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FORTY-FIVE
"So basically, you're holding a torch for the crazy witch who cut out your heart and cursed you to a life of eternal slavery because her brother was a snobby prick?" Ben said, shaking his head. "When you could be cuddling up to the curvy Marilyn Monroe lookalike in the kitchen, or, better yet, banging her brains out until the two of you find a way to break the curse? You have issues, dude. Serious issues. You want my advice? Go home, forget about the crazy dead fuckers in your past, who are definitely in hell where they belong, give that girl some good dick, then come back and we'll talk about curse breaking."
"But I'm not like you. I'm a demon, not a gargoyle," Stan said.
All three men – his nephews, if they were to be believed – shook their heads.
"Do you remember everything that ever happened to you?" Ben demanded.
Stan shook his head.
"It's part of the gargoyle enslavement spell. If you break the curse, you'll get all your memories back. Do you turn to stone in sunlight?"
Stan wanted to shake his head, but he'd be lying. He'd stuck his hand in the sun once, before hitting the button to close the roller shutters. It had taken almost an hour before his hand had returned to normal. "Yes."
"Gargoyle. Demons have no problem walking around in the sun and passing for normal people. Except the eyes. Their eyes can go completely black when they're angry, or thinking something really dark. Do your eyes do that?" Ben demanded.
Stan shook his head. But he'd been so sure...
"Do you bleed when your skin is cut?"
Stan shook his head. His skin didn't cut at all.
"That's because you're made of living stone. You're a gargoyle. Demons have skin not much different to a human...and they bleed black. Face it, Uncle Stan. You're not a demon. You were a man, until some crazy murderous bitch cut out your heart and turned you into a gargoyle, and now you're Marilyn's protector."
"Alethia. Her name is Alethia, not Marilyn," Stan snapped.
"But she still makes you hard in all the right places when you look at her, am I right? When you imagine what it might be like to get her naked in someplace safe, just you and her, your hardness to her softness, and boom?"
"That's not...it wouldn't be like..." Stan felt his cheeks grow hot. He couldn't possibly be blushing. He didn't have blood, for heaven's sake. Unless Ben was wrong and he was a demon...
"I've never seen a gargoyle blush before. Hey, guys, have you ever heard of a gargoyle blushing?" Ben asked.
His brothers shook their heads.
"Looks like you might have already started to resist the curse. That's good. Awesome, even. Now, take your girl home and see if you can get blood to flow into other places, where you can actually do some good." Ben gave Stan a push. "Come back once you've given Alethia a healthy helping of your cock."
Stan wasn't sure what to make of his nephew. Of any of them, but the vulgar Ben in particular.
He didn't want to believe them.
But...
Ben sure did know a lot about gargoyles and demons, and the differences between them.
He couldn't just give up on Carline like that. He'd loved her all his life.
But if Ben was right and what he remembered of that fateful night was true, Carline had not only killed him, but she'd cursed him, turning him into this creature. Then she'd gone and married someone else. She'd never cared for him. Never even known him. Yet she'd killed him without a second thought.
Alethea would never do such a thing, kind-hearted lass that she was. All Alethea wanted was to help him, even when she did not need to do any such thing. He was her sworn protector, whether he was a demon or a gargoyle or some other kind of monster entirely. His sole purpose was to protect her.
But if he was a gargoyle, like his nephews, who had not only bedded the women they protected and lived to tell the tale, but they'd managed to break free of the curse that bound them, so they were free to live their lives as they choose. To even marry, as Anemone and Dunstan planned to, when their babies were born.
He needed to go home with Alethea. To talk all this over with her. While he decided whether to bed her, like Ben had so indelicately put it.
