Page 18 of Hated By the Gargoyle

I didn’t bother with a retort, already imagining the deep sleep I would fall into. I walked to the edge of his nest and bent to retrieve a blanket…

Only to have him roar and snatch it from my hands moments later.

“No!” he screamed.

I startled back. “What?! What’d I do now?!”

“Sleep anywhere but here,” he ordered.

I looked around the cave. There was literally nowhere comfortable to sleep except here.

I glared at him. “You expect me to sleep on the floor?”

“I do not care. But do not sleep here.”

A fresh wave of tears threatened me.

What an asshole.

I stormed over near the makeshift table and sat on the cold, hard floor, lying on my back and staring up at the worms. If I pictured real hard, I could almost imagine they were stars.

The stone beneath me was uncomfortable and cold, and I tried not to be pissed about it. This was his house, after all, and it wasn’t the first time someone had made me sleep on the floor.

Still.

It fucking sucked.

“Hey.”

The gargoyle sighed somewhere in the cave. “Why will you not sleep and leave me to silence?”

I turned to look at him, using my hands as a pillow beneath my cheek. “What’s your name, anyway?” I asked. Surely I’d earned the right to know after everything we’d been through together.

He stared at me, unblinking. “Qanek.”

“Ka-neck,” I pronounced. “I’m Lucero Infante.”

A rumble rolled through the cave. “I do not care.”

I sighed. “Hey, Qanek?”

“What?”

“Fuck you.”

I held my breath and only released it when the human finally fell into a deep sleep.

The woman was aggravating, from the way she breathed to the way she spat vile accusations against my would-be wife.

I had chosen Carlota for a reason. Because she contrasted me. And much as I loathed to admit it, the feral little creature’s–Lucero’s–words had shattered the illusion I had created of her. She painted a vision of what she thought Carlota was.

With me, Carlota would be different.

All my life I had lived in cruelty. My wife would be someone soft and gentle and beautiful. She would not bring cruelty into our den and our nest. She would hold me in the way a wife was meant to hold a husband. She would wipe the blood from my body after battle and tend to my wounds when needed.

I pictured her hands then. Small and delicate, she would explore my body slowly and I would explore hers with enthusiasm. I would learn the pleasures of her flesh. She would wrap her hands around my horns and–

The thoughts that filled my brain made my head heavy. I did not realize I had fallen into a slumber, dreaming of hands against my back, smoothing over the aches and wrapping around my horns. Hands, I noted, that did not belong to Carlota, but to a feral little human who spoke far too much. It was that dream that jolted me awake, only to realize night had long since fallen, given the dull glow of the worms along the walls.