Page 32 of Rock Hard Alien

“Wrong?”

“Too human.”

His dark eyebrows rose. They were definitely not his eyebrows. “Is that a complaint?”

“I prefer the horns.”

His smile was pure Cairn, even without the fangs. “You prefer me as a gharrgoil.”

“I suppose so. I met you as a gharrgoil. This just looks weird. But if it means you can leave the house with me, then we shall both have to endure it. You because it's uncomfortable, me because I don't get to ogle you.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Ogle me?”

Heat rose to my cheeks. “Purely from a professional stonemason point of view. I have to check for cracks.”

“You can check my cracks any time you like.”

Why did that sound so dirty?

The taxi ride passed without incident, except for when the driver asked Cairn whether he played rugby and Cairn clearly showed that he had no idea what that was. The driver didn't ask anything else after that.

The castle appeared above Stirling through the rain, its walls dark against the pale sky. Cairn went still beside me.

“You alright?” I asked quietly.

“Yes.”

He wasn’t. I knew that. But there was nothing I could do just now other than stay by his side and distract him from whatever anguish he was going through.

The taxi dropped us at the main car park. My car was exactly where I had left it, damp and covered in leaves. Beyond it, the castle rose above us. White conservation sheets hid part of the outer wall, fluttering in the wind.

They covered the place where the Guardian had stood.

Cairn stared up at them.

Tourists walked past without paying us any attention. The C-suit worked. They saw a tall man standing beside me, not the missing gargoyle looking at the prison that had once held him.

“I thought I would be pleased to see it empty,” he said.

I slipped my hand into his. His projected fingers looked human, but beneath the illusion they were larger, the skin warm and textured like polished granite.

“You never have to go back up there.”

“No.” His grip tightened carefully around mine. “But Sten or Hallr may be trapped on a wall like that. Or somewhere worse.”

“We’ll start searching as soon as we get home.”

“It will be like finding a diamond flake in a desert of sand. How many statues are there in this country? And what if they were transported elsewhere? Or if they're held in private collections that won't show in your records?”

I squeezed his hand. “We will try our best. I will help you. That's all we can do.”

He turned to me. The human face created by the C-suit was attractive, but I missed his real eyes. I missed the dark granite surrounding them and the horns framing his head.

“You would do that for them?” he asked.

“I’d do it for you.”

The C-suit shimmered around his mouth when he smiled. He looked like he was about to kiss me, but then a tourist almost bumped into me , breaking the moment.