Page 27 of Hated By the Gargoyle

“You denied me my true wife, stole the mating ritual from her, and now you reject me.” His chest lit with flames. “If you did not want me, you should never have interfered.”

“I didn’t know!”

“You are my wife,” he repeated.

“I’d rather die than be your wife.” The words slipped out of my lips before I could stop them. I couldn’t help the lucid anger pulling me apart from the inside. It was a force and it drove my actions, my words, before I could really measure them.

I noted the way they hit him like a weapon. Hurting him, as much as I was hurting on the inside.

“You would choose death over me?” He growled, his own anger rising. “I never wanted you as a wife, and yet we are both trapped! Deny me all you like, feral creature, but it does not change the fact that we are intrinsically bound now. There is no escaping. For either of us.”

He whirled, stomping away from me. He yanked his loincloth from the ground as he went, securing it back in place. He roared and the ceiling of his cave shook, before he threw himself onto the ground in front of the fire and stared into the flames, lost in his own thoughts.

After a moment, his shoulders slumped and a forlorn look came across him.

I didn’t want to feel the surge of empathy, but it gripped me regardless.

Fuck.

I rubbed my fingers against my temples, feeling stress pound a lovely beat there.

I’d really fucked everything up, but how was I supposed to know that all those things I’d done were mating rituals? It wasn’t like he had explained things to me, so it wasn’t my fault he thought we were stuck together.

Maybe it was easier if I left, as if none of this had happened, but what then? Did that mean we would be married in the rules of his people and he could never find someone else? Did his people believe in divorce?

Could we divorce?

Fuck, this was all so confusing.

I ran my hands through my hair, wincing when they became trapped within the tangle of curls. I hadn’t brushed this mess in forever and I was starting to feel itchy.

I needed to think. I needed…

Ugh.

I lifted my camera and snapped pictures, one after the other in rapid succession, zooming in on Qanek, the wide set of his shoulders, the sad way he positioned himself. The sad expression…

I lowered my camera and walked over to him, taking a seat at his side.

He didn’t move and neither did I, nor did we speak to one another.

We’d both hurt each other’s feelings and we were ruminating in the aftermath of harsh words. I wasn’t sure either of us meant them. Then again, maybe we had.

But several things could always be true at once.

This wasn’t my fault, because he hadn’t been the most forthcoming about his rituals. All he did was yell and roar and expect me to know a culture that wasn’t my own.

I’d gone over the line when I said I’d rather die than be married to him.

Especially because… it wasn’t true.

I found myself wondering if marriage to him would be so bad but tried to halt those thoughts before they arose. We barely knew each other and spent most of our time fighting, arguing.

Sure, he was big and strong, and from what I could tell protective and maybe even a little jealous.

I liked that.

But at the end of the day, he didn’t even want me. And I wasn’t sure I could live with the knowledge that he wanted somebody else, the one that everyone always passed me over for.