Page 22 of Hated By the Gargoyle

Surely, it would not make her my wife?

I woke up to my stomach letting out a dizzying growl that made me curl into myself with a groan.

It took a second of disorientation before I realized exactly what it was that had happened. I’d fainted.

With a sigh and a groan, I pushed myself up, rubbing at my head.

That wasn’t the first time in my life I’d fainted from hunger.

I really needed to get my shit together. That also wasn’t the first time I’d said those words to myself. There was almost never enough money for a meal, or never enough time to sit and make something. I’d survived on cup noodles for weeks, but I knew logically it wasn’t the healthiest thing in the world. My body was paying for it now, and I’d gone and passed out, putting myself in even more of a vulnerable position before Qanek than I already was.

I slowly blinked my eyes open, surprised to find I was bundled up in Qanek’s nest. The one place he’d specifically asked me not to be.

But I hadn’t fainted here, that much I knew for sure.

Had he placed me here?

I looked around the cave, mouth watering when I caught sight of the fire blazing beneath a roasted cut of meat that was strung up on a spit, with Qanek manning it, using his black clawed hand to slowly turn it.

The fire spat and burst. And in the midst of it, Qanek was hunched, curling into himself, with a grumpy expression on his monstrous face.

“Qanek?”

For a moment, I thought he wouldn’t answer, but ever so slowly, his gaze lifted to meet mine. I wasn’t sure what I found on his expression, as he was still so hard to read. But I wanted to hope that it was relief?

Maybe the hunger was making me hallucinate, though.

The expression changed though, back into one of extreme familiarity, the one I’d come to associate with him when he looked at me like he wanted to rip me apart.

I slid out of his bed space and walked slowly over to the fire spit. Immediately, the scent of food invaded my senses and my stomach emitted a rumble that sounded like one of the gargoyle’s growls.

“Sit,” Qanek ordered in his gravely voice.

I would’ve told him to fuck off for trying to tell me what to do, but I was too damn hungry to muster that energy, so I plopped down on a flat-topped rock.

Qanek didn’t look at me again. He seemed focused on his task, and I watched with no little bit of fascination as he pulled the stick and meat from the fire and tore it into chunks with his bare claws as if it didn’t burn at all. He placed several pieces on a little plate and wordlessly handed it to me.

I didn’t bother asking him if he’d washed his hands.

I tore into the food with a fervor. I didn’t know what kind of meat it was, and I didn’t dare ask because it tasted so damn good. I moaned around a mouthful, catching a glare from Qanek in the process but deciding to ignore him and enjoy my meal instead.

I ate until I was full, until the juices coated shamelessly around my mouth and I was licking my fingers clean.

“Oh, God.” I sat back, rubbing a hand across the pudge in my stomach. “That was soooo good. Thank you for feeding me, Qanek.”

He grumbled, poking a stick into the fire, but didn’t answer.

Interpreting his moods was like solving arithmetic.

“Here.”

I blinked as he thrust a canteen in my direction. I took it, sniffing the contents, before taking a blessed sip of crisp, fresh water.

“Ooooh, wow that’s soooo good. Thank you.”

He poked his stick more aggressively into the fire, sending embers flying above him. It illuminated his hellish features in a frightening way, but funny how I no longer felt afraid or threatened by him any longer.

Now he was just… a gargoyle. Just someone I found myself stuck with for the foreseeable future. He was an asshole, but maybe he wasn’t so bad…