Harvest of Holidays by Tracy Cooper-Posey Read Free Book Online Page A

Tally. Listen.” She lay the phone on the chair that sat beneath it, without disconnecting.
    Then she moved on to the kitchen. At the swing door, she paused, her fingers against the door, weighing her options. Her heart was beating hard and her whole body was tensed, but for the first time in weeks she felt alive , in a way that all the great sex in the world couldn’t provide.
    Still moving silently, she pushed the swing door open enough to slip through, and stepped into the kitchen. The two big windows, one over the sink and the other over the optimistically labelled “nook”, that couldn’t fit a table no matter how small a table they found, filled the kitchen with the same ghostly light as the bedroom, only more of it.
    Plus there was another source of light. A gargoyle was standing with a claw hooked over the fridge door handle, holding it open. He was examining the contents of the fridge, rooting through it with the tip of a claw on his other front leg. The interior light from the fridge spilled over the shiny linoleum floor, highlighting clawed feet, the claws yellow and streaked like aged teeth, and a grey-brown hide that hung wrinkled and lapped over the skeleton and meat beneath.
    This one was smaller than any other gargoyle Tally had ever seen. He was squatted down on his hind legs like they often sat, and his head only came to the top of the fridge. His snout was wrinkled as he sniffed out scents that displeased him.
    Then he leaned forward and took an extra-long sniff of the uncooked turkey sitting on the bottom shelf. They had splurged on that turkey – their one treat for Christmas. As the gargoyle reached out with one claw, to hook the turkey right off the plate, Tally brought the sword up in front of her, the high guard position. “Touch that, and I’ll gut you and add you to the tray.”
    The gargoyle turned on his feet to face her. It wasn’t a startled movement. He had been expecting her. He shuffled out of the way of the fridge door, moving awkwardly, because even a miniature gargoyle took up most of the floor space in the room. He let the door close, which shut off the light.
    Tally blinked, her night sight ruined. Of course, that had probably been part of the plan. She reached out quickly and threw on the overhead light.
    The gargoyle blinked in turn, his big eyelids wrinkling as they moved. The inner lids closed over his eyes, making the orange irises look muddy brown and dimming the glow that came from them.
    The front of his chunky body was smeared in dark, viscous liquid that was nearly dry. Tally swallowed. It was blood. The clan had been hunting again.
    “From your size, I’m guessing you’re the one they call Valdeg,” she said, keeping her sword up. Nick had been the source of all her knowledge about the clan, for he had studied them for decades before they had been killed the first time.
    Valdeg opened his lips and the thick black tongue inside swept over them, leaving a shiny trail of ooze. The top of his lip curled back, showing the long, sharp teeth beneath. The claw came up and pointed at her.
    “Ye be Natalia Connors, spawn of Peter Grey.” Valdeg’s voice was blurred, like a metal tub of gravel was rolling around inside his mouth, and interfering with his tongue. The words were oddly formed, but that was because Valdeg’s lips weren’t flexible and his tongue didn’t work like a human’s did. It was only because of his deformity that he could speak human words at all, for Valdeg had the gargoyle equivalent of a cleft palate; his lips and upper palate were softer than a normal gargoyle’s, which gave him just enough dexterity to speak human languages. He was smaller because he didn’t eat like the others. He was a scavenger. He couldn’t process fresh kill.
    “Ye be the lass that hunts with the Sherwood,” Valdeg finished. The lilt and the words were strongly Scottish, for that was where Valdeg had learned to speak, when humans and gargoyles worked together, before