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With furrowed brows, I scan Titan’s body, searching for weakness, wanting more than anything to kick him in the shins so he can feel a fraction of the discomfort I feel. Instead, my gaze lands on his emerald ring. It somehow looks even bigger and more opulent in the daylight, reflecting slashes of bright green light across the covers. I hadn’t noticed before, but it’s loose on his finger.
I don’t know what comes over me. I’m smarter than this, I really am. But Titan forced me to feel things, vulnerable, squishy things that no stranger should be able to make me feel. I shift silently up the bed, careful not to get too close to his relaxed body so the mattress doesn’t dip around him. His hand rests up and open on the pillow. I don’t let myself think as I lean over and gently grip the silver ring on either side, careful not to touch his other fingers as I slide it up. I don’t breathe or blink until I manage to pull it off.
Yes.I suppress a gleeful squeal as I palm the ring and slide off the bed. It feels even heavier in my hand than I expected. A vision of a thousand cash appca-chings dance in my head as I shove the silent gnaw of guilt out of my head.
I move quickly around the room, searching out my shoes first. Then I scoop up my dress and panties too, tossing them on the rich tan leather club chair that sits across from the bed. I keep Titan’s ring held firmly in my palm even as I struggle to pull on my dress. I wiggle and silently jump, trying to work it down my body, moving to get out of the penthouse as fast as possible.
When I finally look up at the mirror on the back wall, giving up on my borrowed dress and determined to get out of the building wrapped in a blanket if I have to, my gaze meets a stone monster in the reflection.
What the fuck?!
I smother a scream as I realize the terrifying creature behind me must be one of Titan’s artifacts, and between the darkness and the orgasms, I just hadn’t noticed it the night before.
I turn slowly to face it, making sure to not be heard but needing to get a better look at it.
It is massive.
The granite gargoyle takes up nearly half the room with large, curved horns that sprout like a ram’s from its smooth head and curl back down to frame its face. Its slanted cheekbones and jawline are bluntly carved. Its heavy brows and pointed ears mark it as something dark and otherworldly. The sharp, shining black claws at its hands and feet make clear that the sculptor’s inspiration was likely hell and not heaven.
Its long, thickly tapered tail coils on the ground around its feet. Small bumps and ridges slash across the tip of the tail and grow sparser as they move up to the base. Its wings are huge, ends dragging on the ground, and beautiful in their oddity. I didn’t know stone could look so delicate.
I should leave, but instead, I lean in for a closer look at the way the sturdy bone-like frame transitions into what looks like a thin membrane of the wings.
Then a wing moves.
I scream, tripping in my half–pulled on dress and falling back naked into the leather club chair. I know why the gargoyle’s face and chest look so familiar: I’d seen its human twin in the moonlight only last night.
“You really shouldn’t have done that, Julianna.” Titan’s voice comes from the stone gargoyle.
ChapterFour
TITAN
“What the hell are you?” Julianna shouts. Her brown eyes are huge, her pupils dilated to shining black pools.
I know what she sees.
A monster.
She’s naked, her fingers gripping the sides of the chair, and her knees are pulled up to her chest. Her mouth—the pretty pink mouth I watched scream my name last night, call me “Daddy” last night—forms a perfect O of terror.
“I’m a gargoyle, Julianna.”
I step towards her, my tail dragging and my claws scraping across the floor, and she lets out another frightened yell. I stop mid-stride. Unless followed by a moan, I never want to hear that sound come out of her mouth again.
Last night, she had moments of hesitation, but never fear. She’s wound so tight. I’d seen it through the skylight while she was in the bar with Harris and again when she arrived at the penthouse. My little ring thief has the weight of the world on her shoulders. She’d struggled to let go, to give her body and pleasure to me, but she’s a good girl and got there. As she stares up at me now, I can see the weight has firmly returned to her shoulders.
“Why did you have to steal my ring, baby girl?” I ask, soothingly.
My first instinct is to touch her, but I don’t have the time. Last night, the grip of the Pull had loosened on my chest, and for a moment, I’d been allowed to think of something else, someone else. Julianna had been so damn beautiful and free as she came hard against my tongue and fingers. I couldn’t end the night early.
She shifts in the seat and presses herself farther back in the chair. Confusion twists her full lips into a grimace, and I see the fear that makes her hands shake. The Pull waivers, dropping for a millisecond from its purpose to allow me to focus on the frightened human in front of me.
“Come sit on the bed.” My real voice is deeper, with more gravel and rasp than my glamoured form, so I force my tone softer.
Usually, I weigh out whether I believe a human can handle discovering the Strange as well as keep our secret before I share my true form, but Julianna didn’t give me that option. And I’d been the one to drop my defenses around her, allowing myself to give into the pleasure and relax in my duty to the brotherhood. She’s smart enough to know no one would believe our existence without proof, but she never should’ve found out in the first place.
Whatever I need to do must be done quickly, before my brothers return to the penthouse, but I don’t want to rush her.
