Page 16 of Hated By the Gargoyle

“You earn your treatment.”

Did he truly believe that or was he forcing the words out because he couldn’t fathom placing the blame on himself?

“I haven’t done anything to earn your ire.”

“You are here! You are here when you should not be.” He stopped his pacing and leaned forward to scream, looking every bit a beast that I didn’t shy away from. “You are the wrong human, that is what you have done to gain my ire. You are not the one I want.”

I was getting really fucking annoyed at him for saying that. All my life I’d been made to feel less than. He didn’t know me, and I shouldn’t have taken it to heart and yet… The words beat me down.

I had scarce friends in my own world. The one I did have was a self-centered user, and in my own loneliness I couldn’t turn her away. I had nobody. And what did it say about me when this monstrous creature didn’t even want me?

Was I really so worthless?

Tears pricked my eyes, but I swallowed them down, or at least I tried to. “Right.” The word came out far too tightly. “Because Carlota is so much better than me.”

He nodded fiercely. “You are correct.”

The pain shouldn’t have come, but it did. I should’ve been used to it, but it seemed that even after years of the same treatment, those words could still hurt.

Everyone always panted after Carlota and ignored me. And if they weren’t panting after her, they were buttering me up, if only so they could use me to get to her. I was just a bridge for others to step on in their journey to go where they really wanted to be. And it seemed this, it wasn’t any different.

I scoffed, masking my hurt with my own dripping poison. “Carlota is a mean girl,” I told him. And maybe friends didn’t talk about each other, but was she really my friend? She’d shoved me out of the way when all I’d done was protect her. Besides, my words were the truth. She was mean. She was pretty, but entitled and arrogant. “She doesn’t think about anybody but herself. She’s arrogant and cruel.”

The gargoyle before me bristled. He took a menacing step in my direction. “Do not speak of my wife this way.”

I laughed, but it was a watery sound filled with the tears I wanted to shed. “Why not? It’s the truth! I know her type and Carlota wouldn’t look twice in your direction. She would hate it here and she would hate you.”

He roared, curving his claws into his palms and drawing blood. “Take care with what you say, feral creature!” He stepped closer, stealing all the air in the cavern at his proximity. “Regardless of what poisonous lies you attempt to spread, she will be my wife.”

“You don’t even know her, but if you want to be saddled with someone so mean, that’s your business.”

He huffed, the hot breath of his rage wafting across my forehead. I hadn’t realized how close he’d gotten until this very moment, with my neck stretched back as I took him in. The spice and musk on his skin was as heady as it was dangerous.

“If she is as cruel as you say, then why do you call her ‘friend’?”

The question made me stagger back. A lump rose to my throat and I turned away from him.

I knew why, but voicing everything aloud would only make me feel far more pathetic than I already was. How could I convey that she was the only person in the world I had? I was an orphan, with no family. Those I did have abandoned me the moment I turned eighteen and they no longer felt morally obligated to keep feeding the daughter of their long dead siblings.

I was all alone in this world, and when cruelty was all I’d ever known, I held onto it.

I knew Carlota didn’t respect me. I knew she didn’t see me as a real friend. I was just someone to use. Someone she’d hung around for years out of convenience. Someone she could bend to her will. An Igor from a Frankenstein movie at her beck and call. She’d turned me into that, and I’d gladly taken the role.

Because receiving false affection was better than receiving nothing at all. I’d conform to lies and convince myself they were the truth despite the toll. Because anything was better than being all alone in the world.

But I couldn’t say that. I didn’t dare.

Not when he was looking at me like some pathetic creature that he hated and pitied.

“The same reason you’re desperate to have a wife you don’t truly know, I assume,” I whispered.

Maybe me and him weren’t so different, I thought for a moment. Maybe the reason he was desperate for Carlota was for the same exact reasons I’d tethered myself to her for far too long.

If that was the case, then we were both weak.

He didn’t care what she was like, so long as he had a pretty wife he could lock in his cave for eternity.

Pity filled my body. For me. For him. For the situation we found ourselves in. I didn’t want to see myself in this monster, but I couldn’t help the wave of empathy. I swallowed past the lump in my throat and turned away.