Page 49 of Charming Her Monsters

Calder charges through the door and into the hallway. His eyes are wild with anguish. He’s so out of his mind that I don’t think he even sees Jade. He’s about to plow into her and knock her down the stairs.

I react without thinking and grab her arm, pushing her against the wall with my body, protecting her from Calder if he should attack or just knock her down.

He launches off the landing, releasing his fiery wings and then darts out the back door and takes flight toward the lake.

My body reacts to Jade’s body pressed to mine, but not in the way I expect.

I’m hard… mostly below the waist. My hands are locked into place over her upper arms. Though I am only partially frozen, I feel incapable of moving away. I’m not sure I want to.

“Oh no, Flint?” Jade asks, worry and affection fill her hazel eyes. “Are you okay?”

“I… I don’t know,” I answer truthfully.

Maxum calls me. I glance downstairs.

When Maxum sees Jade is unharmed, he says to Arran, “I’ll go see what’s going on with him. You got this?”

Maxum launches after Calder when Arran shouts for him to go.

Arran comes up the stairs and sees me unmoving and pinning Jade to the wall. “Shit. Not again.”

“Uh, no, it’s different.” Jade looks back up at me. “How are you able to move your head or talk? I thought…”

“I suppose you must have changed something inside of me,” I whisper.

She shivers once again.

This time, I know it’s because she enjoys the sound of my voice.

15

CRACKING STONE

JADE

“Isuppose you must have changed something inside of me.”

Flint’s gravelly voice vibrates right down to my clit. Not fair. I’m trying to be a good girl and not the horny horn dogger who grinds against his boulder.

His massive, hard body presses me to the wall, and I can’t say I mind all that much, especially when he doesn’t look bothered by the touch. The concern over what is upsetting Calder fades into the background as I stare into the gargoyle’s light gray eyes.

Flint’s giant bat-like wings deployed when he was protecting me from Calder’s outburst. I take a moment to admire them in their solid state before locking gazes with him again.

The shy guy seems just as surprised as me about his half frozen state. At least he can speak to me. And if the protrusion poking my stomach is any indication, his body is very interested in what’s going on. Or maybe that’s just his normal resting state.

Good Goddess.

My vision fades while I imagine what he might be packing and if he might wish to unleash it on me one day.

If any of them pull on my romantic heartstrings, it’s this guy. I want to wine and dine him. Show him affection. Yet, I worry that his heart would literally crack if he suffered another heartbreak. I couldn’t do that to him. Not that I’d ever hurt him intentionally. But what-ifs float and clog my logic-monster brain.

The most significant what-if circles around what secrets we will uncover about me and my past. Sure, Arran and Maxum would be upset if I turned out to be the true monster, but I didn’t pursue them. They pursued me. And I can’t chase Flint when I don’t know what will happen in the future.

At the moment, I need to free myself from his hold before I lose my resolve and make a fool of myself.

When I wiggle, his hands feel solid and like stone.

“Are youhalf…stone?” Arran asks in shock, peeking under Flint’s wing. Then he looks at Flint’s grip on my arm. “Are you okay?” he asks me.

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