Page 97 of Hearts of Stone

“My whole purpose is to serve you in any way you deem right, Mistress. I will serve you in this scenario and all others.”

There, perfectly polite, making clear my devotion to her and—

“No!” Her words pushed me harder than her hands as she slapped them down on my chest and shoved.

“No?”

A knife blade can be so sharp that it cuts through your flesh faster than your nerve endings can register it—that’s how my pain felt.

“No!” She shoved me again and surprise, rather than her strength, had me stumbling backwards. “No, you don’t get to do that.”

“Do what, Mi—”

“Don’t say that word.” She shoved her finger under my nose and my fangs flexed, wanting to take a little nip from it. “Don’t. I told you not to call me that anymore.”

“Jade, then,” I said, holding up my hands in surrender. “I will serve you until my dying days, Ja—”

“No.”

I blinked, knowing now what this was. As I stared at her, my Adam’s apple bobbed in my throat, feeling as though it had suddenly grown twice the size. She was my love, my entire heart, and somehow it was about to get torn from me. Because while she might be my fated mate, she was not bound to accept my love, like I was hers.

She was going to reject me.

It had happened to other gargoyles. We were told about it when we were still boys, of gargoyles that had failed in their duties, who did not show their mate due care, or sometimes it had happened due to pressure from her family or her warlock husband. Gargoyles could be rejected, cursed to love a woman until the bitter end, never having received a single kind lookfrom her, let alone her caress. When I was still a child, I’d sworn it’d never happen to me, that I would do everything to serve my fated mate, but here I was, facing that very thing.

I was a warrior. I had fought my master’s enemies, back in England, driving them from his land in the dead of night, leaving the survivors to run home and report being attacked by devils. I’d faced down longbow fire, ballista and everything a siege engine could throw at me, and not flinched for a second. And so, I drew myself upright and met her furious gaze. I’d do the same now, no matter what was said.

“You big, bloody idiot…”

Jade flinging herself at me, wrapping her arms around my waist was not what I had anticipated, so I moved slowly, unsure of how to respond. My hands hovered in the air, fluttering like butterflies, not at all the sure hands of a warrior. But my instincts helped me recover quickly enough. With her face pressed into my belly and her plush body against mine, I couldn’t help but cradle her close. I looked down at the top of her head, and then closed my eyes so that nothing would distract me from the feel of my Jade in my arms.

“I won’t do anything if you guys are against it.” Her words were pure magic, muffled by her lips pressed into my skin, so I felt them as much as heard them. “I’m not hurting any of you for some dumb warlock with pretty eyes.”

The increase of weight pressing into my body had my eyes flicking open to see Seneca had taken up position behind Jade, sandwiching her between us. Carrick shot me a knowing look, right before he shook his head and scrambled across the bed to join in. That was the moment when what I’d been dreaming of for so damn long would finally come to be.

“I know you’re never going to stay late at work and screw your secretary,” she said, her grip on me tightening. My handlanded on the soft skin at the back of her neck, daring to stroke my thumb down the elegant slope.

“I’m not sure we’re entirely clear on what a secretary is,” I told her.

“You won’t look me up and down in a few years and ask when I’m going to ‘do something about my body’.”

“Why on earth would we do that?” Carrick asked. “You are perfection personified.”

“And you’ll never expect to have sex whenever you want, make no attempt to get me in the mood, then pump away two, maybe three times, before blowing your load.”

“Well, the fledgling might…” Carrick said, right before I cuffed him at the back of his head.

“We can’t, Jade,” Seneca replied, shooting our brother a dark look. “Your pleasure is what matters most always. As long as you have need of us, we’ll rise again and again. We live to serve.”

“Then do this for me,” Jade said, as she pulled her face away from my stomach, and part of me wanted to push her right back where she’d been. Her eyes searched mine before she spoke again. “Be my partners, not my slaves or servants. Walk beside me, not in front or behind. Choose me not because of instinct or a curse or anything. Choose me because you have the freedom to do that, like anyone else has.”

She was still finding her power, learning how to use her magic, but as she spoke, I felt it. A working of great strength, rising up inside her, and before I could utter a warning, it rushed out like a great explosion.

I caught the back blast as did the other two, the three of us going completely rigid as something truly magical happened. I’d watched previous masters use fire, water, air or earth magic to create illusions, to transform people and places, but never anything like this. It was as if her words went to the core of us,rewriting something that had been laid down the minute we’d been conceived and turning us into something else altogether.

“We’re free.” Carrick stared down at his hands and I understood why. These were still our bodies and yet they now were something else altogether, something new, something amazing. “You freed us.”

“What?” she asked in confusion. And of course, there was the answer. Warlocks worked hard to school their daughters, wives, nieces and cousins to ensure that exactly this sort of thing never happened. The collar that had been around my neck since the moment I turned to stone was unclipped and left to fall free, leaving only me.

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