Page 39 of The Gargoyle and the Maiden (Nightfall Guardians #1)

Idabel

A fter living in the snug rooms of the rookery for so long, Brandt’s home felt uncomfortably grand.

The ceilings were so high, and ornate carvings decorated all the door frames.

They even had their own private garderobe instead of a shared one in the hall.

Idabel couldn’t help but feel like she was an interloper, like she’d stowed away after one of her cleaning shifts and never left.

Her first morning in the eyrie, when she’d been making breakfast before school, a pair of keepers entered to clean.

They had shrieked and crashed into each other when she greeted them because they were so surprised to see her there.

They were even more surprised to see a gargoyle fledgling awake during the day.

The way they’d stared at Lo?c like he was something obscene made her heart hurt.

She’d hurriedly explained that she was Brandt’s mate and Lo?c was her child before they called a guard. Their expressions shifted between surprise, disgust, morbid curiosity, and pity as she answered their invasive questions.

By the time she’d convinced them to leave, Lo?c’s eyes were shiny and his chin was wobbling. She’d been breezy when she told him that she’d be cleaning the eyrie from now on, but inside, she was devastated.

This was exactly the treatment she’d feared. Maybe she would get used to it in time, but she didn’t want her son to get used to it.

Idabel unpacked the last bundle of Lo?c’s belongings in Ghantal’s old chambers. His wooden soldiers looked out of place among the tapestries and cushions she’d left behind. His few changes of trousers looked shabby and lost in the vast wardrobe.

“Mama, look!” When she answered his call, she found Lo?c standing on the balcony rail next to Brandt’s frozen form, wings spread wide to catch the early evening breeze.

The sun had almost slipped beneath the horizon, and its orange glow silhouetted him with fire.

His wings looked so wide. It seemed like moving into the fifth tier with more space and taller ceilings had allowed him to grow a size bigger already.

“We’re so high up! I’ve never been this high before! ”

He leaned out, letting the wind push him back onto his perch. He shrieked with laughter every time it happened, leaning further and further out each time.

“Be careful.” Fear spiked through her at the sight of him out beyond the edge. “You could fall.”

“I’m fine.” He teetered on the rail, making her heart stop, until his claws dug in and he righted himself. “See? Gargoyles aren’t afraid of heights.”

“Half-gargoyles with developing wings should be,” she scolded. “You should wait until your father wakes up to do that.”

He scoffed at her. “I’m brave, Mama.”

She held out her hand to help him down. “You can be brave at flying lessons, then. Show off there, where you have a net to catch you if you fall. Come now. The stew is ready.”

He took her hand and hopped off the rail, looking a little crestfallen. “It’s scarier when the others are watching. They laugh at me,” he confessed.

Oh, sprout. How she wished she could shield him from every harm. “No one can fly until they fledge. They were beginners once, too.”

Behind them, Brandt’s stone skin cracked and fell away, distracting them both. Lo?c crowed, turning back. “Papa! Did you see me?”

Brandt shot Idabel an amused look above their son’s head.

“I did. Your mother is right. You should wait for me before you lean into the wind like that. But I would have done the same thing at your age,” he added conspiratorially.

He flashed a grin at Lo?c and swung him onto his shoulders to carry him inside.

Idabel thought her heart would burst, watching them together. This was worth it…the sharp looks from other gargoyles, the cruel remarks, the keepers’ curled lips. But she would have a word with the flying instructor about the laughter.

T hat night, after she put Lo?c to bed in his new nest in his new room, she stood awkwardly in the central chamber, unsure where she should make her own bed. In the rookery, she and Lo?c had always shared a room, their beds close enough to reach their arms out and touch.

Here, Lo?c had his own nest of soft furs that he’d been delighted to jump in the way she’d jumped in the haystack on her family’s farm when she was his age. It was strange to think of waking up in the morning without hearing his soft little-boy snores, but he was not so little anymore.

She should probably sleep in the other chamber. Brandt hadn’t instructed her to sleep there, but he’d said that he didn’t usually use it. Still, she didn’t want to presume until she was invited, and she didn’t mind sleeping with Lo?c. There was certainly room in there.

“I can feel your worry from here,” Brandt called from inside the other room. She moved so she could see him through the doorway. He was sprawled out in the furs, his wings spread to span the whole nest, looking like a fallen god. “Does Lo?c like his chamber?”

She leaned against the door frame, admiring the way the candlelight played over his bare chest and its gleaming, gray scars. “Oh...yes. He loves it.”

“Then what is the matter, little rabbit? I hear your heart skipping and running like it’s trying to escape your chest.”

“I wasn’t sure if I should sleep with Lo?c or…

” She bit her lip. It seemed so easy to overstep.

They were mates, but in many ways they hardly knew each other.

And sometimes it seemed he hated her as much as she loved him.

Perhaps he didn’t want her in his space at all and only asked her to move here to better oversee her punishment.

Her thighs squeezed together at the memory of the last lesson he delivered. She wasn’t sure if it was right or wrong that she’d enjoyed it so much. “I didn’t want to presume.”

He snorted. “You’re my mate. This is your nest.” He swept one of his wings through the furs with easy grace, indicating where she should lie.

She nodded, feeling silly. “Of course. You won’t be using it anyway. Thank you.”

He gave a small, amused growl. “Oh, I’ll be using it. Just not for sleeping.”

She felt her cheeks heat up. “I wasn’t sure you’d want that.”

“You thought I wouldn’t want my mate in my nest?”

“I wasn’t sure how much you wanted to share your life with me.

How much would be…normal.” Her chest felt tight as she answered.

She knew she didn’t deserve to be treated like a typical wife, one who’d been loyal through thick and thin.

She’d accept whatever treatment Brandt deemed appropriate, as long as he let her stay close to her son.

“You thought I’d make you sleep on the stones at my feet like a dog?” He sneered at the thought.

Her feelings must have seeped through the bond. If only she could build a mind wall like him so she could stop embarrassing herself. “No one would blame you.”

“Come here, Idabel,” he said gruffly.

She undressed to her chemise and slipped into the furs, excruciatingly aware of the places where their bare skin touched as she took her place at his side. The back of her hand brushed along his ribs. Her ankles bumped against his tail.

He did not embrace her immediately but let her adjust the furs and her limbs until she was comfortable. Through the bond came his contentment. Not happiness, but satisfaction. Like pieces clicking into place. When she’d settled to his liking, he covered her with his free wing.

“I want you in my nest for many reasons,” he murmured in a voice so low she had to strain to hear it, though his mouth was mere inches from her ear.

“Because you belong here, as my mate and the mother of my child. Because I desire you and intend to have you as often as you’ll let me.

And because when you are close to me, I can better protect you.

I have had all the distance between us that I can take in this lifetime.

If I could carry you in my arms everywhere so you could not escape me again, I would. ”

More than her cheeks were warm now. His deep rumble heated her inside, too. He sounded so stern and tender at once. His gentle disapproval was exactly what she needed.

“I thought you wanted me close so you could…” Her voice trailed off in another breathy embarrassment.

“Punish you?” he practically purred. “Never fear, I will do so. But I will be your teacher, not your villain.”

The door to the nesting chamber creaked open, and they both froze.

“Papa?” Lo?c appeared in the doorway, dragging a lone fur. “Are you awake? I can’t sleep, and I’m lonely in there.”

“I’ll take you back to your nest,” Brandt began, sliding his wing from beneath Idabel, but Lo?c interrupted with the pell-mell impatience of childhood.

“Can I sleep here, Mama? Just tonight?” Those begging gray eyes, so like his father’s, were impossible to refuse.

Idabel felt Brandt’s conflict through the bond, the desire to have her to himself warring with the need to comfort his son.

She made the decision for him, lifting a fur’s edge to welcome Lo?c under it.

There were only so many nights before he’d be too big to need his mama and papa. “Just tonight, sprout.”

Lo?c scrambled between them, immediately curling against Brandt’s side. “Will you tell me a story about the war?”

Brandt huffed, tucking his hands behind his head as he settled back. “That’s not a bedtime story.”

“Then tell me about flying. Real flying, not the fledgling stuff they teach me at school.”

Brandt’s voice rumbled through the darkness, describing banking turns and diving strikes, and Idabel felt herself relax.

Her lids drifted shut while she listened.

Or perhaps she was already asleep, because this was what she’d dreamed of the most during those lonely years.

The thing she most hoped to have when Brandt returned.

Not the passion, not even the restored bond, but their son between them, loved by both his parents.

T hree nights later (two with Lo?c in their nest and one without), she woke to anguish flooding the bond. It came in sharp, jagged, pulses that tore at the back of her eyes. She reached for Brandt, but he was gone.

She found him rigid on the balcony, claws extended, wings half spread and ready for a battle that existed only in his mind.

“Brandt. It’s me.” She edged onto the balcony.

He stared past her at something imaginary that made him grimace and flash his fangs as he stalked toward it.

She stepped out of the way, ducking his wing as he passed her.

To his back, she said, “You’re home, my love.

You’re safe. We’re all safe. There’s nothing to worry about. ”

He spun toward her voice, but his eyes were empty. He was seeing something else, somewhere else. Through the bond came fragments: burning wings, the screech of war bats, someone screaming orders in the cold rain.

“It’s not real,” she said softly, swallowing the sick feeling that was rising in her throat. She held up her hands to show him she meant no harm and took a step toward him. “Don’t listen to those voices. Listen to mine.”

He lunged for her then, knocking her to the ground and picking her up by the throat in one vicious motion. He held her out in front of him over the balcony rail so her feet dangled in thin air.

She grabbed his wrist with both hands to buy herself a few extra seconds if he dropped her. Her throat constricted by his grip, she didn’t dare speak for fear she wouldn’t be able to draw another breath, so instead she poured warmth and calm through the bond with all the force she could muster.

She pummeled him with memories of sweet moments.

Jumping in the haystack, picking blackberries with her little brother.

Lo?c as an infant, nursing at her breast and playing with her braid.

Baking fig cake for the winter solstice, weaving flower crowns with lilacs in the spring.

The feeling when Brandt combed her hair with his claws.

The feeling when he picked her up off the street and flew .

Thankfully, that got his attention, because she was running out of air.

Brandt looked stricken as he pulled her back onto the balcony and released her, his chest heaving. She reached out for him, and he cringed away. His mind was still chaos and fear, trying to sort reality from memory.

“I’m fine,” she croaked from her bruised throat. She grasped his wrist and pulling his hand until his palm was flat against her chest. “See? My heart is beating, there’s air in my lungs. Everything is fine. We’re in our home, together. The war is over.”

He fisted her bodice and drew back his other arm. For a moment, she thought he might strike her. Then recognition flickered.

“Idabel?” She nodded, and he collapsed against her, shaking. “I couldn’t tell. I almost killed you because I couldn’t tell.”

She guided him back to the nest and poured him a draught of her healing tonic. It wouldn’t cure him. She doubted he’d ever be completely free of these episodes. But it seemed to calm him and fill in some of the cracks in his crumbling mind.

“I could hurt you,” he said after drinking the medicine. He reached out with a trembling hand to touch the marks he’d left on her neck. “I came so close.”

She swallowed painfully and tried not to wince. “But you didn’t. I’m fine.”

“What if it happens again? What if it’s Lo?c next time?”

She pushed the image out of her head. “You wouldn’t hurt him. I know you wouldn’t. I can feel who you are, my love, and in your heart, you’re a protector. That’s what you do. Any child, you’d protect, not just your own.”

He pulled her close, kissed the top of her head. But she could feel through the bond that he didn’t believe her.