Free Guardian of the Abyss by Shannon Phoenix

out, seeking with his mind, only to meet the impenetrable wall of water all around them. "Thanatos!" he bellowed, calling for what could never be, what would never be, and what should never have been.
    His last living son had been in the group of gargoyles that had shown up at the end of the dream. A shudder passed through his body as he thought of his son. Thanatos had rejected him when he was told by the sorcerers that created Abaddon that Thanatos' mother had been forced to  have sex with Abaddon.
    Naturally, they had left out who had done the forcing, and the atrocities they had committed in doing that forcing. They'd left him believing that Abaddon was the one who had forced the encounter.
    Nothing could be further from the truth. Abaddon had been severely injured and brutally punished for fighting back against the sorcerers. They had taken the woman's family hostage; her two little children and her husband. First her husband had been tortured gruesomely in front of Abaddon and her. When that didn't get them to comply, they had started on the children.
    Finally, sobbing, she had begged him to end their misery. He had agreed, but the family's piteous cries echoed in his mind even now. He had tried to save them. He'd tried every time. But in the end, it was always futile.
    They had used potions on him and the women they brought for him to impregnate, so that while his mind screamed in horror, his body obeyed. His final act against them had cost every one of them their lives... and a small comfort it had been as he sank to the ocean floor at great speed... their mangled ship and their drowning bodies swirling around him in the water as he fell.
    In an act of nothing more or less than revenge, Abaddon had cast a spell that sundered their ship.  In their arrogance, they had forgotten that although he was a gargoyle, he was also a sorcerer like them. He had carefully let them believe his powers were dwindling, waiting for the chance to end their atrocities. Waiting, always waiting, for the right moment... when their guard was down and they had forgotten. He had escaped from them and taken his sons with him... and the sorcerers had made a bargain with the Rakshasa to get him back. A choice that had cost them their lives.
    When the Rakshasa had attacked the village the gargoyles were protecting, they had captured him instead of killing him. They had handed him over to the sorcerers for nothing more than a few gold pieces.
    It was another shame in a long life of mistakes. He should have died that day, not been captured. He had believed he was dying... but he'd lived in the miserable dark of the ocean after the sorcerers dumped him there, dying in the process. Then he'd been alone with his shame and his pain.
    "You have nothing to be ashamed of." The soft mental voice made him suddenly aware that Sarah was standing beside him, her hand on his arm.
    "You don't know what you're talking about."
    "Why are you dwelling on this now?" she asked him.
    "I had a dream." He tried to get the tension out of his shoulders.
    "We had a dream," she gently corrected him. He looked at her to find her face filled with tender understanding.
    He ignored the broader implication for a moment, needing to know the truth. "Did you see them?"
    She didn't pretend not to know what he meant. "They're my delusion," she said, shrugging. "I've been imagining them since you made me a gargoyle."
    Another black mark on his soul--as if he needed more.
    "It's not a black mark on your soul," she said, her lips unmoving as always when they spoke through the gargoyle link that shouldn't have worked so incredibly well while they were in humanoid form. "I'm not angry. It would be like being angry at the doctor for setting a broken bone. You saved my life."
    Uncomfortable with her ready forgiveness, he told her, "They're not a delusion." He looked down at the perfect, delicate hand on his arm.
    Her perfectly rendered eyebrows rose. "What makes you think they're not?"
    "I