Page 46 of Howl for the Gargoyle

Rafe was silent, chin hooked over my shoulder, body locked around me.

"After the attack," I continued, warm tears spilling over on my cheeks, "I didn't sound the same, and I couldn't… You can't sing when you're trying to keep your body and your mind from splitting apart. Everything is too tight—I can't let go. The one…the one thing I've always loved about myself, the thing about myself that made me love the rest of me, my voice…is broken."

Rafe was silent. Rafe was silent because that was exactly what I needed him to be, and somehow he always knew.

"And there's no music. Just sound. Everything has been louder and it hurts, and I wear earplugs at rehearsal, but then it's like I'm in this other place and I can't connect with my band. I'm not in my own body, I don't have my own voice, I… We recorded the album right before the attack, and now I'm not that woman anymore."

So how am I supposed to go on tour?

I shook and I cried, quiet and endless, but neither Rafe nor I spoke for a long time. Not until the water was opaque and the bubbles had popped and my tension had been exorcized in almost silent tears and only anxious sniffs remained.

"You've changed," Rafe murmured, and I let out a choked laugh and nodded my head. "But you can sing, Hannah. You're in control. You have to trust yourself and let your band trust you. Like I do. The music will come back. Maybe different. But it will come back."

It had started to, here in this cottage, with this gargoyle, in little pieces of a song that I would have to take to Kiernan and make something real out of—the first bit of music that had started to play in my head in over a year.

Rafe and I softened in the water, and I closed my eyes and wet my lips and practiced the melody in a weak hum.

CHAPTER 17

Rafe

I knocked on Astraeya's office door, pausing a moment to listen to the rapid click of her nails against her tablet.

"Come in," she called.

She did a double take as I slid into the seat across from her, pausing in her work to smirk at me. "Here for more of Hannah's praise?"

My wings rustled and my mouth hung open briefly. I did like hearing Hannah's reports, although not as much as I liked the blissed-out expression she wore after I ate her for breakfast.

"I…wouldn't mind, but actually no, not why I came in," I said slowly.

Astraeya tipped her head at me, squinting her eyes. She'd told me once that gargoyles were harder to get a read on for emotions and interests—"too hard-headed," as she put it—but I figured she had some taste of my nerves.

"Good news or bad news?" she asked.

"I…I don't know. That's up to management, I guess," I said.

Astraeya set her tablet down, her chair sliding forward, a rare seriousness taking over her. "Let me guess. You've mated Hannah?"

My wings burst open, and I let out a brief squawk of surprise at the suggestion. "What? No! She's my client!"

Astraeya arched an eyebrow. "It's happened."

"To Khell!" I huffed and then let out a laugh. "He was ripe for the picking."

Astraeya sighed and smiled. "Okay, what's up then?"

Astraeya's question was still sticking in my head. Why would she think I'd mated Hannah, or at least, Hannah had mated me? Was Hannah having werewolf mating feelings for me? Why was I more—

"Rafe," Astraeya prompted.

"Right. Uh, I want to set up some new boundaries," I burst out, startled out of my thoughts. Astraeya blinked at me. "With my clients. About…my comfort."

Astraeya frowned. "Was Hannah too rough—"

"No! No, the total opposite," I rushed out. "It's more like… I was totally fine with how things were for a long time, but it's gotten to me. Especially recently."

"Your comfort is as important to the agency as our clients', Rafe," Astraeya said gently.

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