Page 3 of Gaga for the Gargoyle
Okay. I’ll figure that out when I wake up this evening. I exitKiss-meetand set my phone on the table.
After feeding Birdie and showering the night away, I crawl into bed and fall asleep dreaming about a sexy man, tall and packed full of muscles with...lavender skin?
Chapter 2 – Xander
The night is quiet. Too quiet.
I’ve been protecting New York City for over four hundred years now, ever since Dutch settlers arrived in 1608 and named the land New Amsterdam. Before ruling my own kingdom, I patrolled the skies over Paris under my father’s reign. He taught me everything about fighting the evil that yearns to destroy the world: the demons from hell and the malevolent creatures from other worlds who slip through the cracks between dimensions.
The Council of Gargoyle Elders chose me over my older brother as king of this new settlement, which seers had envisioned becoming one of the largest cities in the world.
They were right.
I watched as New Amsterdam transformed into a bustling city with humans in the millions. Too many innocent souls wandering the streets needing protection. As New York City grew, so did my army. I have gargoyles in the thousands now, spread around the five boroughs. They’re stationed on top of buildings, keeping watch for any attempts to pierce through our shields of protection.
The shields have become weak as I approach my thousandth year of living. I have six months until I permanently turn to stone.
The life of King Xander the Third of New Amsterdam, his excellency of house Basque, son of King Oberon Basque of Lutetia Parisiorum, now modern-day Paris, comes to an end, all because he couldn’t find love.
I would become the second king in my kind’s history to die because I failed to find my fated mate.
It’s a curse of every royal. We are stronger with our soulmate by our side. I’ve spent hundreds of years in search of the one who claims my heart. I’ve held extravagant balls and invited men and women from across the world. I’ve courted thousands of beings, both human and supernatural, in hopes that they were my fated mate.
Yet I am still alone, and my kingdom is in peril. Evil lingers, waiting for me to fail.
“Your Majesty,” Locheran, my first in command says, approaching me from behind.
It’s a busy Friday night. I stand on the roof of the Basilica of St. Patrick’s Old Cathedral, staring below at the crowds of people strolling down the sidewalk. Laughter and chatter fill the air from nearby bars and restaurants. The streets are packed with cars unnecessarily honking their horns.
“You’ve been standing here for hours. Do you sense an attack?”
I exhale and rub my hand up and down my face.
“No.”
It’s all I say because I can’t tell my closest advisor that I felt a pull in my chest again tonight. He worries about me, concerned that the curse will soon shut down my body, my organs, and I will no longer be able to rule.
I have six months left. I will fight until the very end.
The pull in my chest started a few weeks ago. I was in my penthouse when it felt as if someone was ripping my heart out. It lasted minutes, if that. I blamed the pain on the curse, until it happened again the next night, but the sun hadn’t fully set yet, so I wasn’t able to emerge to investigate.
The sun temporarily turns gargoyles to stone, and we’re left vulnerable until night falls. It’s a damnation placedon our kind centuries ago after panic spread through a small village in Europe when a child saw a gargoyle flying through the sky while protecting the land. The frantic child’s family went to a witch who knew all about our existence. She knew we were there to keep evil away, but to satisfy the humans, she sentenced us to the night when mortals sleep.
Of course, times are different now and the world stays awake at all hours. Because of this, we’ve developed the ability to mask our true forms.
The problem with not being able to go out in the sun means cities are left unguarded during the day. While we have shields in place, they’re weaker in the sun. Evil beings tend to be nocturnal; however, there are a rare few who can walk during the day.
It’s been decades since the last time we faced a threat. An army of soul-sucking demons from another realm attempted to break through our barriers. The stench of innocent human souls lured them out of the depths of whatever hell they derived from. It was a battle that lasted all through the night until the sun rose and turned some of my soldiers to stone.
Another threat is on the horizon. I feel it in my bones.
The evil infused within this world knows...it senses the end of my reign.
“We should go to the bars. Find you someone to fuck. Your stress is weighing us all down,” Locheran says.
Being the king means all the gargoyles within my kingdom are connected to me. They experience my emotions, my pain.
Thankfully, they don’t experience my pleasure, only emotions that alert them to me being in danger. It allows them to locate me and come to my side to protect me from whatever is trying to cause me harm.
