Page 3 of Loved By the Gargoyle

Even if that wasn’t the full truth.

Maybe that’s what drew me towards X.

Because in the undercurrent of words on paper, I recognized his loneliness as a mirror to my own, a reflection of the parts of me I shoved down deep. X was all alone in the world, because why else would he reach out to me like this?

The same reason I’d decided to respond, no doubt.

I finished the note and signed M with a flourish. After carefully folding it–though not as intricately as X had done–I went out into the hallway. After a cursory glance, I tucked it onto the doorframe and slid back inside.

For a while, I busied myself with putting away my groceries and eating a quick meal of congee. My eyes kept straying towards the door, ears perked for any sign of footsteps. I hadn’t been able to catch X in the act, no matter how many times I tried. Tonight was no different. My espionage was bound to get me somewhere, I thought, as I laid down on my couch facing the hallway and my front door. The hours went by with nothing. There were no sounds of footsteps or breathing. Eventually, my eyes grew heavy with the need for sleep and I succumbed, not before catching sight of the shadows slipping just beneath the door.

I knew the darkness like I knew my own name. I was one with it. It was woven into the very fibers and fabric of the parts that composed me. The magic and hell stone that I had inherited from the Lords of Hell itself ran rampant beneath my hardened skin. It made me what I was.

A terror that spread through the night on the wings of shadows.

I melded into them, became them.

The light fled from me as I swept through the human building, finding myself hidden within a decrepit attic I had claimed as my home.

I materialized myself in a corner, the span of my long wings cramped around my body causing only a twinge of discomfort that I ignored. With my knees digging into my chest, my back hunched against the wall, and my tail flicking against the filthy ground, I held a small slip of paper in my hands. Bringing it up to my nostrils with a humiliating, desperate eagerness, I inhaled.

My chest glowed, the blue light of the fire stirring to life inside me as the scent on paper trapped within my lungs.

Every day I received a similar sized paper, and every day I inhaled without fail, memorizing her scent.

The scent of the delicate human that had entranced me from afar.

My wife.

Carnal desire swept through my body, making my crumpled wings twitch with need.

Taking a final breath, my long, black claws carefully unfolded the note, where I was greeted by the delicate scrawl of my wife’s handwriting, illuminated beneath the light of my glowing body.

The page in my hands trembled, and I fought to steady the eagerness tearing through me.

The feel of opening my wife’s letters was similar to the adrenalin that pumped through the blood before a vicious battle. Thrilling, exhilarating, rife with anticipation that could only be quenched with bloodshed. Or, in this case, until I committed the words on page to memory and then grasped my hard cock and made it weep to her name.

X,

In my family, meals are something to be shared and enjoyed together. It’s normal to get together and cook, to sit together and enjoy the fruits of our hard labor. It kind of makes me sad to know you haven’t had the same experience with food as I have. It’s more than just a meal… It’s something that brings people together.

I know this isn’t a topic we touch on so forgive me for doing so, and you don’t have to answer but… do you have family? Someone you can enjoy meals–and life–with? Or are you alone?

Whew, sorry to get so heavy there. My ma says I’m too curious for my own good.

Anyway, I have to get back to work now.

Hoping to hear back from you soon,

M.

My heart beat a rapid rhythm, one I had not experienced in a long, long time. I had rather thought the useless organ had ceased functioning. The beats had died to silence, as if it had never been in my chest at all.

But then my brothers and I had made a pact.

That we would crawl from the darkest depths of hell to human lands so that we may find our brides.

Curiosity had compelled me. Eagerness, surely.