Page 38 of Hearts of Stone

“Aw… bestie!” the man said, moving in to give her a squeeze.

“A very precious, very annoying little brother,” she amended, shooting him a dark look.

Brother. So there was hope. My mood lifted at that word.

“And you’re about to fulfil all your monster fucking dreams,” he said gleefully. “This is the house that keeps on giving. You’re finally wearing clothes that suit you. We can spend the day lolling around on that fabulous couch of yours and at night…” His eyes twinkled. “You’ve got a goddamn harem here of gargoyles at your beck and call.”

“Ah… no—” she started to say, flushing a very pretty pink.

“Yes.” I took a step forward, as did Graven and… Carrick?Gods above, please don’t let him be a part of my flock,I thought furiously. He was reckless, stupid, irritating and—

“We already have.”

Urgh, the smug bastard smiled then.

“You did!” As soon as Daniel squeaked that out, she slapped a hand over his mouth, silencing him. Good, perhaps she could do the same for Carrick, because he was edging closer.

“Jesus, Danny, your voice is so high only dogs can hear it,” she said, then she let him go. He brushed his robe down, then straightened it, as if he was wearing one of the hand tailored suits Master Ashley favoured. “And thank you for your input, Carrick.”

“You seemed to like my ‘input’ a great deal last night,” he replied with a smirk.

“Did he just ‘that’s what she said’ you?” Daniel asked, his head spinning from one direction to another. “He did, didn’t he?Oh my god. Oh my god! You got railed by that!” He stabbed a finger in the direction of Carrick’s cock. “Like, damn girl, I thought I was a size queen, but…” He peered closer, but Carrick put out a hand.

“My endowments are none of your business, little man,” he said, firmly, but gently.

“But there’s lumps on it,” Daniel said in a whispered aside to my mate. “There’s no such thing as gargoyle STIs, right?”

“These are my pearls,” Carrick explained. “They exist to give my mistress much pleasure.” He held out an arm for Jade to take, something that had me starting forward. Why should he—? “Something we could be doing right now, Jade.”

Daniel let out an explosive snort, ruining the mood entirely, but Jade gave him a hard shove. Watching him stumble made something inside me very happy. This friend of my mate’s was a lover of men, I was sure of it, yet still I could not tamp down the flames of jealousy that burned in my heart. I wanted to stand next to her, to be able to take for granted that closeness.

“No, no, no.” Each word grew firmer with repetition. “That’s not what’s going to happen. We’re all going to sit down and work out what the fuck is going on because…”

I saw the yearning in her eyes as she scanned the lot of us, along with something else. Fear, but a strange kind. The one that comes from being hurt over and over and not being sure how to stop it. Daniel noted my attention, his smile fading before he nodded slowly to me.

“Because I thought all of you were some kind of hot dream and now…?” She shook her head sharply. “I need to know what the hell is going on.”

Chapter 21

Jade

So I now knew this wasn’t a dream, because I never would’ve added Daniel to any dream scenarios involving me and a bunch of gargoyles. But that just made watching three massive gargoyles tramp into my new kitchen all the more surreal.

This was real.

This was all fucking real.

I busied myself by putting the kettle on, a time-honoured technique for dealing with stressful events in my family, and once it was boiling I turned around and asked, “Tea?”

Daniel snorted, stared at me and then snorted again.

“Because this situation totally calls for a cup of sleepy time tea.” He leaned over the bench. “Got any tequila in this bougie place of yours?”

He started to open cupboards with gay abandon, exclaiming at some of the contents, when one of the gargoyles, Seneca, I think it was, stepped forward.

“We will drink anything you care to prepare for us, Mistress.”

“Is that what I’m supposed to do?” I asked. Jesus, Daniel and I had talked about getting a puppy, but did I inherit a bunch ofgargoyles instead? Except they weren’t pets… My memories of the other night came roaring back now that I accepted the reality of the lot of them, making clear just how un-pet-like they were. “Do I need to prepare food for you? Drinks? Is there something specific you need, like lots of calcium?” I waved a hand in their direction.

---