Page 4

Chapter 4

A Gesture of Gratitude

Evrard

“ H e’s still here,” the moth complained, dusting him with silver from its wings as it circled the lantern at the gate.

“Moons in the water, what is he waiting for?”

He set his jaw, staring off into the night.

“Maybe he’s deaf and blind,” another moth goaded, transparently trying to drag information out of him.

“Or just stupid.” The first moth tittered at its own jab.

“I heard they’re replacing him with a rock. They might as well. No one will know the difference.”

He swatted at them, and somehow they dodged his hand in their slow, fat-bodied way.

He growled under his breath, which only made them giggle harder.

Silly creatures.

He was saved from their nattering by the gold-red glint of Maggie’s hair passing beneath his gate.

Without waiting for her greeting, he dropped down from his perch and landed with a thump beside her.

She startled, a flush creeping up her thin-skinned cheeks as she stroked the orange kitten perched on her shoulder.

Was she worried he might eat it?

He took a step back so he wasn’t looming over them like a predator.

“Does the gargoyle have a lover? A human paramour?” the moths snickered overhead.

He was glad humans couldn’t hear their soft, silly voices.

“Hungry?” Maggie reached into her handcart, brows raised.

His mouth watered, and he jerked a nod.

Instead of a few leftover shellfish, this time she had a small cask for him.

It was stuffed with oysters and mussels, separated by layers of fresh, green seaweed.

Evrard plucked out and discarded the weedy green bits, devouring the mussels whole.

Then he crouched down to shuck the thicker-shelled oysters with his claws, pleased that Maggie didn’t seem in a hurry to leave.

She merely leaned on the cart, watching him eat.

He licked an oyster out of the shell.

Sweet and fresh. The best he’d ever tasted.

“Good,” he grunted, opening another and handing it to her.

She sipped some of the sea-liquor from the half-shell and then tipped it back.

He watched, fascinated, as she swallowed the oyster, the luminous column of her throat rippling.

“Good,” he repeated, mesmerized by the most basic workings of her body.

Why had he not learned more of the human tongue during the decades that he watched over them?

It had never seemed important.

He could understand most of what they said, but making the sounds himself was difficult, so he didn’t bother.

But now, he wished he could say more to her.

Wished he could explain what the soft pinkness of her pursed lips made him feel.

“I can bring you more tomorrow,” she offered softly.

“Not as many, but whatever I can. You must be starving, sitting up there all night.”

He frowned.

He was not so weak as that.

He could survive indefinitely without food, as long as he didn’t exert himself too much.

But he didn’t need to explain himself.

He wouldn’t be here tomorrow night, anyway.

She’d cross beneath an unguarded gate, with only her short knife to protect her.

“Or not,” she added lightly, noticing his dark expression.

He cleared his throat, desperately trying to shape his mouth into the unfamiliar shapes required for her type of speech.

“Tonight, fly to Solvantis. Go…for war,” he explained haltingly.

Understanding dawned in her eyes.

“You’re leaving to fight the goblins?” she asked, tilting her head.

He nodded. “For how long? When are you coming back?”

He shook his head.

There was no way to know.

Six moons was the term of enrollment in the watch, but it could be extended indefinitely.

The goblins and their war-bats were fierce, and it was possible he wouldn’t return at all.

If he did, it would be to a modest tower eyrie, not a lonely village perch.

Somewhere worthy of a mate.

Nestlings, if he was lucky.

“Never?” she breathed, face as pretty as the moon shining up to him.

He shook his head, and her hands, which had been engaged in caressing her fortunate pet, dropped to her sides in dismay.

“Who will guard Brinehelm?”

He shrugged.

He did not like to think of an unguarded gate, but it wasn’t up to him.

The kitten cried in its sleep, squeaking sleepily until Evrard reached out one finger to stroke it with the back of his knuckle.

Its fur was soft as moth-dust. No wonder it earned her affection.

It was a far cry from his rough, stony hide.

Maggie caught his hand in both of hers, tilting her head to the side as she squeezed it.

“I’ll miss you,” she said frankly, letting go of him too soon.

“It won’t be the same without your handsome face above the gate.”

“Handsome!” he scoffed, rubbing his right ear, where one of his brothers had taken a bite out of it during their regular skirmishes in the nest. He was a battered specimen, to say the least. “Old,” he corrected her.

“Mossy.”

She hummed, her gaze slipping over him from head to toe, taking him in.

He couldn’t help stretching his wings under her perusal, showing off their proud span.

He was a preening old buzzard.

“The moss is nice. I’ve always thought it made you look very wise.”

He made a sharp noise of disagreement.

It made him look like the unkempt cliff-dweller he was.

It showed he lived alone, without family to groom him.

That he hadn’t had the coin to visit a mason and repair the damage caused by the tiny, acidic plants.

“Nice for human, maybe. Not for gargoyle.”

Maggie stepped nearer to where he crouched, reaching out to brush her fingers over the lichen-spots that dotted his shoulders.

Her touch sent a jolt of awareness over his skin, contracting his muscles and making his cock swell suddenly and painfully inside his leather breeches.

Lonely fool. He grimaced at his own wretchedness, lips peeling back from his teeth.

Catching his expression, Maggie drew back, as well she should.

“I have freckles, too,” she murmured, tugging her chemise aside to bare her own shoulder.

It was crowded with lichen-like spots, the same that were scattered across her cheeks and chest. “I get them when I spend too much time in the sun, which is always.”

She laughed, and Evrard, who’d only ever had glimpses of the sun when it rose and set, found himself jealous of that great, burning ball that touched her skin and left its marks.

There was some base part of him, some deep instinct, that longed to do the same.

“Nice for human,” he repeated thickly, swallowing the saliva that had gathered in his mouth.

“Not really. Most women try to get rid of them. Someone once called me a spotted cow.” Maggie flushed in her remarkable way.

“Cow is tasty,” Evrard said.

Then, thinking he might have offended her by comparing her to meat, he added, “Strong. Useful.”

She laughed, her head falling back.

“You think it was a compliment, then?”

He nodded.

Her beauty was so undeniable, even to his jaded eyes, that how could it have been anything else?