Page 126 of Hearts of Stone

“Milady…” he said, shifting the bundle in his arms, “these are for you.”

“Wulfstan, they’re beautiful.”

I got to my feet and collected the roses from him, only to find a wicker basket hanging from his arm, under the mass of rose stems.

“I… ah… found a place not far from here that’s quite pretty. I thought you might like to…” He hefted the basket in his arm.

“Go for a picnic?” My stomach rumbled as I smelled the delicious food within and I slapped my hand over it. “Oh my god, yes, that’d be amazing.”

“Well, then…”

Gargoyles didn’t blush, so much as their grey cheeks stained somewhat darker, which was what happened to him. The biggest gargoyle I’d ever seen blushed as he offered me his arm. I took it, knowing Daniel was safe upstairs, ordering his minions around and knowing they were content to jump to fulfil his commands and keep him happy, and because… sometimes when an unexpected opportunity comes up, you don’t question it, you just let yourself be happy.

Wulfstan led me outside and then wrapped his arm around my waist. I only let out the tiniest little squeak as he launched us into the air, his massive wings taking us above the house in seconds. We flew up, up and away from it all and into the night.

“So where are we going?” I asked.

“Somewhere special,” he informed me, very confidently. “You’ll see.”

Chapter 70

Wulfstan

My mother had told me that I’d know my fated mate, because I’d feel like I’d known her in another life, and as I flew us to the field the other gargoyles had told me about, that was exactly what I felt. Like I’d held Lady Jade in my arms, that her body had pressed tight against mine.

It hadn’t after that first night. I had withdrawn when the other gargoyles indulged in their marital duties with our mate, because she had already accepted their mating bites, but I… I was left with feeling like I lived with an echo inside me, one that rang with her name, over and over in the hollow within.

But that didn’t make sense. I felt full, not empty whenever I was near her. Full to overflowing. Like at any moment all that I felt would come rushing out and splash all over…

I cleared my throat as we started to spiral down. The moon wasn’t fully up yet and there was the tiniest amount of reflected sunlight making the broad details of the field apparent to the naked eye. We landed in a field of flowers, and Jade sighed.

“Wow, Wulf, this is beautiful!”

I liked it when she shortened my name. Wulfstan was the warrior that fought atop his master’s parapets, but Wulf… He was the secret side of myself that was tender and soft, and only dared to come out when I was around her. I dropped the basket to the ground and took her hands in mine.

“Not more beautiful than you.”

This world was confusing, bewildering in its shift in technology. The others taught me something new every day to help me to become accustomed to it, but… That men nowadays were so blind that they weren’t beating down the Lady Jade’s door to recite odes to her beauty said to me that socially we had taken a step backwards. It didn’t matter, for their loss was my gain. I lifted my hand to caress her cheek, but she was so small and fragile my fingers curled instinctively away. Jade didn’t allow for that. She smiled and pulled my hand close, nestling her cheek into my palm.

My mother hadn’t told me that the feel of my mate’s touch would be like when a bolt of lightning struck my stone body as I slept, like that electric touch burning through me before going to ground in the earth. That I would want to memorise every tiny moment like this. My memories always felt like they were slipping away from me.

Sometimes I walked the halls of The Eyrie, and I saw things out of the corner of my eyes. People dancing, bands playing wild music, men and women rutting like animals while I… I’d shaken the feeling off several times before I spoke to Graven about it.

“You know how our souls are bound to our fated mates?” he’d said. I’d nodded. “If we don’t find her in this life, we will in the next. And you…” There was something very focused and yet complex in Graven’s gaze as he stared at me. “You were a great warrior and you fought to protect the house and Lady Jade from a monster who threatened to destroy us all.”

“I… died?”

There was this great yawning gap between Scotland and here, where hundreds of years must’ve passed. I’d assumed I’d just sunk into the Great Sleep, unawakened all that time. It happened sometimes, when no one with the touch inherited the castle, but… Graven had nodded slowly.

“For her,” he said earnestly. “You died for Jade and for that…” He offered me his hand and I took it, clasping it tight as brothers in stone should. “For that I will always be grateful. Whatever you decide, brother, I will do everything I can to support you.”

“Then help me with this,” I said. “I do not have the skills for wooing a woman of this world. How might I show the Lady Jade the depth of my feelings? You all seem at ease in her company, where I—”

“Want dating advice, Wulf?” Carrick said, landing beside us with a grin. “I can help out.”

“Help with the rutting part, you mean,” Seneca muttered, giving him a shove. “Pretty much whatever he says, do the opposite.”

“Like you’d know, fledgling. Our mate only slept with you because you’d never known the touch of a woman.”

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