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In my realm, I would respect his boundaries. Here? I only have the information I can get from the twins who brought me to this strange world to help them.
He doesn’t open his mouth, doesn’t attempt to explain.
Fine. If he’s not ready to talk, he can at least accept comfort. I step over his tail to hug him.
His body goes rigid beneath my touch. “What are you doing?” His question comes out on a rumble beneath my cheek.
“Hugging you.” I don’t let go. “Don’t you know what hugs are?”
“Yes, but no one has ever hugged me.”
“What?” I tilt my head back to look at him. “Never?”
“Never.” His calm, matter-of-fact admission breaks my heart even as his warm breath against my lips makes me think of kissing him. I’d meant this as a comfort—giving, not taking. Another thought of things he hasn’t done niggles at me.
“What about kissing?” I ask.
“I’m a fan.” He curves his mouth into a smile with a hint of fangs. “I think.”
“You don’t know?” How does he not know? “You mean you haven’t…”
“Kissed. No. I spent my first thirty years searching for the perfect queen’s candidate. The next century I was cursed to stay in stone form. Then, you woke us. I’ve followed you ever since. There wasn’t time for kissing. Or anyone who wanted to kiss a monster.” Sorrow pulls at his smile, and it falls.
“Hey.” I poke his chest. “Don’t talk about yourself that way.”
“It’s the truth. I’m a monster.”
I jab at him again, my bracelets rattling. “You don’t act monstrous. Not the scary kind of monster anyway. You’re more of the handsome, lovable kind.” Oh god, I said that out loud. Oops. This gargoyle messes with my brain.
“You don’t have to say sweet things. It’s probably best if you didn’t.” He pulls away. “Our last candidate said nice things, but in the end, I forced her to compete in the trials, and then she couldn’t bear to face her fate. Worse, I failed to save her.”
Our conversation took yet another sharp detour to super serious. My throat goes thick and my voice hoarse. “She lost the trials?”
He huffs and shakes his head before slumping into the only chair in the room. His wings fit easily between the two slats in the open back. “She won the trials. The Bridge of Souls chose her as our queen. But she didn’t want to stay.”
Jace’s sadness draws me like a magnet. I can’t stand to hear him hurting.
“She couldn’t visit home after the Bridge picked her?” I don’t share how that would be a definite problem for me as well. We can cross that…er, um, bridge later.
He doesn’t lift his head. His hair falls in his face, and I want to push it back so I can see his expression. “Of course we would’ve taken her home as much as the Bridge could spare her. When it wasn’t so broken, so worn out, some of our elders who manipulate time would’ve made it seem as though she’d only been away a day or a week. Whatever worked for keeping her relationships with her family and friends.”
That doesn’t sound too bad. “Then what was the problem?”
He doesn’t answer for so long that I wonder if he won’t. Finally, he speaks while staring into his upturned palms in his lap as if searching for the answers in the lines there. “She didn’t want to stay in a realm with us…with me.”
Oh no. She didn’t want him. The ache in his voice pricks at me like a thousand needles laced with sympathy…and envy. Which is ridiculous.
I don’t know Jace well enough to be jealous of a woman who rejected him a hundred years ago. They didn’t hug or kiss, but it would’ve been a different time then with different values. Lack of physical affection might not mean they hadn’t loved each other.
“Was she…” What word had he used? “Was she your mate?” Please say no. I don’t know why I don’t want to hear about another woman being his true love, his real mate, but I don’t. Stupid. I’m so stupid to have gone and started caring about a gargoyle so quickly.
“I thought maybe she could have eventually chosen me as a mate, but no. A century in stone gave me plenty of time to replay every conversation, every look, every almost touch. While her attention was flattering, I don’t think she ever wanted to take a monster as a…suitor. She certainly wasn’t a fated mate meant for any of us.”
His quiet confession slays me, and I struggle to stay centered on his words instead of his hurt. “Fated mate?”
He lifts his head to meet my gaze. “According to the legends, with fated mates, the first time you see them, you desire them. The first time you touch, the connection feels right. You want to protect them, to take care of them. You feel things for them even before your brain says you should.”
Much like I’m feeling for Jace and even Atticus with no logical explanation.
