Page 20 of The Gargoyle's Captive

She’s not saying anything I didn’t already suspect, but I can’t help pressing. “And you help them?”

“Sometimes.” Grace pokes at her food. “Usually humans are the ones in desperate need of help, but there are exceptions to every rule.”

If she doesn’t know the various quirks and secrets that come with being a gargoyle, it’s probably in my best interest not to educate her. It takes a lot of practice to hide emotions from people who can read them in the very air around you, but it can be done. With such a complicated human who is so prone to lies, I need every advantage I can get.

But hiding things feels too much like a lie in and of itself.

“I can read your energy. All gargoyles, all those with gargoyles in their family history, can. Each color has a different meaning, an emotion attached to it. You’re not desperate. You haven’t been desperate for a moment since I met you.” The closest she got was when she was tangled in that web with the spiders closing in, but even that wasn’t true desperation.

Grace twists to face me and frowns. “For a king or leader or whatever the terminology is, you’re absolute garbage at keeping secrets. Don’t you know that you should hold every possible resource close? If I didn’t know you could read my emotions, that would be an incredible weapon in your arsenal. And you just gave it away for nothing.”

She is... angry? No, that’s not quite right. She doesn’t seem to know how to feel any more than I do. Her emotions flicker and swirl in a confusing maelstrom of colors. I look away to avoid getting dizzy. “That kind of thought process should only be used against enemies.”

“That’s naive and you know it. There’s no way the gargoyles and the other people who inhabit this realm are that much different than humans. All I have to do is pick up a history book to see that allies can become enemies all too quickly when power is on the line.”

She’s right, but I still don’t understand why she’s so worked up over this. “That should be a relief to you. Maybe one of them will make a move soon and kill me, which will break the contract and send you back to the bargainer demon territory. That’s what you want, isn’t it?”

“Yes.” The way she says it is almost a lie. Her energy doesn’t quite change, but she won’t meet my gaze, and she turns away. “Of course that’s what I want.”

I push my food away, no longer hungry. “Why are you here, Grace?” She opens her mouth to answer, but I press on before she can get any words out. “Not here in this castle. Not here with me. Here in the demon realm. What did Ramanu mean when they said Azazel has answers about your mother?”

“I told you already. I’m paying the price of someone else’s deal.”

The bullshit might’ve worked with me before, but it doesn’t make sense with the things I know now. I shake my head sharply. “Don’t you think I deserve to know the truth? I’ve given you the courtesy of being honest. Can’t you do the same?” Even as I say it, I’m not sure I believe myself. Ultimately, she doesn’t owe me anything. We might be in this together, but it’s a temporary situation.

Grace uses her fork to move her food around her plate. Finally she sighs. “Okay, you might have a point. My mother is dead, and has been for some time, I think. It’s been five years in the human realm, but time moves differently. Azazel is the only one who has the full story of what happened, and I want to know. Ineedto know.”

“Why would Azazel have answers about your mother—” I realize the answer before I even finish speaking. Her mother made a demon deal and then never came home. And now Grace has moved across realms to get the answers she craves. Would I do any less if there were questions about how my family had died and I was the last one left? No wonder she is so determined to leave my side and make her way back to the bargainer demon territory.

If I were a better man, I would release her from the fucked-up bargain we put in place between us. If I were a worse one, I would use this knowledge to ensure her compliance with my needs and demands.

I do neither. Instead, I find myself studying her. “Would you like to see more of the lands around the castle? I’d like to get out of here for a bit and I wouldn’t say no to some company.”

She lifts her brows. “Playing hooky? Surely someone will come looking.”

“These days the castle mostly runs itself and my company is hardly entertaining enough for most people to seek out.”

“Bram...” She presses her lips together for a long moment and then says, “I’d love to see the grounds around the castle.”

She’s likely only agreeing to better plan her next escape attempt, but I don’t care. I’m happy to spend more time with her. I nudge her plate back toward her. “Eat up. You’re going to want your strength for this.”

12

BRAM

Ialmost talk myself out of taking Grace along half a dozen times before she meets me on the roof dressed in so many layers that she looks a bit like a child bundled against the cold. Or, well, a child of some other people. Gargoyles are naturally resistant to extreme temperatures, even from the time we’re born.

I hold out my hand. “Shall we?”

“Do you have a destination in mind?”

I hadn’t when I made the offer, but now I find myself saying, “There’s an old keep in the mountains. It was used in my grandparents’ generation, but it’s falling into disrepair. I like to go out there regularly and make sure that it’s still structurally sound because there’s a superstition among my people that anyone who can spend an hour at midnight in the wine cellar without light will receive good luck and blessings.”

Grace raises her brows. “Not that old of a superstition if it was still used two generations ago.”

I understand how she sees things that way, but that’s not how my people operate. I shrug. “Superstitions are living things, and sometimes they can shift in the space of a few decades. Other times, they stretch back through the years to beyond living memory.”

Saying this the hot spring so high in the mountains that only the most reckless of people would normally attempt to reach it, where it’s said that immersing yourself in the water will result in a healthy pregnancy and a safe birth. Several times a year, pilgrimages are organized to visit it. It doesn’t matter how dangerous the trek—people always show up.

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