"No, I don't, not anymore. I'd like to say it ended when Heikon, the old clanlord, toppled his brother and took over the clan again, a few years ago. But I went on doing the same kind of work for Heikon, for a while. It wasn't as cruel and arbitrary as it used to be, but it was still rough work."
"But you stopped. What changed?" Jess asked, her words breathed out on the salt-scented, flower-perfumed late afternoon air.
"I don't know. Me, maybe. I was sent on a ... a job. There was a woman."
Tessa, the human Heart of Heikon's hoard, who was believed to be a traitor and part of the original ring of conspirators. He had been sent to bring her back if possible, or kill her if not.
He hadn't realized, at first, that she was so young. He kept forgetting humans were not as long-lived as dragons. No one told him that she had been just a child when his old clanlord was ousted.
And once he understood, what difference should it have made? Honor was everything to dragons. His clan had been betrayed. Those who had betrayed it should pay.
But Tessa was innocent.
"Did you have to ..." Jess whispered.
"No, no. We found another way. She's fine. She's on good terms with my clan these days, even. But that was the last job I went on. After that, I found reasons to stay at home. Guarding the nursery from enemies was much more my speed. I really enjoyed taking care of the kids."
And he missed them, suddenly and fiercely, the tickling claws of baby dragons and their chubby-armed hugs when they shifted back to human kids.
He rested his cheek against her hair.
"You asked what I want out of life," he said into the lightly perfumed cloud of her soft brown curls. "I think what I want is a home. I don't want to fight any more, unless I have to, to defend the place and the people that are mine. I honestly think I'd love nothing in the world more than being a stay-at-home dad, with at least two or three kids. Does that sound completely insane?"
"Not at all," Jess murmured back. Her body was warm against his, and with her arms around him, he felt like he could breathe a little more easily. "I think it makes all the sense in the world, after what you've been through."
"What about you?" He managed a little laugh, and found that he actually felt warmer and lighter. It felt like he had opened up a wound and purged a toxin that had been leaking poison into his bloodstream for years. It hurt, in a very different way than the stone poisoning, but it also felt good to have it out. "I've been dominating the conversation here. What do you want out of life?"
"A nice little library or bookstore to manage," Jess said promptly. "As for a family, I—I always sort of thought ..." She hesitated. "I never really wanted to want it that much. I figured there was a good chance that whatever's wrong with me is hereditary, and—"
"There's nothing at all wrong with you, Jess."
"You know what I mean," she said into his neck. "The gargoyle thing. It's not just that I didn't want to pass it to my kids, but I also figured it would make it impossible to have a serious long-term relationship. Now I just feel like maybe some part of me knew I was waiting for the right one."
The right one. His dragon nestled into that idea as if it was hoarding the words, curling around them and keeping them safe.
Reive had never found the one right thing to hoard, the thing that would make his dragon want to acquire everything in the world of that one thing and curl up in it. But now he thought that if he'd ever hoarded anything, Jess's love could be that thing. He would like to gather up every word, every glance, every stray touch, and store them all safely in his heart.
"I think that's exactly it," he said into her hair. "Some part of you just knows." He took a deep breath, breathing in her scent. "And ... about a family, about not wanting kids ... do you still feel that way?" he ventured.
"It's not that I don't want kids," she said, and there was an undercurrent of frustration in her voice. "I always wanted kids. I just couldn't let myself want kids. Now, I—" She broke off. "Reive?"
There was a note of alarm in her voice.
Reive was alarmed too; he just couldn't get the breath to say anything. The growing shortness of breath that had been worsening all day was suddenly acute. His heart felt like it was trying to batter its way out of his chest.
"Reive!" Jess sounded outright panicked now.
There was darkness creeping into the edges of his vision. No, he thought, not now! He was so close, they were so close to finding a cure.
He groped for Jess with his good hand, and felt her hand close around his, the fingers lacing through his and holding on tight as she pulled him against her.
"Reive—Reive, no, hang on. Reive!"
Her desperate voice crying his name was the last thing he heard.
Jess
"Reive!"
The word was torn from her throat in a despairing cry. Jess clutched at him wildly, bearing him down to the ground in a semi-controlled fall.
They were just talking—about kids, about the future—when he started gasping, went pale, and passed out. For a terrible moment it seemed to her that he stopped breathing entirely. Then he sucked in a breath, and kept breathing, but it was shallow and labored.
"Help!" she shouted. "Someone! Mace! Anyone! Help me!"
She was too high above the village for anyone to hear her. The only answers were the lonely cries of gulls overhead.
"Reive, no," she muttered. "Not like this. We're going to fix you. Your job is to hold on and give us a chance."
She pulled his shirt back, exposing his torso, and choked in shock and horror. The creeping petrification had covered nearly his entire chest and rib cage now. No wonder he was having trouble breathing. When she pressed her hand to it, trying to feel his heartbeat, it was cool and hard to the touch. It must feel like having your entire torso encased in a body cast.
"Come on, Reive," she said desperately. "Please wake up."
She laid her hands on his chest. Maybe she could do something for him. It was stone, wasn't it? One of the advantages to being a gargoyle was that stone was supposed to do what she wanted.
"Come on, come on," she muttered through her teeth. As she had done with the statue back at Mace's place, she tried to focus on the rocky surface of Reive's chest, pushing at it with her mind.
Come on, Reive. Come on.
In her gargoyle form, her own body was living, animate stone. Was it really impossible that she could somehow infuse some of that life into Reive? All he had to do was move his chest like living flesh instead of stone. Surely that ought to be possible.
She concentrated, spreading her fingers on his chest and trying to push at the stone with her mind. She reached desperately for the sense of kinship that she felt whenever she touched normal rock. But she couldn't quite grasp hold of that feeling with Reive's stone body. It didn't want to give up its secrets to her.
"Jess!"
Mace, in his shifted form, thumped down to the path beside her, and the feeling she had been grasping for slipped away. Even so, it seemed to her that Reive might be breathing a little more easily. It was hard to tell.
"He just collapsed," she said tearfully as Mace leaned over them. "Can you do anything for him? Help him?"