Page 51 of Wings of Ashes
He stared at her lips as she stared at his. They were both locked in the same moment of mutual, forbidden hunger and desire. Her tongue flicked out to dab where her teeth nipped his thumb.
“Fuck,” Étienne repeated.
Nix blinked and breathlessly said, “Just because my body reacts to you and you’re a hot man doesn’t mean Iwantto want you.” Her gaze still fastened to his mouth, she added, “You can’t just treat me cruelly and expect me to melt for you.”
“Would you?” He tipped her chin up and looked so deeply into her eyes; his forehead leaned forward more and more to eventually press to hers. “Melt for me? If I apologized for my bad behavior and slipped my hand between your soft thighs—”
“I—I have things to do!” Nix snapped, blushing deeply. Those red cheeks called to Étienne. “Important things. I don’t have time for a sexy professor interaction right now. Okay?”
He had never had a sexy interaction ever. Never wanted tolearnsomeone like this.
But she was not his mate. He was attracted to her, but his body continued to turn to stone—though delayed by his daily potion. Who knew how many days he had left before he could not move?
He had lived a thousand lives through books, but his own life? He had neverlived. Or taken risks. Or kissed the pretty girl who just so happened to be his student—a woman who awakened something usually dormant inside him.
“I need to go and, uh, continue my hike. Okay?”
“You…are rejecting me?” he asked.
“Very hard for you to believe, huh?”
She doesn’t want you, fool. Étienne’s fingers shot back, away from her smooth, beautiful face. “I…crossed a line.”
The ever-present chill of cold stone made itself known once more in his chest. In his veins.
He stepped back, rubbing at his eyes behind his glasses. The large black pupils shrank back to a more normal size as he restrained the unfamiliar rise offeelings. Of course, she did not wanthim.
“Did you really think I would be interested in, uh—” She licked her sensual, bow-shaped lips. “—kissing you after everything you’ve said to me? The way you’ve acted?”
The way I have acted…like an asshole. Somber, Étienne cracked his knuckles and grated sincerely, “I…apologize.”
“Doyou?” she asked in disbelief.
“Yes,” he replied wholeheartedly. “I regret how I have acted in…all of our interactions.” In the dark forest, he saw very clearly why he had initially judged her.
“So, you see the error of your ways now that you’re attracted to me?” She huffed. “What a man.”
Étienne flinched. He swore she had just stabbed through his hard chest with an invisible dagger. “You know what I am,” he said softly.
Nix jerked her head down in a nod. “A petros—a stone shifter. Specifically—”
“Gargoyle, yes. And what do you remember about my kind?” Damn, now his cock was getting hard again, thinking about her reading and absorbing his class content.
Tilting her head, she gazed warily at him as she said, “They were originally shunned by the shifter community. Outcasted. The ability to turn to stone was thought to be disturbing. At first, gargoyles were seen as evil creatures,” she said. “Seen as demonic vessels.”
“Vessels, yes,” Étienne repeated emptily. “Hollow and soulless.”
Nix frowned at his sad tone.
A human artist first saw a Gargoyle shifter standing on top of a building at night. The human decided to start the architectural trend of constructing man-made gargoyles on the top of castles and cathedrals.
The human had made sure to depict the stone creatures as ugly enough to scare away the most evil of spirits.
It was particularly twisted how gargoyles were seen as both demonic vesselsandguardians. The humans crafted lookalikes to have the practical function of draining water from roofs to protect from erosion. Evil but useful. Ugly but serviceable.
It was demeaning.
Étienne told her, “Gargoyles turn to stone if they cannot find their mate before they hit full maturity and their immortality activates. I have watched family members and friends turn into catatonic, lifeless sculptures, unable to find a fated mate in time.”
