Page 34 of Fated to the Gargoyle

She rolls onto her back and squints up at me. “My bed is too small for you.”

“I will build us a bigger one in the cabin, so I can hold you every night while you rest.”

She turns back to her side and puts her hand out for me. I give her a claw, and her fingers close around it. “Why am I so sleepy? I was good until…”

She drifts off in the middle of her own sentence.

I slip free, rise off my knee, and bend low over her. I draw the blanket up over her shoulder, tuck it in around her, and run the back of my claw down her cheek, light enough not to wake her.

“You don’t know what it means to me, to be loved,” I tell her, low, though nothing in this room is awake to hear it. “I don’t know how to give you the world, but I will spend the rest of my existence making sure you know it. You are the best gift I have ever been given.”

In the front room I latch the chest and set it against the inner wall, away from the glass door. If this witch’s ghouls hunt old gold, let them follow it here and meet what guards it.

Then I return to her doorway and turn her question over while she sleeps. A date. Hunting is out, because she’d care very little for how I feed, and I’d rather she keep her picture of me a while longer.

Then I have it. I’ll fly her over the town with all its lights, then out to the mountain land. She can walk the cabin that will be ours and tell me everything she wants changed. Whatever she names, I’ll spend my nights building it.

I guard the diner on her working days, and I love her by night. I stay right where I am and watch my mate sleep. Being anywhere else never crossed my mind.

16

TREASURE

Iroll over the next morning and reach for the claw I fell asleep holding. My hand closes on empty sheets, and I sit straight up. Sunlight pours through my curtains, and the spot where I left a kneeling gargoyle is nothing but carpet.

I poke my lip out at it. He’s gone, and he didn’t even say goodbye.

I climb out of bed, stretch, and rub the sleep off my face. My bonnet slipped off somewhere in the covers, and my braids are all over my head. I wanted one more hour with my gargoyle before sunrise, and the sun beat me to him.

I head down the hall into the living room, and the chest has moved. It was by the balcony door when I dozed off. Now it sits against the far wall, tucked away from the glass, and I’d bet money my gargoyle had his reasons.

I crouch down and open it, and all that gold before breakfast makes me sit back on my heels. I pick up a ruby the size of a plum and turn it over in my hand. The only place I’ve ever seen stones like this is at the movies.

“Okay, Soren,” I tell the ruby. “When I see you tonight, we are going to talk about where you go when you turn to stone.” I set it back in the chest and close the lid.

The Singer is still sitting on my kitchen table with his pants under the needle, and I don’t have work today. Matter of fact, with what’s in that chest, I don’t have to work at all unless I want to. I’m going to need a quiet afternoon to let that one sink in.

I eat breakfast, then park myself at the Singer for the morning, finishing Soren’s pants and building Sable’s from the numbers in my notepad.

Around midday I go digging in my closet for tonight and come out with one dress. It’s the nicest thing I’ve got, and my gargoyle kneels for me in a loincloth. We’ll manage.

So I do it right. I shower, then sit on my bathroom floor and unbraid my hair, working the crown loose row by row. I put in the time.

By the end of it my hair is silk-pressed and swinging past my shoulders. Soren has never seen me like this. Tonight he will.

I slip into my flats, because I learned my lesson about my feet this week. I tidy the apartment and fold both pairs of pants into a neat stack. Then I drag that heavy chest into my bedroom, away from any glass door, and grab the pants and my purse on my way out.

The shopping center is Friday-quiet when I park, and I go hunting for my gargoyle first. There he is, posted outside Stanley’s in a new spot, closer to the corner of the building. It’s my day off, and he’s still out here standing guard over a parking lot.

I walk up and lay my palm against his stone cheek, already warm from the sun. “Hey there.” I lean in and kiss the side of his face. A couple of shoppers cut their eyes at me on the way past, and I keep right on kissing my statue.

“There’s nothing wrong with resting in my apartment, you know,” I tell him. “I left your pants in my car. I’m gonna hang around town till you wake up, and then we’re having our date.”

The bell jingles when I push into Stanley’s, and my good mood makes it two steps inside. Andy’s set up in a booth with some woman, a resume on the table between them, going on about needing someone for the evening shift. He means my shift.

Andy glances over, gives me a shrug, and goes right back to his interview. I roll my eyes and let him have it. I’m not quitting. Unless I’m about to be fired, in which case that man and I are going to have words.

I claim a stool at the counter, and Shelly comes over, dish towel on her shoulder. “Hey.” Then she leans in close. “The gargoyle moved again. And word is, he’s yours. Andy says he is.”