Page 65 of Howl for the Gargoyle

Her head was down, and I wasn't sure if I was imagining the stress hooking her shoulders tighter or if it was just her defense against the cold, but I found myself go as still and solid as if I really had been a bit of ornamentation carved into this arch.

She shut the door on the noise from the main room and lifted her face into the quiet. There was a lamp behind her, casting her face in shadow, but my eyes were sharp enough to cut through the darkness to see the folds in her brow and the clench of her jaw. Her hand pulled free of her coat pocket and brought out her phone, the glow illuminating her frown as she searched the screen briefly and then tucked the device away again.

Hannah sighed, heavy and hollow, and my body tipped toward her, barely maintaining my balance on my post as she looked up in my direction.

No. Not my direction, I realized as her eyes widened. At me.

"Rafe?"

And there was no escape from my name. Even the wind conspired in Hannah's favor, floating her voice to my spot above her.

She stepped forward and I stiffened, torn between jumping down to meet her and throwing myself into the air.

"What are you doing here?" I asked, at the same moment she said, "How did you know where to find me?"

We stared at one another, her mouth parted, face so open and startled. I tried to fix my expression into nothing.

"This apartment is one of my dad's places," she said.

My internet not-stalking had offered up information about her dad and who he was. The crowd inside made sense now. Hannah did too, in a way. Daughter of a rock star, becoming one in her own right.

What would she want with a gargoyle who she met through sex work?

"It's my favorite building in the city. I wasn't looking for you," I said, blinking up at the peaks and carved stone, trying to understand the sense of betrayal eating at me, as if it were the tower's fault I had to see Hannah in this moment.

"Oh," she said, and then her face went blank too. "You got the cancellations."

I nodded, and my wings started to stretch and flap, wanting to carry me away. My heart's rhythm didn't match, slower and uneven, too heavy in my chest.

Hannah licked her lips, standing there in the shadows below me, hands in her pockets and beautiful body shrouded from my gaze. "Rafe…did you—?"

"It's fine, Hannah. I don't keep clients forever," I said.

She reared back as if I'd struck her, eyes wide and wounded, and I couldn't stand to stay and receive some half-hearted apology or excuse for why she was canceling her time with me. I jumped, and the wind caught my wings and launched me back, sailing me in a new direction.

I hunched my shoulders and ducked my head down as a rustle of furred wings passed behind me. Not that it would do any good. Elias was unlikely to miss my presence at his bar.

"He's been here all day," the pixie bartender behind the counter murmured to her boss. "He keeps groaning."

I lifted my head to glare at her, stuffing another spicy pork bao bun into my mouth until it made my cheeks swell. Elias wouldn't want me to talk to him while my mouth was full.

"I'll handle it," he said, shooing her to the other end of the bar, where a pair of naga were twined together and staring in horror at me. "Khell is on his way," Elias said to me.

"Uh-uh," I answered, shaking my head and then lowering it again.

"If you wanted to be alone, you wouldn't have come here," Elias reasoned. "Therefore, I'll assume you're in need of…company. Camaraderie? Companionship."

I groaned, and he shrugged, staring at me while I chewed and swallowed.

"Just here for the menu. Though I'm pretty sure it's giving me food poisoning," I added just to spite him. And then I ate three onion rings at once.

"My food is not the problem," Elias said. "What are you going to do for work?"

I gaped at him, battered onion sticking out of my mouth, and he stared back, unflappable. The bar door opened, winter snapping ruthlessly in for a moment before it was blocked out by Khell's enormous frame.

"You quit MSA?" he shouted toward us. "What are you going to do for a job?"

"Whyyew boff know dat?" I asked, and Elias shuddered and looked away from me.

---