Page 29 of Fated to the Gargoyle

A growl builds in my chest and rolls out across the diner. Silverware rattles in his bin, and my eyes burn as bright as they’ll go. I take one step and lean down until we’re level, close enough for him to count my fangs.

Lamar backs into the booth so hard the table screeches, and the sharp stink of fear pours off him and drowns out the grease. Good. Let him wear that a while, and let him remember it the next time he leans close to what’s mine.

“Whew. Down, boy.” Treasure pats my arm.

I hold the cook’s eyes a moment longer, then set her down on her feet.

She stares up at me. “You can’t eat Lamar.”

“It is not my intention to eat him,” I tell her, and I mean that.

Intentions can change.

“Okay, smarty-pants. You can’t kill him either.” Her hands land on her hips.

“I will not leave you until your shift concludes,” I tell her.

“That’s not what I⁠—” She points a finger up at me. “We ain’t done with that.”

The back door swings open, and the dishwasher walks out wearing the biggest grin this diner has seen all day. “I knew you were real.” He gets halfway to offering me a hand, reconsiders somewhere around my claws, and wipes it on his apron instead. “Hi. I’m Devon. Welcome to Shadow Wolf Creek.”

Whatever’s left of the growl dies in my chest, and my wings ease down loose. Lamar takes off into the back, pushing past the boy without a word.

I bow my head to Devon. “Thank you.”

He picks the buss bin up off the table and carries it into the back, unbothered. My mate guards that one between refills.

Now I do too.

Treasure crosses her arms at me, smiling anyway. “So what, you’re just gonna stand in this corner till the end of my shift and scare off my customers?”

I answer by lowering myself into the same crouch I held all day, and I keep my eyes on hers while I do it.

“Well, alright then,” she says.

She shakes her head and gets back to her closing work, wiping down tables and restocking what she likes to call the condiments.

It’s one more word she taught me without meaning to, along with the buss bin and the two-top. Guarding has taken me to towers, treasure vaults, and the walls of burning cities. This corner is the first post I’ve ever wanted to keep.

14

TREASURE

Soren stays through the last of my shift, crouched in his corner while the diner winds down around him. Lamar breaks down the cook station without a word, Devon works through the final rack of dishes, and I run my mop back over the floor, spot-cleaning the sticky patches by the counter.

That extra pass is what does it. Soren stands up with a grunt that rattles the sugar caddies. “Do you always work this hard?”

I smirk and keep mopping. “Since I was sixteen.”

He watches the mop go back and forth, and his hand comes up for the handle. Then he stops and studies his own claws, and I can see him doing the math. That mop handle would not survive the handoff.

“Down, killer.” I smile at the frustration sitting all over him while his claws drop back to his sides. “As a matter of fact, go wait for me outside so you don’t track up my floor.”

For a moment he just stands there. Then he walks past me on those impossibly quiet feet and squeezes himself out the front door, wings pulling in tight, filling the whole frame on his way through.

I lean on my mop and watch the door swing shut behind all of that. The corner he spent the day in has no business fitting someone his size, and I still can’t tell you how he got through a locked diner door in the first place. My gargoyle questions keep stacking up on the list, and tonight I finally get to start asking them.

I finish my floor and wheel the bucket to the back. Lamar keeps his back to me and scrubs at a grill that stopped needing it a while ago, so I let him sulk, dump my mop water, and rinse out the bucket. My apron comes off and rides my shoulder on the way to the punch clock.