The Gargoyle Gets His Girl

by Kristen Painter

  Just to be safe, she got up and went to check the lock on the outside door to the apartment. She rarely used it, preferring the interior door that led directly into the office of the jewelry store below.

  She unlocked it and locked it again, then pushed the curtain aside to peer out the window. A bunch of greenery caught her eye.

  She froze. Someone had left flowers on her landing.

  Her pulse kicked up a notch. She forced herself to take a deep breath. She could see a card nestled among the brightly colored blooms, stuck in with a florist’s clear pick. That probably meant Burnside hadn’t dropped them off, they’d been delivered. Probably from Marigold Williams’ shop in town. After all, he’d been busy sending her emails all night.

  She glanced down the steps that led off the landing. Not a soul. But then, it was getting late, almost midnight, and even Nocturne Falls quieted down a little near the witching hour. She opened the door, grabbed the flowers and hauled them in, pushing the door shut with her foot, then resting the vase on her hip to lock the door.

  The vase went on the kitchen counter as she ripped the card out of the holder and tore the small envelope open.

  May this be the start of something beautiful.

  -Martin

  Oh, hell no.

  Now she was mad. And she really wanted to talk to someone. But she still didn’t have anything real to go on. Sending flowers wasn’t a crime. But common sense told her this wasn’t a problem that was going to go away any time soon.

  What on earth had gotten Martin Burnside so fixated on her? She backtracked through everything she’d done on the job. The magic she’d performed to bind his sacrifice to his new ring had gone perfectly. The stones she’d selected had been excellent quality, no flaws or cracks that might cause their purpose to go awry. The platinum was from her regular supplier, and she’d never had issues with it before.

  Jasper bumped his head against her leg, the same way he had when she’d worked on that job and cut herself.

  “Are you really hungry again?” Then she froze.

  She’d cut herself while making Burnside’s ring. She’d cleaned the blood off thoroughly, but what if she hadn’t gotten it all off? What if some of her blood, stuck in the crevices of the ring, had mixed with the magic and the metal and was the reason Burnside was so focused on her?

  Was it possible she’d done this to herself? Her magic didn’t work on herself. So whatever this was, it had to be on Martin’s side of things. Her mind was spinning with what that could mean and how it could be undone.

  She slumped into a kitchen chair, then immediately got back up.

  There was no way she could sleep when she was this wound up. She had to figure this out, but how? It would be nice if she had parents to talk to. They might know what to do or if something like this had ever happened before, but that ship had sailed. Or sunk. Either way, this was brand new territory and her problem to unravel on her own.

  Sometimes her mind worked things out when she put the problem aside and did something else. She could clean the apartment, but vacuuming at midnight seemed slightly mad. She had a couple of other jobs she could work on, but just thinking about doing them made her realize her concentration for that kind of work was in the toilet with this Burnside nonsense.

  No, a better idea was getting some air, clearing her head, and figuring out a plan. She grabbed her keys and her pepper spray and went out through the jewelry shop. A walk along the very safe, well-lit Main Street was just the thing. It often helped her when she was blocked on a design, so why not now?

  Double checking that the shop door was locked, she strolled toward the center of town. A few inhales of evening air took the edge off her nerves and brought her a sense of peace. For a fae, being outside had a measured calming effect. Didn’t mean her problem was solved, but she could feel her stress levels decreasing with each step she took.

  A clear head would go a long way toward figuring things out, but so would giving her brain some room to maneuver by letting go of her focus and letting her subconscious take over. She walked with no real direction in mind, just let one footfall in front of the other. The only real thought in her head was that she’d go see Sheriff Merrow in the morning. Probably nothing he could do, but at least she’d get his take on it.

  As she passed the center of town, her gaze turned from the darkened shop windows to the generous park that sat in the center of Main Street. It split the street with a bright swathe of green, and she’d always loved that happy spot of earth and water with its fountain and beautiful plantings of trees and flowers. Benches were scattered here and there to allow visitors to enjoy it all. She wondered if the Ellinghams had built it knowing how happy it would make certain types of supernaturals who needed to be near such things.

  She was one of those. She stopped and listened. The gentle trill of the water sang along with the other melodious sounds of the evening, the chirp of insects, the distant hoot of an owl and somewhere farther off, music from one of the town’s bars that must have its front door open. A breeze picked up, and a shower of white petals from the blooming sourwood trees floated through the air like summer snow.

  Their sweet scent called to her. She closed her eyes and inhaled. That was where she needed to be. Among the trees.

  She opened her eyes and jogged across the street, slowing as soon as her feet touched the path that wound through the park. She followed it until it led her to the centerpiece, the fountain. The sound of the bubbling water soothed her even more. She sat on the edge of the pool, leaning against the massive gargoyle perched front and center.

  During the daytime, the gargoyles were real. Of course, the tourists didn’t know that, but she wasn’t a tourist. She pulled her feet up on the pool’s ledge and wrapped her arms around her knees. She tipped her head back to look at the stars and bumped her head on the gargoyle’s massive shoulder.

  The jut of his wing blocked part of her view. She twisted to get a better look at him. This wasn’t the same gargoyle that was usually here. This one was a lot bigger. And not the friendliest looking. The town council must have decided to replace the old one with something more convincing.

  Job well done. Still, there was something captivating about him.

  She stroked her fingers down the statue’s forearm. The stone was warm beneath her touch and spilled a deep sense of calm into her. She pressed her hand flat to his arm and opened herself to the stone a little more, feeling the purpose and power within. Amazing that even the stone this beast had been carved from understood that a gargoyle’s purpose, even one that was only a statue, was protection. She smiled and went back to leaning, her gaze on the rippling water. Coins caught the moonlight and street lamps, sending sparkles up from the bottom of the tiled fountain.

  What wishes had been made with those coins? How many of them came true? Nocturne Falls was a place of infinite magic. A place where it seemed like anything was possible.

  Maybe she should make a wish, too. She dug in her pocket. No coins. The best she could do was a shard of opal and a chipped pearl. The opal was a piece of a larger stone that had shattered as she’d been setting it. She’d since recut the biggest piece, and while this one could still be made into something, it seemed fitting to use it to make her wish. The chipped pearl wasn’t much of a sacrifice, but the opal still had value.

  After all, her work required something valuable be sacrificed. Why not do the same to help her wish come true?

  She turned and kneeled on the edge, looping one arm around the gargoyle for balance, then thought about exactly what she might say.

  Nick stayed as still as the stone his gargoyle form was carved from. He didn’t want to give the woman currently touching him any idea that he was a real gargoyle and not just a statue. Fortunately, in his stone form, that’s all she’d get—stone. Fae powers or not. But if she figured out what he was, there was no telling what she might do. He bristled at the casual way she draped her arm over him.

  Like she wasn’t a th
reat to him. Like she wasn’t a lapidus fae.

  He knew who she was the way he’d known in country when a situation was about to get sketchy; it sang in his bones like a sixth sense. And whether she thought he was real or not, her touch had power over him. Lapidus fae had that effect on all gargoyles, which was why his kind steered clear of them.

  Once upon a time, lapidus fae had enslaved his kind and used them as beasts of war, riding them into battle like medieval destriers. Those of his kind who could fly had taken archers aloft. And those of the leviathan class who were also winged had taken small cannons into the skies.

  All in the name of claiming more land and expanding kingdoms. Fae kingdoms. The gargoyles had never been a race to lay claim to a homeland, and so the fae had put them to use forcibly. Granted, that was centuries ago, and the exact details had been lost, but some wounds stayed sore even after they healed. He knew enough to know she had the potential to be dangerous.

  And while he was pretty certain this lapidus fae meant him no harm, the effect of her touch unsettled him to his core. And not just because of the power he could feel flowing off her. The casual drape of her arm around him was far more intimate than anything he’d experienced in a long time.

  The last woman who’d touched him on purpose had been the field medic who removed the metal shrapnel from above his eye and stitched the wound closed, leaving him with the small white scar that was his only physical mark from his time as a Ranger. Unless you counted his tattoo.

  The fae shifted, but only to lean on him. She moved a little more and spoke softly.

  “I wish…that Martin Burnside would leave me alone. I wish no harm to come to him, just that he would forget me and let me live in peace. I wish to be…safe.”

  Nick had studied her as she’d approached, wondering what a beautiful woman was doing out for a walk so late at night. Now he knew. She’d come to make a wish.

  Another short movement and something plopped into the water.

  Not a coin. Stone. He knew it like he knew exactly what kind of fae she was. The echo of stone rippled through him, clanging like a bell, the call of like to like.

  Did she know what she’d done? Just because she was lapidus fae didn’t mean she did, but to touch him and make a wish with an offering of stone…she had to have some idea.

  A gargoyle’s purpose was to protect. Plain and simple. And whether or not her actions had been purposeful, he had no choice but to obey. She’d made a plea to him and sealed it with an offering of stone. It was a ritual as old as both their bloodlines.

  By her actions and the makeup of his kind, he was bound to her. Bound to do her bidding. Bound to protect her. Not to the same extent that his ancestors had been enslaved to hers, but still connected until she released him. He would fish that bit of stone out before his shift was over and take it with him as a reminder.

  Because, until she was safe, his life and his time now belonged to the very woman who came from the race that had once held his people in bondage.

  His desire for a little action had just taken a very twisted turn.

  Willa opened her store promptly at ten, having changed her mind about going to see the sheriff, because it was no longer necessary. She’d come home from her walk last night to find one more email from Martin Burnside, this one short and sweet and apologetic for his actions.

  It was over. And what a relief it was. Here she’d thought she’d accidentally corrupted her own magic with her blood, but all that worry had been pointless.

  Or maybe her wish at the fountain had worked. She kind of liked that thought, that the fountain might be magic after all. Made sense in a town like this.

  With a grin on her face and a song on her lips, she hummed a little tune as she worked polishing charms in one of the display cases.

  Ramona showed up at quarter after twelve, her unruly mop of dark brown hair held back with a pink-flowered headband that matched her pink high tops. For a twenty-something, she dressed like a teenage tomboy. So did her sister, Valerie, who also worked part-time at the shop.

  Willa frowned. “You’re fifteen minutes late.”

  “I know. Sorry. I was playing Stone Sword Saga, and my guild got caught up in a quest, and the Vessen hordes had twice the numbers of marauders than we thought so—”

  “I get it.” Willa held her hand up. “You were playing video games. Set an alarm next time, will you?” She shook her head. Ramona was a hard worker, all brownies were, being distant relations to house elves, but sometimes the work she got caught up in wasn’t the work she was supposed to be doing.

  Ramona popped her hip out. “Stone Sword Saga is not a video game, it’s an online multiplayer role-playing game.”

  Willa failed to see the difference. She shot Ramona a wry smile. “And this isn’t just my store, it’s the business that pays your salary.”

  Ramona winked and shot Willa with a finger gun. “Got it, boss lady.”

  She went to work cleaning the display cases, polishing each one with glass cleaner and bunched up newspaper to keep them lint and streak free.

  The door to the shop opened, and Willa turned to greet the customer, happy for the distraction. “Good afternoon.”

  For a moment, the outside light was obliterated by the breadth and height of the man who’d just walked in. Then her eyes adjusted, and she sucked in a breath as the details of his face and body became clear. There was something too hard about his looks to call them handsome exactly. Dangerous? Edgy? No, there was something about him that said he would go to great lengths to protect the one woman who made it through that hard exterior. He was a protector.

  She swallowed and reminded herself that he was a customer, not the hero of one of her romance novels. Although he could be. She glanced at his hand.

  No ring. He still might be shopping for a gift for his wife. Too many men didn’t wear wedding bands these days. Or maybe he was shopping for a girlfriend. Neither possibility prevented her body from responding in the most unusual and anticipatory way. Heat swept through her a second later as she realized what that feeling was—desire. Holy stars, had she been dateless so long that the first good-looking, possibly single guy who came into her shop got her hot and bothered?

  He nodded at her, oblivious to the hormonal cha-cha going on inside her. “Good afternoon.”

  She cut herself some slack because he wasn’t just good-looking. He was next-level hot. And who could be blamed for reacting to a guy like that? It was out of her hands, really.

  Kind of like…fate.

  Square-jawed and square-shouldered, the man looked like he’d been cut from rough rock by an able lapidary who’d run a little short on time. The only grace about him was a kind of predatory calmness. The rest of him was all hard planes and sharp edges, but they suited him. He radiated quiet power. Every inch of him looked just as hard as granite, too. Except his eyes. They sparked with the warm brown of tiger’s eye, their bronze depths flecked with gold.

  Forcing herself to focus, she closed the case of charms. “Can I help you with anything?” Me, maybe?

  “I hope so.” He dug into his pocket and pulled out a large diver’s style watch. “I need a new band for my watch. Do you sell those?”

  “I do. Come around to the back of the store and I’ll show you what I have in stock.” She snuck a glance at Ramona. The brownie was eyeing the new customer like he was made of chocolate and she’d just grown a second sweet tooth.

  Willa walked behind the display cases to meet him near the watch counter. They weren’t big sellers, but watch bands and batteries were simple to do and kept the locals coming back. She ran her fingers over the row of tall, slender books that held the bands. They were grouped by style. She stopped when she came to the one that contained diver’s watch bands, pulled it out and flattened it on the counter.

  “One of these might do the trick.” She held out her hand. “Can I see the watch? I need to measure it to make sure we get the right size.”

  “Sure.” He handed it o
ver, their fingers brushing.

  Electricity jolted her at the touch of his rough skin on hers. All imagined, she knew that, but it felt as though he’d flipped a switch inside her.

  Mercy, she was in a bad way. She put her energy into the watch band and examined the metal links. The dull throb of function coming off them did nothing to erase the sensation of touching him. She glanced up. “This looks like it was pulled apart.”

  “Yeah.” He nodded. “I, uh, caught it on something.”

  “Do you actually dive with this?”

  He gave a little half smile that was utterly bewitching. “No. The whole diver’s watch thing is more of a…fashion statement, I guess you’d call it.”

  The only fashion statement this man needed to make was walking into a room. “Maybe you should switch to a rubber strap. More durable. Cheaper too.”

  He shrugged. “You’re the expert. Sounds good to me.”

  “Let me grab them, they’re in a different book.” She set the watch down before putting the other book of bands away, then pulled out the one that held the rubber straps and opened it. She sized the watch against the chart in the center of the book. Twenty-two millimeters. She scanned the case for one that size.

  She tapped the plastic container that held the one and only twenty-two-millimeter replacement strap. “I’m guessing you don’t want yellow.”

  He screwed up his mouth to one side. “That wouldn’t be my first choice.”

  “For some unknown reason, I’m out of black.” When was the last time she’d put in an order? Too many magical jobs, not enough everyday stuff. “But I can get it. Can you wait? Shouldn’t take more than two or three days to come in.”

  “I can wait. On one condition.”

  He probably wanted a loaner watch. She had a couple in the drawer, but they were old men’s watches with stretchy metal bands and simple round faces, nothing she could imagine him in. She rested her hand on the drawer pull. “Which is?”