Love, Lies & Blood Ties - Whitby Shadows Series Book 2

Chapter Twenty-Six

When I woke, I felt like I'd had a battery recharge. It seemed like I'd had a perspective alteration just by going to sleep.

"How are you feeling?"

Staring at my polka dot socks, trying to count the white dots, as I mused in my thoughts, I hadn't even looked at Luke yet.

I lifted my head and smiled. "I feel a lot better, thank you."

"You seem more relaxed."

I nodded. "I do feel a little guilty though."

"About what?"

"Hannah."

"Ah."

I frowned. "What do you mean 'ah'?"

"I know she was upset that you thought she'd been forced to be your best friend. She wasn't forced to do anything, Cat. She could have hung around in the background of your life. There was no need for her to become your friend in order to protect you."

I pursed my lips. "I figured. I feel awful."

"She'll understand. She's not stupid by any stretch of the imagination."

I quirked an eyebrow up. "Does someone have a soft spot for Hannah?"

He chuckled. "No. I just have a great amount of respect for her kind. They don't have an easy life."

"How do you mean?"

"The witches control them to the extent that only certain bloodlines are allowed to reproduce. They can't have children unless the witches either permit it or demand it. Think of them like guard dogs and the witches being their handlers. They're constantly restrained in some way."

"That's not fair."

"The witches justify it as protecting our entire world. No one has ever dared go against them. They feel that if gargoyles were left to reproduce at will, we would be overrun with bad tempered, difficult to control bulldozers who have the ability to flatten a village with a single shout. So they curb them. Unless required otherwise."

I sat up, my interest piqued and anger starting to simmer in my veins. "So vampires can run around, born and made, drinking witch blood or human blood as they please. Witches can perform some weird form of euthanasia, you wolves can do as you please I'm guessing, but gargoyles are collared and kept? How is that fair?"

"There is no 'fair' in our world, Cat. It is what it is and that's that."

"That says to me that the witches are scared of the gargoyles. They restrain them because they're frightened of their abilities."

Luke's lips tweaked up into a smile. "Have you seen X-Men?"

I frowned. "What?"

"The films, with the mutants, Charles Xavier, Wolverine et cetera."

I rolled my eyes. "I know what you meant, Luke. What has that got to do with this?"

"Do you remember Juggernaut?"

"The giant dude who was like a runaway train?"

Luke nodded. "Pretty much what a gargoyle is."

"Oh."

"Now you understand why they keep them restrained?"

"Kind of but it still doesn't seem fair."

"Imagine a teenage Juggernaut, full of mixed-up hormones, and with anger issues."

I nodded. "Ok, point taken. But that doesn't mean they have to restrict them for life. Just until they're a certain age."

Luke nodded and sat up. "Try telling them that."