AllFreeNovel
Share Us
She held out a cider bottle. "Want one?"
He folded his wings away and strode up the steps, but he didn't take the bottle. "No, thank you, Mistress Tacey. Thank you for allowing me to take Miss Rory flying. I believe she enjoyed herself."
"I should be thanking you. You tired her out so thoroughly, she's probably already dreaming about it." She frowned. "Why won't you accept any food or drink? I mean, you have to eat, right? If my cooking was bad, I'd be worried, but I've been running the Shut Up Café long enough to know there's nothing wrong with my cooking, so it can't be that. It's not like I'm not going to poison you or anything. The cider's still sealed. You can take your pick, and I'll drink the other bottle."
"I thank you for your offer of hospitality, always, but I have no need for sustenance. Gargoyles neither eat nor drink, for we are made of living stone. I cannot recall the last time I drank a pint of cider, but I am sure it was poorer quality than anything you have to offer."
Now he'd piqued her curiosity. Tacey cracked open a bottle and took a swig. "So you haven't always been a gargoyle?"
"Indeed I have not. I was once a man, as human as you."
All the little details she'd noticed and filed away as strange began to weave together. The way he referred to her car as a carriage. His insistence on using titles for herself and Rory, or his suggestions that they needed a male protector in their lives. Well, they probably did need him right now, but in general...
"How long have you been a gargoyle?" she asked carefully.
He shrugged. "I do not know. I awoke when you summoned me, as you see me now. Before that, I remember being a man."
"So you've only been a gargoyle for maybe a couple of weeks, and you can fly like you've been doing it forever. I bet birds wish they could do that." She drained the bottle of cider. "I wish I could do that." The words slipped out, almost of their own accord.
He raised his eyebrows. "I did not realise that you enjoyed flying."
She felt her cheeks heat, and was immensely grateful she was sitting in the shadows, where he couldn't see her blush. "It was all new to me. No man has ever carried me like a bride before, and it was also my first time flying."
"If you wish it, I will fly with you again. We were barely in the air for a minute or two, before Miss Rory claimed her turn. I would gladly fly with you for as long as you wish."
Temptation taunted her to accept. She'd let Rory go with him, and she'd been so, so safe. She knew Wystan wouldn't drop her, and just once, she wanted...she wanted...
"Yes, please."
TWENTY-SIX
Even as Wystan made the offer, he could see the refusal in Tacey's eyes. So when her lips said, "Yes, please," he wasn't sure if he'd heard right. It was one thing to hold a live child in his arms tonight, but a woman as well, for more than a moment...
Tacey clicked the lock on the door, so that Rory was secure inside. "Rory likes the Mandalorian, but when I was a kid, I preferred Superman. I wanted to be Lois Lane, when he flies her up through the clouds to see the stars." She looked up at the clouds already sailing in from the west. There would be rain tomorrow, Wystan was sure of it, but it would be dry for some hours yet. Long enough to fly Tacey high enough to see what she desired.
He'd never dared to fly so high, but with her in his arms, he would dare anything. Especially if she commanded it.
"When you are ready, place your arms around my neck once more, and hold on tight," Wystan said.
"But not too tight. You still need to breathe," she said with a breathy little laugh as she curled her arms around his neck.
"I do not need to breathe, much like I do not need to eat or drink. I only need air to speak," he admitted. "And I have no need for sleep, either, so I can remain vigilant throughout both the day and night, to keep you safe."
"Sounds ideal. I think I'm even a bit jealous. To not need to eat or sleep...think of all the time I'd have spare!" Tacey said. "Plus you can fly. I think I'd like to be a gargoyle."
"You would not say that if you'd spent most of this week, tortured by the enticing scents of coffee, muffins, cookies and all manner of treats I could not taste but could definitely smell, while I watched over Miss Rory in your café. You are a remarkably good cook, Mistress Tacey."
She laughed. "Says the man who's never tasted a single bite of anything I've cooked. And even I have my weaknesses. Fish, for example. I can cook the most complicated pastries – croissants, eclairs, tarts – but I cannot, for the life of me, cook a fillet of fish without it falling apart or burning."
Now it was Wystan's turn to laugh. "Whereas I fear fish is about all I can cook. Whole or filleted over a fire, or cut into chunks in a stew. During the last stages of my wife's pregnancy, she wanted to eat nothing but fish, and I, as a good husband, would go and catch it for her, and cook it as she directed. We probably would have died of starvation on the beach here in the colony if not for my Effie's cravings for fish."
Tacey stiffened, her body no longer pressed against his. "And what does your wife think about you guarding Rory and me, instead of being home with her?"
Oh, if only he knew the answer to that. He hoped she'd be somewhere with their daughter, where such cares no longer mattered. "Effie died in childbirth almost two hundred years ago. There isn't a day I don't miss her, or wish I could ask for her insight on a thousand different things. She probably would have liked you and doted on Rory, for she had the biggest heart for such a small woman. I'd have given my life for hers, or our daughter's, but death took her so swiftly, I never had the chance." He was fortunate that gargoyles could not cry, for he was perilously close to doing so, and what would Tacey think of a weak, weeping protector?
"I'm sorry, Wystan. That must have been terrible for you, to lose your family like that. I can't even imagine what I'd do if I lost Rory..." She swallowed. "Please, could we go flying now? Before I chicken out or say anything even more stupid, and you decide this is a terrible idea."
He chuckled. "You are no coward, Tacey Bell. In fact, I think you might just be the bravest woman I have ever known."
