Entwined Realms Volume One(108)

Goosebumps. One tiny portion of the goosebumps dotting her skin and the shivers descending over her body could be attributed to worry over herself. But Terak…was her father right? Would they force her removal, and what would they do to Terak in order to accomplish that? “They wouldn’t have invited us back…”

Jack’s hard voice cut through her weak protest. “They probably hoped he was going through a phase, an obsession with something foreign to them, and that he would grow tired of you and set you aside once he came to his senses.”

“He won’t.”

“Maybe he will and maybe he won’t, but do you really believe they are not going to force his hand? I raised you smarter than that.”

And as she opened her mouth the door swung open, and Terak stood in the doorway.





Chapter Two





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With almost forty years on the force under his belt, Jack Miller could claim – without pride, without ego – that he knew how to read people. What he saw of the male before him almost had him taking a step back before he remembered himself.

Terak’s human face was almost pleasant as he looked at Larissa. She walked to him, and with a light, steady hand he cupped her face, brushing some hair behind her ear. “I’m fine,” she said, answering an unspoken question.

“I think it is time your father and I converse. Please, let me be alone with him. Please,” he added again, when Larissa’s usual stubborn nature reared its head and it looked like she was going to argue with him. And then his gaze left Larissa’s face and came to rest upon Jack.

The quiet menace in that gaze was real. This was not some act put on by a stupid little shit who would piss himself if he ever saw real action. This was a warrior’s gaze and a warrior’s resolve.

That was fine with Jack. He was ready to have it out.

Larissa left without looking back, and a pang spread through his chest. His little girl didn’t even check with him. For her, all she needed was the words of this male to make her decision.

The unexpected loss put Jack on the attack. “I’m assuming you heard most everything. Tell me I’m wrong. Tell me some bullshit how it’s going to be fine and your people won’t revolt and betray her the first moment danger comes around them.”

Jack himself paced with strong emotion, a habit Michael had picked up from him. In contrast, Terak grew still, though the look in his eyes was anything but calm. “You speak of things you know not.”

“I may not know everything about gargoyles, but I notice you’re not denying my statement,” Jack shot back. “It might be called human nature, but its primal nature. It’s the core of us that’s going to survive no matter what. Her existence threatens your people. Do you think they’ll allow that? A woman from a race they consider inferior, who had the gall to marry their leader so he isn’t married to a gargoyle girl like he should be?”

“I am not so weak I cannot keep my people in check.” Now Terak advanced, his fingers curling inward. What would that sight look like if Terak was in his gargoyle form, where instead of nails there would be claws? “I am very aware of every danger to Larissa. I have already taken the needed steps to care for her.”

Jack scoffed, holding his ground. “Against your own people?”

Terak stood before him, his stone-grey eyes hard and flinty. “Against any enemy. A strike against her is a strike to me, and do I seem one who will not defend myself? You are her father, so I will make myself clear. Any who seek her harm I will kill. I will rip into them with claw and teeth and separate skin from bone from heart. An enemy, a friend, from within either of our Clans – it does not matter.”

For the first time in eons, a shiver ran down Jack’s spine as he took in the male before him. The will behind those words was absolute, the venom and the truth unassailable. “And if you are gone?” Jack forced the words through a closed throat, and swallowed to loosen the muscles.

Terak backed away, his voice quieted, but that venomous truth in no way diminished. “I have already made my deal with your devil to protect her no matter the circumstances. She is mine, Jack Miller. I fought against feeling for her, but my heart will have none but her. So I will claim her, and I will protect her, and any who become her enemy? I will destroy.”

Shards of a long-ago conversation flittered through Jack’s mind…

“She made her choice. If Laura Campbell had told me to go away and not bother her, that’s what I would have done. It wouldn’t have changed the fact I’d love her forever, but I’d never take what wasn’t freely given. But she chose me, and eighteen is legal. So I’m going to marry her and keep her with me, and old man, if you can’t accept that, don’t expect us to come into your home ever again.”