Page 43 of Fated to the Gargoyle

I settle back into the covers with another sausage and give the room a good long look. These windows need warm curtains, yellow ones, since someone in this house is finally going to benefit from my favorite color. That dresser is older than me twice over, and I could sand it down and stain it.

My empty picture frames are coming up this mountain too. I’m thinking one of us at the festival, and one of my mama on her first visit, smiling hard and pretending she isn’t scared of my husband. I’ve got years of decorating opinions saved up, and this cabin is somewhere to spend them.

I’m deep in curtain planning when the mark on my neck goes warm. His voice comes through rough, and it’s not aimed at me at all.

I want to stuff my tongue back inside her and let it live there. It has no other duties today.

I sit straight up off the covers and clutch my invisible pearls. “PARDON me?”

He clears his throat, which is a neat trick for solid rock.

“Apologies, Treasure. I did not mean for you to⁠⁠—”

“Umhmm.” I pick up my juice and take a long sip, smirking at him over the rim.

He groans through the bond, long enough that I almost feel bad for him. “It is another side effect of the claim. I did not say those words to you. I thought them, and it seems that while I am in the stone, you hear my thoughts as well.”

“Umhmm,” I say into my juice.

I keep my face nice and pleasant. Sure enough, the mark heats up, and his thoughts come through it, unguarded.

So many positions owed. Upside down. On her hands and knees at the edge of the bed. Bent over the arm of the— He chokes the thought off, and it slips loose anyway. I would eat her pussy until she cries and then fuck her through the crying, and she would thank⁠⁠—

“Tell me more.” I set my juice down and scoot to the edge of the bed, batting my eyes at him.

“Treasure. Please. Do not push my thoughts.”

I flop back and grin up at the ceiling.

“My gargoyle is obsessed with me.” I stretch until my toes point.

I’m gonna love it here.

19

SOREN

The sun drops behind the mountain, and the stone lets go of me, warmth flooding back into my claws and wings, then everywhere else. I rise out of the crouch and stretch until every joint remembers it can move. I’m barely upright when Treasure crashes into me and throws her arms around my waist.

“Hey,” she says into my stomach.

I lift her straight off her feet and press my forehead to hers. Strawberries and clean cotton fill my next breath, and every stiff hour I spent in that corner no longer matters. I carry her into the bathroom and set her on the counter by the sink.

The shower stall could hold me with my wings half-open, and the tub where I bathed her last night sits deep at the far end. I reach into the stall and start the water.

She spots the toothbrush on the shelf, the one with the wide grip, and her mouth falls open. “Hold up. You have a toothbrush?”

“The wolves gave it to me.” I stand a little straighter. “Human toothbrushes are too small for my claws. This one was made for a hand like mine.”

She shakes her head at the shelf. “Y’all really thought of everything up here.”

“This is not the only land with shifters, Treasure.” I catch her hand and hold it against my cheek. “But it is the only land in the world where humans and supernaturals live side by side. They have had time to build things right.”

She smiles slow and keeps it on me while I unwrap the loincloth and step into the water.

Sable and I have washed in lakes and cold springs for centuries, in public washhouses when a town allowed us. I had forgotten what it is to have a room like this behind a door that is ours.

Through the glass, I watch my mate hop down off the counter and pull her dress up over her head. She stands there bare, folding the towels she takes from the shelf and stacking them by the sink, then reaches back and gathers her hair, twisting it up into a tight bun.