The Curse (Belador #3)(116)

It was a good description, really. He—if this critter was a he—did look like a gargoyle.

She could feel the poor thing against her leg, trembling hard as a leaf in a hurricane. Then he patted her leg, as if trying to convey that he was no threat. Crossing her arms, she shook her head. “He’s not going to hurt me.”

Quinn argued, “Based upon what evidence, considering the things we just fought in that place?”

“Just because the rest of them were killing machines doesn’t mean he is. His door had a notation that marked him as food because he failed a kill test. I don’t think Sar would have destroyed him if he had any hope of being dangerous.”

There was only one way to convince everyone not to kill this poor thing.

Taking a breath she hoped wouldn’t be her last considering the smoke that floated from his snout, Evalle reached down and hoisted the heavy little critter up into her arms.

Tzader and Quinn both shouted, “Don’t!” and now stared at her as if she needed to be put in a straight jacket.

The gargoyle had tucked his wings around his body, but when she picked him up he lifted his head to watch her with worried eyes the whole time. He smelled sooty and stinky, but what could you expect from something that had been kept locked in a hole and climbed out of a fire? He’d clean up just fine.

She smiled at him, but her words were for Tzader and Quinn. “He just needs some TLC.”

That set off Quinn. “Oh, good Goddess, you have to be joking. It has probably never been out of a cage. You don’t know what it will do.”

At that moment, her little critter smiled, exposing two small fangs.

She knew in her heart she was right to protect him. “I had never been outside of a cage until I was eighteen, and the Beladors didn’t know what I would do when that Druid brought me in.”

One look at Quinn and Tzader’s faces and she knew they both understood what she was saying. A lot of people would have destroyed her if they’d known she was an Alterant from the beginning. “I’m keeping him.”

The pair of growling sighs that followed told her she’d won the battle. She didn’t know if this little gargoyle creature could comprehend what she was saying, but he understood when someone would not hurt him and dropped his head down on her shoulder with a gurgle of what sounded to her like happiness.

Tzader shifted around and waved off the team then turned back to Evalle. “There’s no way the pilots will let you on the helicopter with that.”

“Great news, because there’s no way I’m climbing back on either one of those freaking machines.” She grinned as Quinn muttered something and flipped open his cell phone, no doubt calling a driver for her.

For once, she’d let Quinn spoil her with a driver and car because she had to get her new baby home in as calm and gentle a way as possible. She felt four fingers patting her shoulder, content. “We’re going to have to come up with a name for you, little guy. Something suitable for a phoenix that fought its way out of the flames of hell.”