Page 50 of Hated By the Gargoyle

Lord Kane shook his head. “Real males do not chain up their wives. They don’t hurt them. You are no true husband.”

I growled, jerking against the bindings, and then… I stopped…

“You cannot control your own rage. Instead of regulating your emotions, you chained her up. She was naked, afraid, and harmed because of your own fucking weakness. Pathetic!” He jerked the whip back.

He was right.

The realization was a strike as painful as the whip. My Lord Kane was right. I had called Lucero my wife, and yet at the first sign of strife, instead of speaking with her, I had allowed my rage to conquer me.

I had allowed it to lead my actions. I had vowed to protect her, and yet I had kept her trapped like an animal and she had hurt herself. I had seen the blood. I had seen the terror.

I was a fool.

And I did not deserve her.

But this?

This I did deserve.

I finally slumped in my bindings, ready to accept whatever punishment my lord saw fit.

He chuckled. “You get it now, don’t you?”

Slowly, I nodded.

“Then accept your punishment and know that no matter what pain I inflict, you will always deserve worse for what you did to her.”

And then, the Lord of Torture struck.

And so my punishment began.

They whisked me away into a home I didn’t know. They left me alone in a room and disappeared, and I could barely take anything in because all I could see was Qanek’s rage. The way that boulder broke into a million pieces. The way he’d looked at me as he’d chained me to the wall. The way he’d inflicted violence against himself. And then the fear when he’d been whisked away.

The tears hadn’t stopped falling since I’d been brought here. The pain in my wrists was burning now, and I didn’t know what to do. What to think. Where to go from here.

But then, after what felt like hours of being alone, the door opened and two figures walked inside.

Two very human figures.

Two very human womanly figures.

The first woman was a beautiful, voluptuous Black woman with a head full of tight coils and a soft expression that she trained my way. The second was a thin yet tall Asian woman, with twin braids, a gentle gaze, and an even gentler smile.

“Hi,” the first woman spoke. “My name is Dolores Villanueva.”

“And I’m Mia Song.”

“I’m… Lucero Infante.”

There was an awkward moment of silence that Dolores broke. “So, this is awkward? But we can kind of understand what you’re going through.” Her eyes flicked down to my wrists and then back up to my face. “We were kidnapped by gargoyles, after all.”

“I think that’s an awful introduction,” Mia said softly, shaking her head. “What she means to say is that we’re married to Qanek’s brothers. Nazzar and Xavir.”

“Right.”

They had wives too?

Qanek had never mentioned that part… Then again, he rarely spoke about the siblings who abandoned him. They’d also attacked him in his own home.