Page 30 of The Gargoyle's Captive

“I can see that it is.” I wave my hand to encompass her energy, which is swirling about the room and filling the space.

I realize I made a mistake the second she goes perfectly still. “Your people are actively plotting against you. Do you know what they offered me? An escape from this place. I might not have taken them up on it this time, but enough rejections and they’re going to realize that I won’t ever. What happens then, Bram? I’ll tell you what happens. They escalate. I don’t know what circumstances would be enough for them to believe there’s a real chance you might convince me to have a child, but they won’t allow it. Not when their goals are so close at hand. And all you have to say is that you don’t want meupset?”

I know better than to let my anger slip its leash. And yet her derision pricks at me. “What do you want me to do?”

“Literally anything!”

Tension coils through me, but I force myself to sit back slowly instead of surging to my feet. “There’s nothing to be done. They believe I’m cursed, and so they won’t listen to me. Until I can prove otherwise, we’re in a holding pattern.”

“That is the biggest load of shit I’ve ever heard.” She points a finger at me. “You’re just going through the motions. You don’t want this. You don’t want any of this. Gods, you’re probably waiting for someone to come along and stab you in the back and put you out of your misery.”

The truth of her words stings worse than anything she could do to me physically. That, more than anything else she’s said since entering my office, provokes me to action. I rise and flare out my wings. “Get out.”

“Or what?” She lifts her brows and sneers. “Are you going to muscle me out? Please. You’re more likely to go to your knees and offer me your throat. Just like I imagine you do in any important conversation that comes into your life these days. At least I have no intention of cutting it. I can’t say the same for the rest of the people in this castle.”

“Get. Out.”

For a long moment, I think she’ll press the issue. But she lowers her hand and shakes her head slowly. “You’re not doing yourself any favors with this half life, Bram. I’ll see you at dinner.” She turns and stalks out of the room.

If only her words left with her.

They plague me through the afternoon. There’s not much work to be done, which means there aren’t many distractions to be had. The territory more or less runs itself. It has since before my father’s time. The only real purpose that the leader has is to ensure the different gargoyle factions remain of equal power and to lead us during wartime. The former is a full-time job, or at least it was before the different noble families mostly withdrew from this castle. Now I don’t know what they’re doing at all. The spies my father had have all melted away in the night. I am well and truly alone.

I’m doing the best I fucking can, and I deeply resent Grace for acting as if I’m not. Who is she to talk? She’s got plenty of her own skeletons rattling around in that impressive closet inside her.

By the time the sun sets and I make my way down to the kitchen to check on dinner, I am so furious, I can barely speak. Silas gives me a strange look the moment I walk through the door. “Big plans tonight?”

“What makes you say that?” I’m being too brusque, but I can’t stop myself. There’s a part of me that’s jealous that he already saw her; there’s no other reason for him to be asking that question. “Where is she?”

He raises his brows. “Maybe it would be better if you ate separately tonight.”

Part of me wonders if he’s right, but the rest of me can’t stand the thought of keeping all this tumultuous energy inside me with no outlet. Grace will be fine. She always is. “We’ll eat like normal.”

“If you insist.” Silas turns back to the stove.

I am taking out many years of frustration and fear on the convenient target that is Grace. I can’t bring myself to give a fuck. Somehow, everything comes to a point when I see the formal dining room. Place after place set out in perfect symmetry. All empty. Just like normal.

Except for one.

Grace sits right in the center of the long length, dressed in a black gown. This one seems to fit her better than the others, at least the part I can see. It clings to her arms and breasts, leaving her shoulders and most of her upper chest bare. She’s fastened her hair up into some intricate style that looks lovely. She’s even colored her lips, a deep crimson shade that makes me think of blood.

Taunting me in my office wasn’t enough. She’s going to drive the point home with the ferocity of a warrior out for their enemy’s death. I want to hate her for it, but I can’t help admiring her willingness to step onto the field of battle.

I don’t walk to the head of the table. Instead, I take the seat directly across from her. We stare at each other as the minutes tick by. I know that to speak first is to lose, but at some point, this is just ridiculous. “Congratulations, you’ve proven your point.”

“Have I?” She leans back and spreads her arms. “Where are your people, Bram? Do they respect you so little that they don’t worry about their absence here? Don’t bother to answer. I already know.”

My earlier frustration and anger bubbles right out of my mouth before I can think better of it. “That’s rich coming from you. You act like you know so much about responsibility and taking care of your own. Yet the first chance you got, you abandoned your entire realm and came into this one to find answers about a dead woman. What the fuck does it matter how she died, Grace? It doesn’t change anything. It certainly doesn’t take away from the fact that you’re running from your problems, same as me. I think that’s what pisses you off the most about me. We. Are. The. Same.”

“Thefuckwe are.”

Now it’s my turn to lean back, to smirk at her as she unravels the same way I did earlier in my office. This is childish. But I want to be under her skin and just as aggravating as she is to me. That satisfaction is empty, but I don’t care. I press forward well beyond any good sense. “You’re so angry, Grace. Do you think I’m not? But then, the most aggravating thing in the world is to look at another person and see your perfect mirror. Changing me won’t change how you feel. It won’t changeyou.”

She plants her hands on the table and rises abruptly. “Shut the fuck up.”

“Or what?” I see the answer in her energy—little pops of the threat of violence. Now is the time to turn us back to safety. I won’t. This is the moment I tuck my wings close to my body and let gravity take hold. The moment I embrace it, throw myself against the most basic law of existing: what goes up must come down. And when it does, it hurts like nothing else.

This moment with Grace is ugly and awful, but at least it’s real. If I make her angry enough to kill me? That’s something she’ll have to live with. Not me.

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