Page 71 of Hearts of Stone

He was the same as I remembered, tall, so freaking tall, with a massive span of shoulders, every muscle standing proud as he moved. It made the man with him seem so much smaller, even though I knew logically he wasn’t. “No…” he sobbed. “No…”

“No?”

I’d heard that voice before, and it was velvety soft and yet full of iron as he asked his partner the question.

“No…” the smaller man said.

“You know I never do anything you don’t ask for,” the gargoyle reasoned. “And I won’t now.” And so he went to pull away.

“No…!”

That frantic edge to the smaller man’s voice, the way he clung to the gargoyle’s claw, it had my jaw clamping down tight. I wasn’t going to like this, somehow I knew.

“No?” the gargoyle asked again.

“No…” The smaller man’s voice was softer, plaintive now. He pawed at the gargoyle’s chest and I knew exactly what he was doing. They were so massive it was hard not to do that, to map the expanse of their chests, to learn the terrain of them like a rock climber might a cliff face. Because both those things were just as grand, just as impassive, just as unknowable. “No, Luther, please. I need…”

Just like any other nightmare, I wanted to pull free of the dream, escape what I was about to see, but I couldn’t. Because the smaller man, he turned from some nondescript human into someone I knew well. It was Daniel’s blue hair I saw the gargoyle sink his fingers into, then use as the means to wrench his head back and bare his neck to the beast’s fangs. He scored them across the soft flesh there, leaving red marks in their wake that I knew would turn greenish purple later. He seemed to mark every inch of Daniel’s neck as his before turning to face my best friend.

“Yes?”

“Yes, Luther,” he said, trying to tug the gargoyle down for a kiss, but the beast wouldn’t move, not until he was ready. “Yes, please, Luther, please—”

“Well, when you beg so prettily.” He hoisted Daniel up into his arms, and Danny’s legs wrapped around the gargoyle’s waist. “Don’t worry, I’ll give you everything you want and just a little more.”

“More,” Daniel agreed with a frantic nod of his head. “More.”

But when the gargoyle gave him just that, I heard a scream, that same horrific scream that had sent goosebumps prickling all over my body, a scream that cut through my dream and jerked me out of it, forcing me upright, panting as I drew in breath after breath.

“Jade…?”

Seneca’s voice sounded like rocks being ground against each other, his movements slow, sluggish as he pushed away his stony form to come right back to himself, but he wasn’t my focus. I heard another scream cut across The Eyrie’s grounds and that had me scrambling out of the bed and shoving clothes on. When I stumbled out of the bedroom, I saw a wild-haired Daniel standing outside his own room at the end of the hall, looking just as spooked.

“Danny,” I said, walking to him, feeling a rush of gratitude that it had all just been a dream.

Except for the part that wasn’t.

Our heads whipped around as we heard another ragged scream. Seneca appeared in the doorway of my room, his brow furrowed.

“Jade—”

“That’s coming from Z Ward,” Daniel said. “Fuck, Jade, you’ve got a truly-ruly ghost on your grounds.”

“Jade!” Seneca shouted, but when Daniel went flying down the stairs, I took off after him. That dream… Somehow I knew that I needed to protect Daniel from whatever lay within Z Ward, so when he slammed the front door open and ran out into the night, I followed.

We ran across grass cold with dew that soaked into the cuffs of my track pants and chilled my feet to the bone, but I didn’t care. I was too busy cursing myself for never joining Daniel in the gym because he was sprinting faster and faster, the gap between us widening.

“Danny!” I shouted. “Daniel!”

But he just skimmed across the grass, past rose bushes and graceful willows, like he was the gargoyle, not Seneca.

“Mistress!” the gargoyle said from above me, before he swooped down and grabbed me, picking me up in his armsbefore flying me over to the haunted prison. He landed heavily, wings flaring, right in front of the gates.

“What’s in there?” Daniel demanded as he arrived, panting, shoving a finger in the direction of Z Ward. “I did some reading while Jade was asleep and, fuck, Jade, your…ancestor?”

“Jade was not born from Luther’s line,” Graven growled, landing heavily beside Seneca, Carrick doing the same a heartbeat later. “She carries none of his taint. He—”

But whatever he was about to say, it was cut off by a guttural cry from within the building.

---