Page 8

Chapter 8

A Dishonorable Task

Evrard

T he moment he felt an updraft, his wings snapped out, arresting their freefall beneath the cloud layer.

Maggie was limp in his arms. She’d trusted him enough to fly with him.

To come apart in the moonlight.

To take his seed. He’d never felt more honored.

His little gem whined, writhing on his still-pulsing knot as they glided, held aloft by the air currents.

“Shhh,” he soothed, holding her still so she wouldn’t pull off and damage herself.

He adjusted her chemise and skirts to cover her and keep her warm.

“Rest. Wait.”

“How long? I don’t know if I can bear it,” she whimpered, clutching at him.

“You can. Not long.” He tucked her head under his chin and wrapped his tail around her waist for extra security, wishing it would take longer to part from her.

Soon, he would have no more excuses to stay.

She calmed as he wheeled in easy circles above the village.

Her breathing became more regular, and she began idly stroking the ridge of his tail where it crossed her body, which did nothing to help his cock soften.

“Do you suppose the kitten’s still sleeping?”

He snorted, having spared not a single thought for the kitten.

Crawling creatures could take care of themselves…

most of them, anyway.

Humans seemed to be the least capable.

“That’s my family’s cottage there.” She pointed below, where a lonely stone building hugged the edge of the cliff to the south of the village.

Plain and sturdy, it wasn’t too different from the nest he was raised in.

The thought comforted him.

Its worn walls would protect her from the wind and its thick thatch from the rain while he was gone.

“Good,” he rumbled, flying nearer to it.

A trickle of smoke from dying coals seeped from the chimney, and the windows were dark.

“They must be asleep already,” she murmured, sounding sleepy herself.

His knot loosened. Easing her off it, he lit on a tumble of boulders not far from the cottage.

He held her up until her legs could bear her weight.

Then, nerves still sparking through his cock, he resisted the urge to bite her and tied his breeches instead.

Biting was for mates.

A bite would bind their minds and hearts irrevocably.

She’d promised him a proper goodbye, not a whole life together.

“You fucked me so well, I lost one of my shoes.” Maggie grinned up at him as she adjusted her skirts, smoothing them over her temptingly plump thighs.

“I hope it didn’t land on anyone. Can you imagine being kicked by an unoccupied shoe?”

He chuckled, tucking a lock of her wind-tousled hair behind her ear.

How tangled her amber locks had become.

Frowning, he ran his claws through her hair until he was satisfied with the smooth waves.

It soothed him to groom her this way, as she had groomed him.

“Wait here, Maggie.”

He pushed in the direction of the village.

He meant to retrieve her cart and kitten, but he scanned the area for her missing shoe on the way, though he didn’t expect to find it.

Improbably, he spotted it caught in the high branches of an elm.

He swooped down to collect it before visiting the village gate.

The moths were still there, giggling when he landed in the dirt for the third time in a single night.

“Why does he have a little shoe? It won’t fit him. He’s got feet the size of barrels.”

“I saw him kidnap a human. Snatched her up and flew off with her.” A second moth dusted the air with silver from its wings as it careened around the lantern, smacking into its glass panes before spiraling dizzily away.

“Now she’s gone. I suppose he ate her.”

“Maybe he dropped her bones into the sea,” a third suggested, tittering.

“I did,” Evrard growled, making them all howl in their mothish way.

“The shoe is all that’s left of her. Now go spread your tales about it somewhere else.”

They ignored him, of course, so he returned the favor, turning his attention to Maggie’s cart.

He lifted the canvas cover, relieved to see the little orange kitten yawn and bristle at him.

She would be happy to have her creature back.

He tucked her shoe beside it and covered it up again so neither shoe nor kitten could escape.

The cart, though… its casks and barrels empty, it was light enough for him to lift, but the shape and size made it too unwieldy to carry while he flew.

He would have to pull it like a beast of burden if he wanted to return it to her.

It was a dishonorable task, one a tower-born gargoyle would not stoop to perform.

He’d never be granted an eyrie if any of them saw him dragging a load through the mud on behalf of a human.

It was too low, too slavish.

Gargoyles might be bound to protect their kind, but they were not bound to serve them.

The concept was repugnant.

Oddly, he didn’t mind doing it for Maggie.

For one, she had not asked it of him.

He had volunteered. And some part of him was honored to help her this way.

He was returning her livelihood.

Her pet. The things she held dear.

He put himself in the traces as Maggie did every day and hauled the cart to her seaside cottage on foot, each step driving the dirt under his claws.

A journey that would take him minutes by air took more than half an hour, crawling on the earth like this.

He expected she’d have given up on him and gone to bed by the time he returned, but when he reached the cottage, she was on the boulder where he’d left her, staring out at the sea.

She turned at the clatter of the wooden wheels on the stones and smiled when she saw the cart.

Smiled even more when he produced the kitten from under the canvas and laughed aloud when he handed her the shoe as well.

“I can’t believe you found it.” She hopped on one foot while she put it on, neglecting the laces, and then took the kitten from him.

It curled up on her shoulder, purring loudly.

Seeing them reunited made him want to purr, too.

“It didn’t land on anyone?”

He shook his head.

“Tree.”

“Good. I’m glad to have it back. Otherwise I was prepared to stuff the toes of my father’s boots so I could wear them. He has no use for them anymore.” She sobered, gaze slipping to the horizon again as she stroked her kitten.

“Thank you. For everything.”

He flexed his wings, unsure what came next.

For so long, nothing had happened, and now it seemed everything was happening at once: He was leaving.

He was going to fight an unwinnable war.

And he was falling in love with a human.