Page 19 of Hated By the Gargoyle

My hand slid down my face to rub away the exhaustion that clung to my body. I stretched my wings and stopped when the ache in my muscles made me wince. With a sigh, I lifted my gaze and…

I froze.

That feral little creature was in my nest.

The growl rumbled out of me and could not be detained. I jolted to a stand, storming over to where the human slept, wrapped up in furs that were not meant for her. She snuggled deep inside them, looking far too comfortable.

Looking like she belonged. And, damn me, it was a fragmented second in which my body, my mind, wanted her there too.

Panic made my heart beat like a war drum against my chest.

She could not be there. How dare she?!

“What are you doing?!”

Lucero jolted awake, disorientation clear from her expression, before she rubbed her eyes and turned that gaze up to me. She frowned. “What? What’s going on?”

I growled, reaching for the furs and yanking them from her body.

“This is my nest! I told you not to sleep here!”

And now, she had completed another step in the mating ritual.

Another step to become my true wife.

No, no, no. This could not be happening.

Anger, confusion, panic settled tightly inside me.

I had been confident I could return her to her rightful place and find the wife I really wanted, but this feral creature was making it too difficult, completing rituals that I attempted to avoid.

And the worst part about it was that she did not seem to care.

No. The worst part was that a part of me enjoyed her presence, and that was a dangerous thing.

She sighed. “Look, I get it. This is your den or whatever, so these are your rules, but you put me on the floor. I was so cold I thought I was going to die so I came to lay here. What’s the big deal? It doesn’t matter.”

“Does not ma–” I growled, tearing away from her and ripping a hole into the ground with my stomping claws. I whirled back on her, but she barely flinched. “Get out of my nest,” I ordered.

She huffed a breath. “But it’s cold.”

“If you are cold, I shall build you a fire.”

Another terrible decision. Building her a fire required the care only a husband could give. I did not want to tie us further together, but it was far more intimate a thing to see her tangled in my furs and dreaming of the scent of her cunt rather than warming by a fire.

A fire was much, much safer.

I got to work quickly, bringing a small flame roaring to life in the center of my den. Just enough so she did not perish.

“There,” I stated, swiping my palms across my thighs.

She hauled herself from my nest and dragged her feet towards the heat, sitting upon a flat rock and holding her hands out in front of her with a relieved sigh.

“Okay, that feels nice.”

I grumbled.

Her scent was everywhere within my den. I could not quite place what she smelt like, but it was something as soft as it was sharp. A contradiction that tickled my nostrils.