rumbled out of him like the growl of a primitive beast, and he cursed himself when her expression filled with panic.
    “You are safe with me.” He took another step, wincing when his thick skin scraped across the terrace like stone on stone. He had regained movement, but he still retained his hard armored shell. It would take a while longer for his skin to soften to something more natural. “I mean you no harm.”
    Briefly, he let himself hope that her silence and stillness meant she intended to listen to him. He had sensed the magic in her; he knew she couldn’t be ignorant of it in the rest of the world. If he could ask her a few questions, she might be able to tell him how she had woken him, what battle he needed to fight.
    Then she spoke, and his hopes plummeted.
    “I have to wake up,” she muttered to herself. “Why can’t I wake up? This is a nightmare. It can’t possibly be real. None of this can be happening. Maybe if I pinch myself.”
    Kees watched, half-impatient and half-confused, as the woman lifted a hand to her opposite arm and twisted a fingerful of flesh.
    She yelped and stared up at him. “Holy shit. I’m not dreaming, am I?”
    In spite of her words, her eyes did have a glazed appearance. Perhaps the man who had attacked her frightened her more than Kees had thought?
    He glanced over his shoulder to see the still-unconscious human slumped where he had landed. He really hadn’t been much of a threat. Then Kees recalled what he remembered of humans from his last awakening and bit back a sigh. Some of them did seem to be as cowardly as field mice.
    “No, this is no dream,” he growled, scowling down at her. He needed to know why he had woken and would prefer to waste no time in finding out. For that, he needed the human awake and aware. “This is, however, a serious matter, and I require answers from you, human. How did you awaken me? Where is the creature I must slay?”
    “Slay?”
    Her squeak even sounded like the noise a mouse might make. Kees sighed. Aloud, this time.
    “Where is the threat, human?” he demanded. When she only continued to stare, he stepped forward once more only to see her expression blank and her jaw drop open. Like the animal he’d compared her to, she scurried backwards and watched him as if he’d grown cat’s whiskers and a hungry expression.
    He made a concerted effort not to swish his tail.
    “As I have said, I am no threat to you,” he sighed, reading her disbelief in her wary and still dazed appearance. “Come, I will prove it. Take my hand.”
    He reached out to her, not even noticing the way his thick, razor-sharp talons caught the moonlight and glinted, looking almost liquid in the silvery light. Almost like they’d been coated in blood.
    But the woman apparently did notice, because her next squeak turned quickly into a full-fledged scream, and she nearly fell over her own feet as she