Page 23 of Hearts of Stone

And I had to join her there.

Graven would’ve hung back, waited, but I pushed that realisation away as soon as I thought it. I had waited for so damn long. Every gargoyle was blessed with a fated mate, but the process of finding her was always a difficult thing, due to the actions of some of the first of our kind. They’d killed their fated mate with their recklessness, barely grasping her in their arms for the first time before she died, and so all other gargoyles were cursed to struggle to find the other half of their heart.

Which is why I wouldn’t be hanging around like a hatchling, still wet behind the ears, waiting for her to notice me. I put my hand out against the door, my claws clicking on it as I pushed it open.

“Oh my god…”

Did my mate say that with reverence or fear? I couldn't tell, but I’d only find out by getting closer. I stepped inside the bathroom and that’s when it became clear. She scrabbled back in the bath, her hand going to her breasts, so of course my eyes followed their path and stayed there. Her hands couldn’t contain that bounty so I moved forward, ready to take the job on.

“What…? What the fuck…?” One hand lifted in the air and I liked the view so much better. Then a shaking finger appeared, pointing at me. “What the fucking hell are you?”

“Yours,” I said, honestly, shifting forward, flicking my wings back in the kind of powerful display that would cower weaker gargoyles and impress females, and her eyes just widened. “Yes, all of this.”

She seemed to struggle to take me in, eyes wide, but they slid across my chest, forcing me to puff it out just a little, and down over my abdomen. Then I saw a perfect ring of white around her beautiful pupils when she got to the evidence of just how much I was affected by the sight of her. I reached down, hissing as I gave my cock a tug, the feeling all the sharper because it’d been so long since I’d felt anything like this. All of our masters had been male for over a hundred years, and despite the commands of some, I could not muster desire for them. They did not have the beautiful softness of women, that sweet scent, drawing me closer. But each step I took, she cringed backwards in the bath, before she made clear how she felt about my presence.

“I’m having a dream,” she babbled. “All of this.” Her eyes flicked around to take in the beautiful architectural features of The Eyrie. We were all very proud of the house, having worked with each master to perfect and refine it. “I didn’t inherit a fabulous mansion. I lost my job and must be drunk in a ditch somewhere.”

My head jerked back at that, unable to understand this shift in mood.

“That’s it.” She nodded furiously. “I’m going to wake up tomorrow, half dead, or worse, on the couch at fucking Trevor’s place.”

“Who is this Trevor?” I growled, my tail flicking back and forth.

“A douche,” she replied, which had me tilting my head to one side.

“He washes semen from the vaginas of women?” I shook my head. “I know some things about men, but I’ve never heard of that as a profession.”

“It’s not his job,” she hissed in frustration. “He’s a lawyer by trade—”

“Grr… filthy parasites,” I snapped.

“On that we agree, figment of my imagination,” she said, seeming to collect herself. Her chest wasn’t heaving quite so fast, which I wasn’t sure was an improvement, but here we were. “Trevor is a prick.” My fangs locked tight. “An arsehole, a bastard.” They started to grind together. “He was my ex-boyfriend who leeched off me until he hit the big time, and then he left me for dust, fucking some stupid bitch paralegal on his desk when he told me he was working late.”

“This man left you for another woman?” I asked with a frown, scouring her face for the truth of the matter, because while humans were relentlessly stupid, they couldn’t be that mentally impaired. “Impossible.”

“It seems like if I was going to conjure a seven-foot-tall demon—” she stammered out.

“Gargoyle,” I corrected. “I am Carrick.”

“Of course you are,” she said, smiling for just a second, but it quickly faded. “Then it tracks that is how you’d react. Are you going to offer to bring me his head?”

“I’ll have his bloodied corpse laid before you within the hour,” I promised, thumping my hand on my chest.

“Don’t do that,” she said, frowning slightly, but any protests I might have made died in my throat as she stood up in the bath. My keen eyesight caught every single trickle of water as it ran down her perfect body. “But, if this is a dream…” I watched her take a step closer, then another. “And I created you from some obscure childhood imprinting via a cartoon…” I followed the hypnotic sway of her hips, my eyes unable to look at anything else, until she came to stand at the end of the bath. “Then I guess it doesn’t matter what I do right now, right? This is my dream…”

Did gargoyles dream? I never remembered mine if I did have them, the day often feeling like a haze of heat and light, my mind unable to hold onto the details, but I felt some of that warmth right now. A flame burned in my heart and in my cock, getting brighter as she reached out a hand.

“Then I can do whatever I want with the massive grey man with the monster cock,” she said finally, stepping out of the bath.

Her first touch was like a firebrand, searing my hard skin and she snatched her hand back, making me long to force it back, but I wouldn’t. She had to come to me, want me, need me. She was my mistress as well as my mate and I would ever be her slave.

Her hand returned, bolder now, caressing the broad span of my shoulders, then where my wings grew out from my body. It was a terribly sensitive spot, so my wings began to rustle, forcing her to stare up at me.

“You… fly?”

I did a lot of things and I wanted to tell her about every single one of them, but for now I shot her a sly smile and expanded on what I could do using my wings.

“I do, mistress. I can fly both of us high up into the sky, beyond where any human could see us. You could wrap yourarms around my neck, lock your legs around my waist and I could take you up to touch the stars. Or…”

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