Page 36 of The Gargoyle and the Maiden (Nightfall Guardians #1)

Idabel

S he found Lo?c in Brandt’s nesting chamber, still asleep in his father’s stone arms. Brandt must have held him all night. The sight of them curled up together made her chest constrict.

“Morning, sprout,” she said softly, stroking her son’s hair.

Lo?c sat up immediately, yawning and squinting as he stretched his wings out one at a time. “Did you sleep here, too, Mama?”

“No, I went home to my bed.” Where I didn’t sleep at all.

Lo?c patted the scarred, stone shoulder next to him. “Papa let me sleep in his nest! It’s so big, we both fit. I bet he would let you sleep here, too, if you wanted. You could ask.”

Idabel darted a look at Brandt. His eyes were frozen shut, but she knew he could hear every word. She shuddered to think what his response would be if she asked to stay in his nest.

“Can I sleep here again tonight? Please?” His gray eyes were bright with hope. She’d always thought he had Brandt’s eyes, and he did, but they were Brandt’s old eyes. His new ones were flint.

“We’ll see. School first.” She offered her hand to help him out of the nest. He scrambled up next to her. “Let’s find you some breakfast.”

Lo?c hummed his agreement. “Last night, Papa said he’d teach me battle moves when I’m older. Real gargoyle fighting!” He demonstrated what looked like a violent sneeze. “Like that!”

“Very impressive.” She led him out of the nesting chamber and showed him the toast and plums she’d brought. Her stomach was too tense to eat, but he munched them happily at the big dining table like he’d lived on the fifth tier his whole life.

Maybe it was better for him up here, with Brandt. There was so much about gargoyle life she couldn’t teach him. Even Ghantal couldn’t teach him battle moves.

She hoped Brandt would let her visit him often.

Surely he wouldn’t want her in his space, even after the mating bite.

The price , he’d called it. But he’d need someone to watch Lo?c during the daytime, so maybe he’d let her fill that role.

She could take him to and from school and feed him his meals, then sleep in the rookery. It didn’t sound so bad.

“Mama, why are you crying?” Lo?c was staring, plum preserves smudged across his cheek.

“I’m not,” she said automatically, swiping her cheeks with the sleeve of her chemise. “I’m not sad. Everything’s fine.”

He gave her a crooked smile. “Sometimes I cry when I am happy, too.”

She managed a smile for him, her little sprout.

After depositing a still-chattering Lo?c at school, Idabel went straight to the apothecary. The familiar routine of grinding herbs and measuring tinctures usually calmed her, but today her hands shook as she prepared another batch of the healing tonic for Brandt and his surviving watchmate.

“Not much of that moss left,” Betje observed from the doorway. “I don’t mind if you use it all, but I’m not sure where to get more.”

Idabel grimaced, shaking the jar to assess how much of the green powder remained.

Only a few more measures. Maybe a half-dozen more batches.

A few more moons of medicine. “I’ll ask Ghantal if she knows of a source.

She’s from the southern cliffs. Might have friends or family there who could send some. ”

“Good thinking.” Betje moved closer, studying Idabel’s face and unsteady hands. “You look tired. Are you all right?”

She nodded and set down the jar of moss powder before she spilled it, returning her attention to the steeping tonic. “I took Lo?c to meet Brandt last night.”

Betje sucked her teeth sympathetically, glancing over her shoulder to make sure there was no one who needed help in the shop before asking, “How did it go?”

“Good. They had a good time together. I tried to stay out of the way. Lo?c ended up sleeping there.” She left the end of the sentence hanging.

“But not you.” Betje picked up a pestle and began grinding the latest batch of dried betony, her namesake.

Idabel shook her head, biting her lip, her heart aching so much that her shoulders. She couldn’t cry at work. She wouldn’t. She was out of tears anyway.

“No wonder you couldn’t sleep, you poor thing.”

“Brandt wants to give me another mating bite.”

The pestle slipped from Betje’s fingers, clattering on the workbench. “What?”

“He says it’s my penance, to feel what he feels through the bond.” Idabel fumbled the strainer as she set it up in the sink and lined it with cheesecloth. “He wants me to suffer as much as he suffers.”

“Don’t do it,” Betje blurted out as she rushed to right the strainer.

She held it steady while Idabel poured the tonic through it.

“Take it from someone who has lived a few more years than you. Your life is longer than you think. Bonding yourself to someone who hates you will make it miserable in ways you can’t imagine.

It’s not fair of him to ask that of you. ”

“It is fair.” Idabel set the strained tonic aside to clean out the sink basin.

She felt oddly defensive of Brandt and his motivations, almost angry at Betje for criticizing him.

“If anything, it’s a generous offer. I betrayed him.

I’m responsible for the deaths of so many gargoyles.

I broke our bond. Kept his son a secret.

If sharing his pain is a way to make amends, how can I refuse him? ”

“Or maybe it’s revenge disguised as reconciliation. He might never forgive you, no matter how much you suffer.” Betje caught her hands, stilling them. “Do you think he was serious, or did he speak from anger? Does he really want to be tied to you forever? Do you want to be tied to him?”

“I never stopped wanting that.” It was the only thing that kept her going through all the years of rejection and scorn from both humans and gargoyles alike.

“That’s not what I asked.” Betje’s forehead creased with concern, her auburn coils quivering. “Can you endure a lifetime beside someone who constantly pushes you away? Who might never forgive you? Who wants you to hurt? It would drive me mad.”

Idabel pulled free, returning to her cleaning. It felt good to scrub the stone until it was smooth. “I’ve lived long enough without him to know what that’s like. At least with a bond, I’d have something. Even if it’s just shared misery.”

“You deserve better—”

“I deserve worse.” The words came out sharp, and she bit them back. Betje wasn’t to blame for the situation. She had been nothing but supportive. “I made my choices. Now I face the consequences. The least I can do is stand by him and help him heal.”

“And if his mind never heals? If you’re locked forever to someone who’s been completely shattered by war?”

“Then I’ll be shattered too.” She met Betje’s eyes. “Maybe that’s how we fit together now, in pieces.”

Betje sighed. “You’ve already decided to do it.”

“I decided the moment he asked.” Idabel gathered the bottles, packing them carefully. “I’ll take whatever pieces of him I can have.” Jagged edges and all.

T hat evening, she climbed to the fifth tier with steady steps despite her racing heart. The door wasn’t locked, and inside, the eyrie was dark and quiet except for candlelight from Brandt’s nesting chamber.

The silence made her uneasy. Rooms her son inhabited were never silent.

“Lo?c?” she called. Ghantal should have brought him home from flying lessons by now. It stung to think that this was home now and not with her.

“He’s staying with my mother for a few hours. I’ve arranged for her to take the eyrie next door.” Brandt emerged from the shadows, and his expression made her step back. “We are alone.”

“Oh.”

He crossed to her, backing her against the door. “Second thoughts, Idabel?”

“No.” The word came out breathless with anticipation. “This is what I want.”

What I need . The only route to absolution. Please, give it to me.

“This won’t be like before.” His hand wrapped around her throat, gentle but possessive. “No tenderness. No sweet words.”

“I know.” She closed her eyes and pushed her fear down into her belly, where it slowly warmed her core, transforming into a sick excitement.

He leaned close, breath hot against her ear. “You’ll feel everything I feel. The walls in my mind will trap you in narrower and narrower passages. Memories will fracture and disintegrate right in front of you. You’ll experience every moment of rage and confusion and loss that I do.”

“Yes.”

“Why?” The question seemed torn from him. “Why would you accept this?”

“Because I love you.” There was no point in pretending otherwise, not when he’d be able to rummage through her thoughts in a few minutes. “Because our son deserves parents who are connected, even if that connection is painful. Because living without our bond is worse than sharing your suffering.”

He made a sound that might have been laugh or sob as he buried his face in her hair. “I’m trying to hate you, Idabel, but you make it so hard.”

“I’m sorry.” This time, she didn’t mean it.

“I’ll never forgive you.”

“I know.”

“It might make me hate you more to see inside your mind.”

“I know that, too.”

He studied her face for a long moment, then his grip shifted from her throat to her arm, dragging her toward the nesting chamber. “Then let’s get this over with.”

The energy was different inside the nest chamber, charged with despair. He pushed her into the furs, not rough enough to hurt but far from gentle.

“Take off your clothes.”

This was going to be more than a bite, then.

It was to be a true mating from beginning to end.

Her pulse quickened, and she obeyed before he changed his mind, unlacing her bodice while he did the same to his breeches, his movements sharply efficient.

When he turned to face her, his cock was already hard.

It was bigger than she remembered. She’d been a maiden when she’d first seen it, without much frame of reference. But she was little more than a maiden now, given that she hadn’t been with anyone since. Their rushed reunion hadn’t lent her the time to really look at it, so now she drank her fill.