****1004

She kissed her love's frozen cheek and gently stroked her knuckles against his harden brow ridges as she soothingly said, "Hello, my Love, I'm sorry for being away for so long. It has not been easy for me to keep my clan safe, there's human treachery and deceit everywhere. It's as though such traits are bred into their very nature, as though they know nothing else. Any who would be otherwise are few and far between, but the humans are best avoided as they always should have been."

She scoffed then looked at her frozen mate with a scornful yet amused smile.

"You wonderfully stubborn fool," she huffed, "I don't know why you would've continued to tolerate the humans' continued treatment of our clan 10 years ago, but I don't blame you for only thinking of protecting the castle. My clan has no castle to protect now but we do protect each other, and we must do so now more than ever. I heard rumors of a masked human that hunts our kind for sport, and it sickens me to think that he finds such pleasure in the destruction of an innocent and proud race as ours. I swear I will not ever allow him to find you or our clan."

She leaned against him lovingly to place her soft cheek against his cold hard cheek as she said with quiet determination, "Don't worry, I haven't forgotten my vow of finding a cure for you and the others, but it hasn't been easy. The Grimorum is still missing and magical tomes are becoming scarcer still. It's fortunate that I am now more familiar with this spell placed upon you. I'll continue to search for a way to raise the castle above the clouds, and then, My Love, we can be together again."

She stroked his brow ridges one last time and kissed his cheek before flaring her violet wings and gliding away to the clan that needed her now.

"Soon, My Love," she breathed with hopeful contentment, "Soon."

****1020

Because of those two young humans she had missed her chance to rid herself and her clan of that murderous Hunter once and for all. They meant nothing to her at all, yet she could not resist her instinct to help them. So why did she do it? Perhaps because somehow those young humans reminded her a bit of her and Goliath when they were that young and just starting to fall in love. It was one of the few things she could see in common between her kind and humans, but that was where the similarities ended.

She would have flown to Castle Wyvern this night to briefly visit her love and his frozen clan had dawn not been just a few hours away and her own clan needed her this night to hunt for food.

****1032

Macbeth's debt to her has been repaid, a burden she is now relieved to have lifted. She heard that not long afterwards he had wed his human love and they were happy together.

For a short while she once again visited her former clan and her sleeping love.

****1040

It was strange how this now aged king reminded her of her dormant love with his strong sense of honor and duty to protect those he lead. Macbeth had willingly traded his youth to her in exchange for her clan's alliance to take down his tyrannical cousin, the late King Duncan. He had not only become a common enemy for both of them, but he had taken the mask of the Hunter, and with his death she not only gained the satisfaction of one less human enemy to contend with but also the seeming end of the Hunter legacy.

Macbeth had promised a new golden age between their kinds, and had even bestowed a name to her; Demona.

Now, like her dormant beloved, she was a gargoyle leader with a name, one that will indeed command both fear and respect from the humans. Unlike Goliath, though she always believed she lead her ragtag clan by his example, she will use her name and what it inspired to her advantage.

Also, unlike last time, she will be much more wary of her human ally.

****1057

She had again been a fool.

She and Macbeth had lead their peoples well together for a few years to the point that she had nearly forgotten one critical fact; he was still a human.

He reminded her so much of her petrified love that she blindly took him at his word about their alliance, and then he would have the outrageous gall to even consider betraying her and her clan to get peace from the invading English.

Not willing to allow it to happen again she withdrew her clan from Castle Moray and instead allied with the English, but this too had been folly. They in turn had destroyed her clan, the last gargoyles in all of Scotland. She then had also discovered how much deeper her link to Macbeth had gone, but it was more of a deeper insult to injury than a consolation.

Screeching her grief stricken outrage to the once again empty night, she now knew what she had to do.

There was only one option left to her now, vengeance. It will be the only way to protect her love and his clan.

The frozen Wyvern Clan survivors, primarily her beloved Goliath, were all that were left of their kind in the world to her now. She now knew that they would never be safe in this world from the humans unless they were destroyed, for all they knew was betrayal, death, and destruction.

It was the gargoyle way to take vengeance upon those that dishonored your clan, and she will see it carried out, even if it took until her dying breath.

****1545

Cold anger grasped her chest like ice, hatred coursed through her veins as venom.

What her ancient enemy had nearly done to the remains of her sleeping clan galvanized her hatred of the human race and once more renewed her insatiable hunger for revenge that she shrieked to the night.

The Angel of the Night had truly fallen.

****1793

Once again the humans had destroyed her chance for happiness and companionship, the last one she was sure she will ever have. There was no satisfying their unquenchable blood lust as she witnessed their petty and pathetic conflicts, martyring themselves for senseless causes and setting innocent and noble gargoyles in the middle.

They are nothing more than a plague in this world that destroys everything in its path because it is not like them.

A noble and proud gargoyle had died in her arms, someone so much like her wonderful Goliath. She had tried not to fall in love with Valjean out of respect for Goliath, but they had shared a deep connection she had not felt in so many years.

For them, in the name of both their memories, she will avenge her race's suffering and find a way to kill this plague.