Page 55 of Hated By the Gargoyle

“I did.”

“You left me.”

“I did.”

“You made me doubt so much…”

“All that you have said is true. I have no excuse except I was a weaker gargoyle, driven by the fire raging inside. But I love you, Lucero. I love you. And should you give me another opportunity, I will not squander it. I will provide and protect, and I will listen to your needs and try to be as brave and as fearless as you.”

I stared at him.

“I never hated you,” I confessed. And those words were the truth. “I was never upset with you for what happened, though I should have been. But I couldn’t bring myself to feel it. All I did was miss you. But even so, I know what I deserve, Qanek. I deserve more than a dark cave. I deserve more than to be yelled at or locked away because of your fears. I deserve a life. I deserve to live.”

He nodded. “I will give you all that is in my power, my love.” He stood and held his hands out to me, waiting for me to take them. There were no expectations, only hope. “Will you come back to my side? As my wife?”

I stared at his outstretched claws and took a breath.

How to tell him that I had made my decision the moment I’d seen him loom behind Carlota in that eerie, menacing way he did? How to tell him that I’d made the decision even when I’d been whisked away back home and had lived without him for months?

He’d always been on my mind, never far and always missed.

I believed people were not defined by their mistakes. Redemption was possible for a lot of people. And he was here and I wanted nothing more than for him to prove what I knew deep in my heart.

That he was the gargoyle meant for me.

So I slid my hands into his.

And I smiled.

After enduring weeks of torture at the hands of Lord Kane, his queen intervened on my behalf and allowed me off the pyre. It took several more weeks to physically heal, and when I had, my lords whisked me to a place they called ‘husband school.’

The lessons were many, the hours long, the chairs small and uncomfortable.

But I endured.

Every lesson became engrained in my mind. The human women my brothers chose as their wives were very wise, though they could not compare to Lucero. They were too pretty. Too perfect. Lucero, she was not. And it was those traits that endeared her to me. The empty space between her two front teeth, the hair that was unkempt. The laugh that was too loud. The words that made me far too dizzy.

I had fallen under her spell, and I never wanted to awaken from the illusion.

So I absorbed every lesson. And when Nazzar and Xavir pulled me into the night to teach me to control the rage, I worked hard to not be blinded by sensation. I grounded myself.

I thought of her. Of how much I missed her. And how she deserved more.

And in between lessons, I lost myself in building our home. The one she had deserved from the start.

It was to that home that I whisked her away. It was built on an oasis near a pool of crystalline water on a bank near my brothers’ property.

Their homes were extravagant.

Mine was simple, because my wife was simple, practical.

And still a sensation slid through my bloodstream.

Nerves.

I wanted to growl and bark until they went away, but I took a deep breath and watched her face as she stared at our home.

“Qanek, what’s this?”