Monthly Story - male gargoyle x gn reader (nsfw) (Patreon)

This is becoming absurd. 2-5k words is what I aim for with these monthly stories.

This one?

It's 17,677 words, and it's broken down into SIX chapters (internally - I'm sharing the whole thing in one go here). May's story felt long, then June's, now this one? I'm going to have to reel myself in for August or, should I say, Taurgust... :)

Anyway. Oof...!

Content: controlling/manipulating family member holds power over the reader and uses your skills as a thief to rob a powerful vampire's castle at very short notice. Turns out the amulet is better guarded than your uncle thought, and now you've got to explain yourself to a very grumpy, seven foot tall gargoyle. Tropes include: 'Big Grumpy won over by Smol(er) Sunshine', heist gone wrong, forced proximity/working together as punishment, 'the boss totally ships it', reader's life is in danger (not from the romantic lead), mated/fated bond, submissive monster towards reader.

Wordcount: 17,677

 1.

“You want me to do what?” you blurted, staring your uncle down with a mix of astonishment and kindling unease.

The older man rolled his eyes and leaned back in his throne-like office chair, regarding you across his heavy, oak desk with a look of disdain and contempt.

His brother’s child you might be, but you were pretty worthless in his eyes. You had no magic, after all, and in a line of mages and witches and sorcerers, and even a warlock here and there, you were as useless as, in his words, a screen door on a submarine.

But there was something you were good at: sneaking into places where you shouldn’t be, and if you returned sometimes with something that wouldn’t be missed — at least not until you were long gone — then perhaps your uncle could find a use for you after all. The only problem was that in return for keeping you safe and shielded from those you’d robbed – by his position on the Council of Mages and his general lofty position in the world of the supernatural – he could always ask you to do just one more job for him. That was how, even into adulthood, you found yourself largely beholden to him. 

“I said, I want you to steal the Amulet of Protection from Rafael da Liro, and return to me with it.”

“You want me to break into a pureblood, elder vampire’s castle and steal an amulet that makes its wearer immune to vampire compulsion?”

“You can even put it on while you get it out of there,” he said with magnanimous sarcasm. “But it comes straight to my hands afterwards, understand?”

“How?” you exhaled. “How the fuck am I supposed to do that?”

“Language, child,” he tutted and you ignored the patronising stab. “I’ll glamour you, and you’ll attend the Winter Solstice ball he’s having in three nights’ time at Riverwatch.”

Three nights. You had three. fucking. nights. to prepare. Instead of voicing that, you asked, “He’ll accept a non-magical human as a guest at one of the fanciest supernatural gatherings of the year?”

“Of course he will,” your uncle sneered. “The Montilliets owe me a favour and I’ve cached it in at last for this. You’ll go in place of their youngest — you’re about the same age and height already, so the glamour will sit comfortably on your skin.”

“And you’ll keep the child of one of the most powerful families in the kingdom locked up here while I masquerade around wearing a stolen face at some rich vampire’s party? That’s your plan?” You shook your head, “It’ll never work. He’ll see through it, or he’ll have some enchantments that will.”

“No,” he said, speaking slowly, as if to a preschooler. “No, he won’t, because he’s inviting one or two guests who never leave their homes without a glamour. Some of the Fae, for example, will be in attendance, and, if the rumours are to be believed, several demon lords will be in attendance. If you see the true face of one of those horrors, your own will melt right off.” He laughed, as if you’d actually swallow down such a boogieman tale.

Of course you wouldn’t. You might not have had your own magic, but you read. Enough to know how magic worked — the fundamentals at any rate — and you knew that while some demons had the power to make your flesh melt off your bones, it wasn’t passive. They could look alarming enough to break the mind of a ‘vulgaris’ or non-magical human like you, of course, but it wasn’t the same.

Your uncle shrugged and you took it for the dismissal it was. “You’ll figure out the rest.”

“Can I at least get some info on the place? Do you know where the amulet is kept? How heavily guarded it is? What kinds of protective enchantments are on it? Security on the night?”

“That’s what the library’s for,” he said, making a shooing gesture with his fingertips, as if you were a mote of dust that was marring the air in front of his desk. “I’ve even had Morag lay out all the relevant information there for you. Now go.”

It took you two days and nights of barely any sleep or rest to figure out a plan that had even the faintest hope of succeeding, but it was the riskiest and least well-planned job you’d ever attempted. 

Morag, bless her, helped where she could by fetching relevant books and scrolls and data files on Riverwatch Castle and Rafael da Liro from the archives, which she had been employed to order and guard. When she wasn’t doing that, she broke her own rules about food in the library, and brought you meals.

As dawn broke on the day of the ball, you twitched awake with your arms splayed across a plan of the castle’s lower-most floors as the selkie tapped you on the shoulder and signed, “Breakfast, sweetheart. It’s on the table over there.”

“Thanks,” you signed back, fumbling the gesture around your exhaustion as you surfaced from a deep but spine-crunchingly uncomfortable sleep, slumped over your research. Voicing your next words just to see if your vocal cords were still working after two and a bit days cooped up in the library with only its mute guardian for company, you added, “Hope I didn’t drool on anything important…”

Morag exhaled a huffing laugh and signed, “No, but if that plan of the dungeon is still printed onto your palm by the time you get to the castle, remember to wear gloves, and mirror it in your head if you use it to navigate.”

Your eyes went wide and you stared at your palms, but luckily there was nothing there. “Quit messing with me, you menace,” you growled harmlessly, pushing yourself to your feet and grunting as your back and shoulders protested such a poor choice of sleeping position.

Not wanting to be ungrateful to Morag for her efforts in keeping you fed, you picked at the pastries and sipped the coffee she’d brought you, but your stomach churned and you found yourself gazing into the dark pool of coffee as though you could scry the outcome of the night in its inky oblivion.

Your plan, such as it was, involved attending the party, and either seducing one of the other guests into sneaking off into a quiet hallway before spritzing them with a potion that would make them leave and forget that they’d been with you, leaving you free to get down to the dungeon where the vault lay. 

Getting access though would require the use of the two seal-breakers which your uncle had grudgingly allowed you to take. The small, single-use charms were confined to two, peach-pit sized stones which would stick where you placed them and would shear through the strings of almost any enchantment. The problem was that they released a small blast of magic that could be detected by magic users, and they were incredibly difficult to make, which was why your uncle only had two for you. They would also shatter your glamour, so you’d have to get out of there without being seen or stopped.

Your other plan, which you really didn’t fancy, was to seduce Rafael himself and get him to give you a tour. You could lace your blood with a potion that would then render him unconscious at the first taste, since apparently he enjoyed drinking from the necks of willing humans. Using him as a distraction wouldn’t necessarily have to be about sex in that case, but it seemed a bit of a long shot all the same. For a five hundred year old vampire, who had been patron to some of history’s finest artists and musicians, some random human vulgaris was hardly going to be appealing enough to lead on a private tour of his most prized magical artefacts after only one evening. That was if you could even get close enough to him to attract his attention in the first place…

“Fuck,” you exhaled softly, your breath stirring the steam of the coffee that rose in a steady, mesmeric spiral from the white mug before you. “This is never going to work.”

A light tap at your shoulder drew your attention and you blinked up into Morag’s pretty, round face, with her large brown eyes and dark, grey-streaked, curly hair. Although it was greying, she was only in her thirties, but she was a selkie, and many of them were born with grey hair like the coats of their seal form.

In her hands, she held a small seashell pendant, wrought from copper and patinated to a vibrant, dark green verdigris. She offered it to you and you took it before watching her hands again as she said, “It’s not much, but it’s a good luck charm. My people give them to their friends or to people they cherish to keep them safe when they’re going on a dangerous journey or heading into… ‘choppy water’, you might say. I want you to keep this on you. Please?”

In a world where you had been dismissed since birth as someone without value simply for lacking the characteristics of the rest of your magical family, receiving a gift like that from one of your very few friends moved you to tears. 

With the library little more than a soft watercolour backdrop behind Morag, you blinked furiously and nodded, slipping the shell on its smooth, eelgrass string over your head. The cord was long enough that it dangled down to your sternum, and you’d be able to wear it beneath your clothes for the ball that night without it showing. They’d been chosen to hide the amulet beneath them too, after all.

“Thank you, Morag,” you said, using voice and hands, though she had no trouble hearing. “I’ll keep it close all night.”

The shell sat as a comforting, warm weight against your skin while you sat perfectly still in the back of the Bentley which the Montilliets had lent your uncle for the evening. After perhaps an hour or more of driving, the car swung round a corner in the road and you saw the towers and crenellated walls of Riverwatch Castle silhouetted against the full moon sky for the first time.

Your breath caught and your eyes widened as you pressed your face against the window and stared at the monstrous bastion that had guarded the sweep in the river gorge below for two thousand years. It had been added to over time, but had begun as little more than a hillfort of stone and wood to broadcast one tribe’s power over the others below.

Some said that Rafael’s human ancestors had been those very same warriors who had claimed that jutting pinnacle of rock, and when he, their last descendant, had been turned from mortal human to immortal vampire, he had had the place turned from a warrior lord’s fort to fortified home. Its silhouette now was fifteenth or sixteenth century, with one or two spindly towers for decoration, but a much heavier emphasis on thick curtain walls and defensive battlements. 

With your heart beating traitorously loud in your chest, you passed beneath the outer, barbican gate, guarded by the leering statues of gargoyles and grotesques, which you could have sworn followed the car’s progress over the drawbridge. The bridge itself didn’t look nearly strong enough to take the weight of the Bentley and its passengers rumbling over the wooden slats, and you exhaled in relief when you emerged into a small courtyard illuminated by strings of what you first took to be electric fairy lights.

Upon stepping out of the car, with its Montilliet livery hand painted onto the doors, you realised they were in fact genuine fairy lights, cast and set in place by the tiny, dexterous hands of pixies. Clearly, and as your uncle had suspected, this ball was not for the vulgares, but for the magical elite only.

That would either make your job a lot easier, or much, much harder. Humans were usually ignored for the most part by the supernatural races at gatherings such as these, but while the Montillet family’s eldest was not a mage, the family held significant sway as artificers and creators of magical apparatus, so there was every chance you could be stopped for some interminable conversation about double-walled alchemical flasks or something. 

A figure stepped forwards, eyes reflecting like a cat’s in the fairy light, and you recognised instantly that he was a vampire. 

Although your uncle performed magic for all manner of other supernatural folk, you’d only seen two vampires in your life, both of whom had been visiting your uncle, and you’d not interacted personally with either of them. 

This one offered you a very small but polite smile, bowed a little from the waist, and murmured the borrowed name you’d assumed for the night. 

“This way, please. Welcome,” he said in a friendly tenor. “Please be aware that while under the roof of my master, and under his gift of hospitality, all feuds and grudges between species and individuals are to be set aside. No magic or feeding may be performed on another guest or member of the household without their express consent, and for your own safety, please remain in the areas marked out for the celebration. I’m sure you understand.”

“I understand,” you smiled. I just have no intention of sticking to that last one.

“You are here alone tonight?” he asked, extending his elbow to you as he led you up the steep and slightly frost-rimed stone steps to the gaping entrance into the castle. The iron-laced and studded doors had been flung wide, presumably so as not to provoke any discomfort for visiting Fae, and inside you could see stone braziers roaring with vermilion Fae fire. Chandeliers sent rainbows skittering across the ceiling as each droplet of crystal danced in the breezes whistling in from the courtyard behind you.

“Yeah,” you said, quickly correcting your commoner’s accent to something a little more befitting of the youngest child of the snobbiest family in the country. “Yes, correct.”

“If you wish, I could accompany you,” he said, and you looked up into his face as you reached the top of the stairs and entered the lair of the most powerful vampire on this side of the Atlantic ocean.

This vampire was not Rafael, but nevertheless, he was achingly handsome; young-looking, but with ageless, whisky coloured eyes and a mouth as pale as dawn despite his olive complexion. 

When he spoke, you saw modest, white fangs, and his long black hair was tied neatly back into a plait that hung down his back all the way to his waist. You suspected that he had been some lordling or rich merchant’s son before he’d been turned, and you wondered vaguely if it had been a long time ago before pushing the thought to the back of your mind.

“Thank you, but I think I’ll mingle to start with. If I get lonely though, who should I ask for?” you asked with a little flirtatious smile.

He seemed pleased, as though his politeness was no performance but had in fact been genuine. “My name is Matteo dal Sagrà.”

“Alright, Matteo,” you smiled back at him as you slowly lowered your hand from his arm, “I’ll look for you later then.” 

Perhaps if he really did like you, you could use him to get you into the reaches of the castle that were out of bounds to party guests.

“You honour me,” he said, bowing his head so that his plait swung forwards over his right shoulder.

So, instead of having a vampire guide at your side for the evening, you entered the celebrations alone, and for a time, you forgot to be angry with your uncle for setting you up with this nigh-impossible task. 

2.

The main area for the Winter Solstice ball was exactly where you’d assumed it would be — unsurprisingly, in the grand ballroom of the castle on the first floor. On the ground floor you discovered richly-furnished reception rooms for the use of the guests to rest their tired bodies after the hours of dancing and feasting that were yet to come, or to converse with each other in a more intimate setting or, in the case of one of the drawing rooms you discovered, feed on each other.

Backing carefully out of the room where you weren’t sure if it was an orgy or a feast or a little of both, you made your way back up the stone stairs towards the ballroom again. The ceiling above you was lined with enchanted icicles that dripped silver dust onto all those who passed beneath, only for it to evaporate and leave no trace after a few heartbeats.

The dancing, you saw from the framed sign with the evening’s order of events hand-written in suspiciously dark red ink on pristine vellum, would begin in just a quarter of an hour.

So far, you’d avoided the wine so you could keep a clear head, but the canapes that floated slowly around the room on enchanted gold platters had been fair game, and you’d devoured a veritable feast in miniature from all the trays that had wafted past in quick, unending succession. 

You’d also sussed out where the access was to the dungeons by watching the security gargoyles doing their rounds and overhearing one of them growl to another that the staircase behind them down to the dungeon was secure as they’d passed by one another. 

You’d been pretending to fan the heat and excitement of the party upstairs from your face, seated on the base of a cluster of columns that held up the arch over the stairs up to the ballroom, and had used it as an excuse to listen in. Gargoyles, despite their undeserved reputation as dumb brutes hardly cleverer than a dog, were in fact extremely intelligent and articulate. They just preferred to keep to themselves most of the time and didn’t easily trust anyone who wasn’t the master (or their master’s kin) of their dwelling.

“Boss is in a real sour mood tonight,” the smaller and stockier of the two stone-skinned figures had added, pausing the pattern of their clawed feet on the stones to exchange a few words. “Don’t piss him off with one of your pranks…”

You frowned. The vampire you’d seen at the heart of the celebrations upstairs must have been a consummate actor then, because he’d been smiling and laughing, head thrown back, his long, straight, auburn hair tossing down the back of his wine-red, or perhaps blood-red, coat. He hadn’t looked sour at all. In fact, for a vampire, he’d looked almost… sweet.

“Like I’d risk a prank on a night like tonight,” the larger, skinnier gargoyle retorted with a shiver that drew their ragged looking wings in close against their lean back in obvious horror. “See you on the roof after it’s all done.”

They nodded and parted for separate parts of the castle, and in their wake, you stood just as the opening dance with Rafael and his chosen partner for the evening began upstairs.

You slipped like a shadow along the corridor and opened the door that led down to the dungeons. It also matched the blueprints that you recalled from your studies in the library at your uncle’s, so you steadied your heartbeat and breathing, and closed the door silently behind you.

At the bottom of the plain set of stone stairs, the corridor opened out into a curiously torchlit antechamber, and in the centre of the wall opposite, guarded on either side by two monstrous, glowering statues of what you took for mythical beasts, was the entrance to the part of the dungeons where the vault sat nestled in the bedrock of the castle.

You approached the door, glancing at the stone eyes of the beasts, and drew out one of the seal-breakers. If anywhere had a hex on it, this first door was certain to have one, so you brought the smooth, black pebble marked with a series of minuscule runes up to the door.

The instant the seal-breaker was out of your pocket, the statue in the left niche exploded with a roar that made you drop the seal from startled, lax fingers, and you toppled sideways as the beast which had been solid stone until a moment earlier hurled itself at you in a mass of snarling fangs and onyx talons. 

Its wings spread wide behind it, obliterating the light from the torches on the walls as sure as midnight, and you let out a scream that was only stifled when one of its gargantuan, three-fingered paws found its way around the column of your throat and it charged and bore you backwards against the stone wall behind you with another ear-ringing roar.

“Who the fuck are you?” the creature bellowed in your face, eyes now blazing like lava fresh-flung from a volcano. Behind it, a long, grey tail whipped back and forth, in and out of sight beneath the dark, bat-like wings that beat in time with its pulsing fury. “And what the fuck are you doing sneaking around here with a —”

At just that moment, the dropped seal-breaker went off and a shock wave of magic pulsed through the room. It was close enough to the vault door that it had probably done its work all the same, albeit far too late to be of any use to you now. 

The amulet might as well have been on the moon for all you could reach it now.

The creature should have been blasted off its feet by the rush of energy from the detonating seal-breaker, but it barely seemed to feel it, grimacing like a plough ox in a strong gust of wind. The only reason you hadn’t been slammed against the wall to your right by it was because your throat was still in the grasp of its huge, clawed hand like a tiny fishing boat anchored in a storm. It had three fingers and a thumb on each hand, knuckled and gnarled, with thick wrists and muscles all up its forearms that could have rivalled a troll’s. And it didn’t appear to be thinking about letting you go any time soon.

Its colossal, sloping shoulders gave way to truly enormous biceps, and the head that was snarling down at you was something between a bat’s and a lion’s, with a heavy brow ridge and large, deep-set, almond eyes, but its animalistic muzzle had a slightly snub-nose like a bat’s and teeth that… oh gods, those teeth could tear out your throat like a spoon through ripe fruit. 

Twin sets of thick, twisting horns arched back and away from its temples to end in glinting onyx points, with two much smaller, straight horns in between them at the crown of its head, and large, tapering ears nestled just beneath the thicker, curved horns.

Your glamour had also just been vaporised, so when the creature looked back at you, it realised it had been further duped, and bared its teeth again and roared.

Your insides almost turned to liquid at the sound of it, full of fury and disdain for you, and you cursed yourself for not preparing better. 

Of course the ancient castle would have gargoyles protecting it. 

Of course you’d need some kind of forced daylight spell to turn them to stone against their will, but of course, you weren’t a mage, as your uncle was so fond of pointing out, so that would have been impossible. 

Perhaps he’d tried to get rid of you once and for all with this fool’s errand? The thought had just crossed your mind when the creature’s claws pricked against the sides of your neck again and you went limp in submission. There was no point fighting this. Not here, and not now.

The door at the top of the stairs was flung open and the two gargoyles you’d seen conversing in the upper hallway came rushing down, crashing to a halt so abrupt it might have been comical if you hadn’t felt your life hanging in the claws of their massive comrade.

“Boss?” the taller, leaner one asked as they righted themselves with a quick beat of moth eaten wings. “What’s —”

“Prepare a cell, and have someone inform the master that we have a burglar. Quietly. Don’t attract any attention, you understand?”

“I’ll send dal Sagrà for you,” the gargoyle nodded, casting you a cold eye before retreating up the stairs.

“I’ll prepare the cell,” their stocky companion growled.

You throat spasmed and spots danced across your eyes as your consciousness flickered like a black and white movie. “… can’t… breathe…” you choked.

The shell amulet that Morag had given you pulsed warm against your skin, in sharp contrast to the cold strength of the steel grip around your neck.

The clawed hand retracted a fluttering heartbeat later, and you dropped to the floor in a tangle of limbs, wheezing.

The creature regarded you for a long moment, then turned towards the second statue in the matching alcove to its own and laid those terrible hands on the frame of the niche. “Awaken, old friend. You’re needed,” came that basalt-deep voice from the gargoyle’s barrel chest, and a shimmer of magic skittered across the stone skin of the second gargoyle before its granite appearance melted into the same, slightly mottled, rock-grey of the first guardian; living but still somehow made of stone.

This one cricked the tension from its neck, regarded you in a heap on the floor, and snorted a laugh. “Ah, Vale,” it chortled. “I knew you’d still need my help. Even after we drew lots and I won  my evening off. You’re nothing but trouble, boss.”

“Watch that forked tongue, Aria, or I’ll chip it off.”

“You’d have to get close enough for that, and that’s never gonna happen,” she winked, and then regarded the doorway between the two niches. “Damn. Master’s not gonna be pleased about that…”

To your eyes, the doorway looked exactly the same as it had done before the seal-breaker had gone off, but you assumed from the displeasure in Aria’s gritty voice that it had done its job. Great.

With a final nod, your gargoyle — Vale, apparently — grabbed you by the bicep and hauled you back to your feet. “Get up, thief. You’ve got questions to answer.”

“Alright, alright,” you yelped as he towed you along in his painfully tight grip and you had to duck beneath the edge of his leathery wing to avoid losing an eye. It was tipped with a talon where the ‘thumb’ of a bat’s wing would be, and like the ones on his hands and his animalistic hind legs, they looked like they could punch clean through a steel vault. “Jeez, I’m coming. You don’t need to drag me along like a chew toy!”

From behind you, Aria’s loud laugh filled the hall, and Vale glanced down at you and bared his huge, stone teeth around a growl.

“I’m just saying, I’m not gonna argue with you, is all,” you smiled.

“Stop talking then, and follow me.”

He let go of you and you tottered along beside him along the corridor down which you’d so recently snuck, thinking yourself the cleverest burglar in all the world. 

Before he could lead you through a maze of stone corridors and staircases to some dank and dripping dungeon, the slender gargoyle stepped around the corner ahead and bowed at the sight of Vale. “Change of plan, Boss,” they said with a tight smile. “Master wants you to take the burglar to his study.”

Vale didn’t question the order, and abruptly changed course to lead you up a spiralling servants’ staircase. You were panting and a little sweaty by the time you reached the top, but he didn’t seem out of breath in the slightest. He didn’t stop to let you catch your breath either, grabbing you once again by the arm and yanking you down an arched and vaulted corridor so narrow his wings nearly brushed the gilt frames of the oil paintings of landscapes on both walls.

A blood red carpet ran down the centre of the corridor like an artery, and you tried not to think too hard about the fact that you were being led to the study of a five hundred year old vampire lord. 

In fact, your meeting with Rafael went staggeringly well, considering you'd planned to steal from him.

Yes, he used compulsion on you to get the entire truth out of you.

Yes, it was humiliating to admit — under compulsion — that you’d been sent to retrieve an amulet that guarded against compulsion.

Yes, it was humiliating to admit that you had no idea why your uncle wanted that amulet in the first place, other than to acquire power over others. 

You did get a little satisfaction though when Rafael asked you about the other places and people you’d robbed on your uncle’s behalf in your time, and his eyebrows rose with each one.

“Impressive, truly,” he said. “Not many people know that Irena was burgled, but I’m one of them, and she’s furious about that tiara, let me tell you. Don’t worry, I shan’t tell her it was you.”

Even Vale, lurking in the dark on the other side of the room, seemed grudgingly impressed by your résumé, though it was hard to tell through the glower.

“But there must be a reason he wanted my amulet,” Rafael crooned into the corners of your mind while you sat in an extremely comfortable armchair beside his fireplace, the flames roaring and driving out the chill of the stone that had seeped into your skin while you’d been sneaking about the castle. Your light sweat had rapidly cooled too, and when combined with your fear, you’d begun to shake before he’d slipped easily into your mind and calmed you right down. 

There was something almost cathartic at finally being able to confess everything your uncle had blackmailed and bullied you into doing for him, and you didn’t fight the compulsion at all. Let someone know what a shitstain the mage was at last. 

 “Think, human. What particular purpose would a man like that have for my amulet?”

“He buys and sells magical artefacts,” you shrugged. “Maybe someone paid him to get it.”

“Paid him to get you to get it,” Rafael chuckled. He didn't seem angry at all — certainly not in comparison to Vale, who sat on his haunches like a hulking lion, regarding the ‘interview’ from the corner of the room with a scowl on his monstrous face.

Firelight crackled and flickered up his twisting horns and caught in the magma of his eyes, and while you were compelled to keep your attention on Rafael, you could still see Vale in the periphery of your vision. He watched you with the intensity of a cat stalking a bird, and it sent a thrill through you that you didn’t care to examine just then.

“Fine,” Rafael sighed. “Look, I can tell you were sent in woefully unprepared for this job. You’re not a mage, so you had no hope of actually breaching the vault, let alone circumnavigating the enchantments on the safe where it’s kept. It would take three witches an entire month to unpick those enchantments. I should know, because it took three witches exactly that amount of time to set up the whole thing fifty years ago when I ‘acquired’ the amulet from dear Salvatore in the first place.”

“‘Acquired’?” you smirked, feeling the compulsion sloughing off you as he turned his scarlet gaze away from your face and straightened up from his lean over your chair. “You mean you stole it from someone first?”

Rafael giggled delightedly and rested his slender hips against the solid, mahogany pedestal desk behind him. He shot Vale a look, which was returned with a flat stare, and snickered, “I like this one, Vale. Humans usually aren’t this sassy with me.”

Rafael picked at an imaginary speck of dust on the cuff of his Regency style, scarlet and black coat, and turned his red eyes back to you. There was no compulsion this time, no slide of his mind into yours, and you eyed him warily. “I think I know how I’d like you to atone for your indiscretion, human.”

“Oh?”

“Mn. Work for me.”

“Work… for you?” you blurted at the same time as Vale blustered, “Master, you can’t be serious?”

Rafael laughed again, his tenor rich and musical as he tipped his head back and all his straight, auburn hair hung down his back, tips trailing onto the desk behind him. “I’m perfectly serious. I own a good number of properties in the city, from secure storage facilities to high end art galleries and auction houses. Who better than you to work with my security teams at every location to assess their integrity?”

Vale opened his maw full of stone teeth to protest but Rafael’s affable expression turned suddenly sharp, though not cruel, and he snapped, “You will supervise, Vale.”

His jaw shut with an audible clack and he blinked, pulling his wings in tight against his back in obvious displeasure.

In a softer, almost fond voice, the vampire lord approached his gargoyle and laid a hand on one of those colossal, muscled shoulders. Squeezing the joint, which seemed to have no impact on the stony flesh whatsoever despite the strength of a vampire’s grip, he said, “Come now, my friend. It’s been a long time since you got to see the city lights. Perhaps you might even enjoy yourself a bit.”

A low, earthy rumble was all the answer Rafael got from Vale, and it made him laugh again, meanwhile you were puzzling through the problem of how a seven and a half foot tall gargoyle with enormous wings and a tail was going to follow you around the city without attracting the attention of the vulgares. It wasn’t as if people believed in witches and vampires and magic and all that, after all.

“You look puzzled, little human,” Rafael mused as he turned back to face you. “Do you not think this is fair punishment?”

“No, I do,” you nodded. “It’s fine. Anything that gets me away from working for my uncle is… yeah. It’s great. But… how, exactly, is he going to follow me around? You know, seeing as he’s… well…” You gestured vaguely at the gargoyle, who lifted one side of his muzzle in a warning snarl.

“Vale?” Rafael said, arching an eyebrow. “Care to show our guest?”

“Thief, not guest,” he snapped, fully baring his teeth at you. “And I’m not a circus dog to perform tricks on cue.”

“Thief, guest, semantics,” Rafael breezed, waving elegant, gold-ringed hands in a flamboyant gesture. “You do remember how to do it still, don’t you?”

“I remember. I just don't want to.”

“Gargoyles!” Rafael scoffed conspiratorially at you. “Gods, they’re worse than cats when you try to convince them to change their mind. Fine, don’t shift. It can be a nice surprise when you turn up in the city.” He frowned and then asked, “I’m assuming you have your own place? You don’t live with your uncle?”

“I have my own place,” you said. It was one of the few things you’d managed to earn from him for a lifetime of hard work and thievery. Of course, he could take it away from you in a heartbeat and force you to move back into the family mansion across town, but you didn’t like to dwell on that.

“Perfect. Of course, I’d have let you have one of the apartments I own in the city for the duration of your… ‘sentence’… but that makes things easier for you. Give me the details, and I’ll send you home with Matteo until Vale here joins you in the morning to begin your work. I’ll contact your uncle, of course, and let him know what the consequences for his transgressions are, and I’ll report him to the Council of Mages for such reprehensible behaviour. Best if you leave all that to me though, mn?”

Your stomach swooped but you nodded. This could be the end of his career on the Council, and it could ruin him forever. 

What would happen to you after that? Your younger cousin was away at university and the elder was apprenticing with a witch in Brazil. Would one of them return to rule over the small empire of connections and power that your uncle had amassed over the years? 

You decided it wasn’t your problem and said, “Good. I suppose I should thank you, not just for being so lenient with me, but for that as well.”

Rafael’s smile was suddenly not so sweet; all fang and vindictive satisfaction. “Punish not the hand that takes, rather the head that commands. I can see you had little choice, and the truly criminal thing here is how under prepared you were.”

After that, you and Vale were dismissed, and the gargoyle led you in silence through the castle and back down to the courtyard where the borrowed Bentley had dropped you off. 

This time, however, a silver Rolls Royce was waiting, and leaning against the passenger door was the slender figure of Matteo dal Sagrà. He smirked at you and tossed Vale a courteous nod, then pushed himself off the body of the car in a languid movement that reminded you of a black cat.

“Well, you turned out to be an even more interesting person than I thought you were going to be,” he said as you slid into the back seat and he closed the door softly behind you before getting into the driver’s seat and starting the engine.

It was only as the car pulled away, and you watched Vale standing on the top step of the castle’s entrance with his arms folded and his wings more loosely unfurled, that it occurred to you that Rafael might not keep his word. 

He might be sending you to some remote dungeon to rot, or to something so much worse than you could imagine, but as the Rolls glided back towards the city lights, and Matteo turned some innocuous jazz on over the speaker system, you realised you were too tired and too done to care. 

Matteo’s gentle hand on your shoulder startled you awake, and you blinked and gasped as you jerked upright. He stepped back with an apologetic smile and you saw the familiar outline of your apartment building’s doorway behind him. He extended his hand to you and you found a glossy new phone sitting in his palm. “For you,” he said. “Rafael will contact you about your first job.”

You took it, not masking your surprise at finding yourself safe and sound outside your home. You slid the phone into your pocket after Matteo helped you from the car, where it dangled against your hip like a heavier weight than it was. 

Matteo didn’t follow you inside the public entrance lobby of the building — where any vampire could enter uninvited — but he did wait until you’d called the elevator to your floor and stepped inside before he got back into the car. When you’d reached your apartment and locked the front door behind you before crossing to the small balcony that opened out from your living room, you saw the Rolls’ tail lights disappearing up the street and finally let out a long, exhausted breath. 

With no one watching the apartment, there was nothing to stop you ditching Rafael’s phone and disappearing completely now, you realised, but where would you go?

You stared at Rafael’s phone for a long minute before deciding this might be the change you were looking for all along without even knowing it.

According to a text that buzzed through in the small hours of the morning while you slept the sleep of the dead, the famous ‘da Liro’ auction house would be your first port of call the next day. 

3.

For some reason, you heard nothing at all about the events of the previous night from your uncle, so you were more than a little jumpy as you set off on foot from your apartment towards the metro station the following morning, and made your way to the posh end of town. The end of town where the family’s townhouse was, too. 

You kept Morag’s shell necklace on under your clothes, and tried not to worry about the fact that she hadn’t replied to any of your messages either about how the evening had gone. “Gods, let her be safe,” you whispered as you made your way up the stairs from the Underground, briefly clutching the shell pendant in your fist.

The building of the da Liro auction house was a nineteenth century, red sandstone building the colour of oxblood, with a huge porch entrance and a flight of steps that asserted the building’s dominance over the flagstone pavement around it. All the windows on the lower floor were barred and probably hexed, if you didn’t know any better. A quick squint at them as you passed revealed runes not only engraved into the surface of the iron but inlaid with silver to double the strength of the enchantment. Powerful stuff indeed. 

Beneath the forest green flag bearing the da Liro coat of arms in gold thread, jutting out from the building over the porch and flapping like a loose sail in the morning breezes, a security guard in matching dark green livery stood with his hands clasped passively in front of him. 

He should have looked a little frumpy with his uniform cap, but fuck, he was gorgeous. It was only when you realised he was probably either a werewolf or a siren — both popular choices for security work, based on raw strength or instant compulsion through their voice — that you figured you should stop gawping.

Approaching the steps, you found his attention on you in seconds.

Dark skin and light blue eyes were an arresting combination, but you tried not to get too flustered as you smiled and said, “I’m supposed to be meeting Vale.”

“Ah,” the guard smiled, showing slightly larger canines than a human would have. That still didn’t narrow it down, because sirens also had fangs. “Yes, you’re expected. He’s inside. Go on in.”

He waved you in, and you entered the marble hall within via the polished wooden doors which swung closed on oiled hinges with barely even a sigh.

Aside from a heavy wooden reception counter with a marble top, where a man and a woman sat with their attention focused on the screens in front of them and below the level of the counter, the white marble entrance hall was deserted.

At least, you’d thought it was, until a towering man in a black suit with a crisp, white shirt undone at the throat, stepped out of the shadows to your right. You briefly took in the warm brown skin and black hair, cropped close to his skull above his ears and a little longer on top, before honey gold eyes pinned you to the spot and your jaw dropped.

“Vale?” you breathed.

He adjusted the cuff of one shirt sleeve as though its confines were uncomfortably unfamiliar before coming to a halt in front of you and inclining his head in silence. He flicked one eyebrow upwards in an ‘obviously’ kind of gesture, but didn’t speak.

“Awesome. Well, let’s get started then, shall we?”

He lifted his lip a little and a very inhuman growl thundered around his chest, resonating in your own body too thanks to his impolite proximity to you. Presumably he was hoping to intimidate you with the sheer size of his body. Well, you’d spent your life with people trying to bully you into doing things you didn’t want to do. This was different. You actually wanted to be here, despite the circumstances leading up to it, and you weren’t about to let him intimidate you.

Even human though, he didn't look real. Somehow he’d crammed his body into that crisp shirt and squeezed a suit jacket over the top, and — dear gods — when he turned around and led you towards a door to one side of the reception desk, you couldn’t help but stare at the way his suit trousers made his ass look so darned perfect. 

Fuck.

He loomed in the periphery all day while you worked with the security team at the auction house. You'd expected to be treated like some kind of criminal who was one timely diversion away from lifting a priceless artefact from the vaults, but apparently Rafael had done you another kindness in simply saying you were an outside specialist he’d brought in to review the security as a routine checkup on his behalf.

The head of security, a witch by the name of Anna, had initially been a little frosty, but by lunchtime, you’d managed to get her to crack a few smiles, and she was laughing loudly by the time you said farewell that evening.

Vale was looking at you like you’d caused her to sprout a second head as he escorted you out of the building and onto the street beyond.

“What?”

He scowled at you.

“Can you… not speak in this form? You’ve not said a word to me all day.”

“I can talk,” he snapped immediately. “I just don’t see much point in conversing with criminals.”

“Oh get over it,” you scoffed. “Your ‘master’ has apparently forgotten all about it. I don’t see why you’re still holding a grudge. Besides, I’m the one who got bashed about and physically assaulted back at the castle. You haven’t even apologised to me for that.”

“I don’t need to apologise to a human for simply doing my duty,” he growled through clenched teeth.

“Fine. Look, are you walking me home or is this goodbye for today. Where are we tomorrow? Rafael hasn’t texted me yet.”

“He texted you?”

“Yeah, how else d’you think I knew where to show up this morning? I’m not psychic.”

Vale blinked down at you. “He doesn’t… text.”

You winked at him. “Doesn’t text you, perhaps, but he texted me. Look!” and you drew out your phone and waggled it deliberately too close to Vale’s nose.

Scowling, he lurched back as if you were brandishing a crucifix at a vampire, and he nearly sent a pedestrian behind him reeling. She cursed at him, and he mumbled an apology before turning his golden eyes back to you. They really were the colour of honey, you noticed as the evening sun caught them just-so. Without the perpetual frown, he’d be extremely attractive. Heck, he was attractive enough with it.

“I bet you don’t even know how to work a phone,” you smirked, just to needle him a bit more. “You’re just jealous.”

From the awkward, stubborn look on his face, Rafael had been right about him not making it to the city very often. He probably wasn’t terribly familiar with modern technology after living in an enchanted castle most of the time. Frustration made his eyes flare again and you stepped off the kerb, laughing. “Come on, let’s —”

A horn blared and the next thing you knew, Vale’s huge arm had grabbed you around the waist and yanked you back off the road and onto the pavement, spinning you away like a dance partner and putting his huge body between you and the delivery van that had been pulling up to unload in the bay.

“Gods do you not have any self preservation instincts, human?” he growled down at you, irises flaring like chips of tiger’s eye as his chest heaved against your back.

Turning while he still held you, you felt something tangible crackle along your skin at the contact and closeness. Your breath still came just a little short as you stared up at those raw, gemstone eyes and whispered, “Careful, your magic’s showing.”

He looked away and let go, snarling under his breath, “Because you make me want to shift and crush something.”

And if that sentence didn’t live rent-free in your head long after you’d parted company outside the auction house…

The next location only took a morning, being far smaller than the auction house, and you were done by lunchtime.

Your reluctant, hulking escort ushered you out of the gallery just after one o’clock, leaving a smiling, waving manager in your wake, and you drew out Rafael’s phone to find he’d issued no further instructions.

“Guess that means I’ve got the rest of the day off,” you grinned at Vale, who grunted something indecipherable in response. “You too. You gonna shift and check out the hot gargoyles on the cathedral?” you giggled.

Vale lifted his lip again, like dog that’s well and truly had enough bothering, but you just laughed. There was no way Rafael’s loyal gargoyle would take a swing at you for something as petty as your baiting.

Switching from Rafael’s phone to your own, you saw the way Vale’s eyes flickered to the screen, but he didn’t seem to follow what you were doing. To test that theory, you used an app to call for a car which was mercifully less than a minute away according to the estimate on the app, and set the pickup point at the end of an alleyway just around the corner.

You made sure to act quickly, and when Vale made no comment, you looked up to find him glancing down the street behind him.

Next, you drew a small, glass sculpture from your pocket and tapped Vale on the arm with it. “You might want to return that to the gallery,” you said with an innocent smile.

Vale swung his head back around and his eyes practically bulged as he gawped at the £1500, hand-made sculpture of a naked woman with her arms raised and her pert breasts on full display. “You stole that?” he hissed, clearly incensed. 

“I tested their security, exactly as requested,” you shrugged. “They clearly need to make some changes. I’ll file a report and send it to Rafael this evening, don’t worry. There you go —” and you pressed the minuscule figure into his massive hands. It looked like a child’s toy cradled in the cup of his palm where it had taken your whole hand to hold it.

The poor creature looked terrified of either dropping or shattering the unique piece (or both), and his eyes flared a supernatural gold again before he spluttered something at you and shunted the gallery’s glass door open with his shoulder, marching back towards the manager who was just retreating into the back through a door in the far wall.

You took your chance to bolt from your chaperone, and ran down the steaming alleyway and straight into the back seat of the waiting car.

Unfortunately, the city’s one way system took you back past the gallery, but you flattened yourself against the headrest of the car and it sailed past the gallery just as Vale burst out onto the street with a face like a thunderhead, chest heaving as he swung his head left and right in search of you. 

Once the car had passed, you watched out of the back window as he lifted his nose to the wind and barrelled down the narrow alleyway where you’d met the car, and you relaxed into the seat, chuckling. The man — gargoyle — deserved to have a puckish prank played on him after being so uptight and grumpy with you. It’s not as if you weren’t going to show up at the next place the following day. You were having too much fun working for Rafael for it to be considered punishment though. 

“Lamest punishment ever,” you smiled to yourself as the toasty warm car threaded through the skyscrapers in the financial district.

You didn't head back to your apartment, and instead your route took you to a park that overlooked the city, where you spent the afternoon in the winter sunshine, even indulging in an artisanal hot chocolate. The little stall was almost always there over the colder months to provide hot drinks and alluring pastries for dog walkers and park-goers with chilly fingers. You weren’t walking a dog, but you were enjoying the fresh, bracing air, and it felt like your first free afternoon in… well, forever.

You were still concerned about Morag’s silence, if not the deafening silence from your uncle, so you shot Rafael a text to ask if he knew anything about it, and whether she was ok. The vampire replied fifteen minutes later that Morag was safe and well.

You: And my uncle? Why is he so quiet?

Rafael: Let me handle that.

You: Just tell me?

Rafael: Complete your penance for your crime first. Favours later.

You: Please?

Silence.

You: Pretty please with a juicy and inviting carotid artery on top?

Rafael: As much as I admire and enjoy your humour, please know that I will not give you any information regarding your uncle’s current situation. Let’s just say he’s in significant amounts of trouble with the Mages’ Guild for his actions against me.

Your heart lurched down to your stomach at that, and you quickly tapped out a response. 

You: And me?

Rafael: Innocent of all charges, given the circumstances. You will complete the work I have set as penance, however.

You: Understood. Just make sure Morag’s taken care of.

Rafael: On my honour, I swear it.

Vampires. So dramatic.

You: Thank you.

You set your awful uncle’s fate to one side in your mind, and enjoyed the rest of your free afternoon in the biting cold of the frost-bound city. As the evening rolled in though, so did the clouds, and the wind picked up too, threatening rain. 

Returning to your apartment after stopping at your favourite hole-in-the-wall restaurant on the way back and eating your dinner on the go, you wondered how livid Vale was that you’d not only nicked the statue without his or the gallery’s noticing, but that you’d also used it as a distraction to ditch him successfully.

You weren’t left wondering for too long.

The apartment was dark when you opened the door, and after sliding the security chain on and kicking off your shoes, you slouched into the living room and damn near screamed when you saw the hulking outline and glowing yellow eyes of a sadly familiar gargoyle sitting on your balcony and glaring in at you like a true, fairytale monster.

“Fucking hell, Vale!” you blurted, clutching your chest and staggering back a few paces. After recovering from the shock, you stomped over and slid the glass door open. With it came the heavy scent of rain, though the balcony was still dry. “Creepy much?” Then, at the slightly feral light in his eyes, you took half a step back and croaked, “Vale?”

For a second, you genuinely thought he was going to lunge at you and bite your head off.

His jaws worked, teeth gnashing around a constant, thunderous growl, and his chest heaved. 

His claws dug into the concrete of the balcony and you wondered for a moment if Rafael might just have you murdered after all. It would be difficult to make an ‘animal attack’ believable in the city, but not impossible. Perhaps they could make it look like some huge, aggressive dog had torn your throat out?

“Why are you sitting out there in that form?” you finally croaked, trying to lighten the mood since he hadn’t yet launched himself at you in a fury of claws and canines. “You’ve, uh, you’ve got frost on your head. Aren’t you cold?”

“I’m too… fucking… angry,” he said between shuddering breaths, “To take… human… form.”

“Oh, ok. Wow,” you said and stepped back half a pace. “Jeez. Look, I think I’ve got a stress ball or something in my study, if that’ll help. Or, like… a whisky? You think you can drink a shot of whisky without shattering the glass in those big old hands of yours?”

He just snarled inarticulately at you and you rolled your eyes.

“Fuck’s sake,” you said, turning away and letting out a shaky breath. 

He wasn’t going to attack. The proud beast had simply been humiliated and then quite literally left out in the cold. You wondered if he’d had to contact Rafael to find out where you lived, or if he’d spent the whole day stubbornly tracking you down all across the city. Either option would explain the anger.

“In or out, buddy. I can’t afford to heat the whole block if you leave the door open.”

To your surprise, Vale was nearly silent as he padded inside on his hind legs, tucking his heavy, leathery wings in close to squeeze through the narrow opening, but you heard the slide of the door as he closed it behind him, and you looked up to find him shunting it shut with one careful, clawed hand. He kept his wings folded very tightly to his back and his tail wrapped rather adorably out of the way around his left hind ankle in the tight confines of your apartment.

“Your place isn’t warded,” he said when he turned his back on the city, regarding you with a different look on his face. All the anger had faded and melted into something like consternation.

“Why would it be?” you asked with a frown. “I’m not a mage or a witch or whatever. I’ve got no magic.”

His grey muzzle twitched.

As you switched on a few soft lamps and let the golden light spread through the winter-dark apartment, you eyed him subtly out of the corner of your vision.

He was muscular all over, with powerful legs that looked well suited to launching a half-ton beast off a rooftop and into a long flight, propelled by those massive wings, and although he had no fur, it didn’t leave him looking vulnerable. Naked, yes, but not vulnerable. His skin looked like the toughest leather, hard and grey and chiselled, with a slight texture and mottled here and there with flecks of green and brown like patches of lichen. You wondered how much time he spent out in the elements on some lonely battlement of Rafael’s castle, and wondered too if he was lonely. He certainly acted unsocialised, but Rafael hadn’t treated him like a feral beast. He’d treated him like an old and revered friend.

Vale tilted his horned head and said, “Doesn’t your uncle give a shit that your place could be broken into? Especially with all the dangerous people you must have pissed off?”

“So far you’re the first disgruntled burglary victim to come breaking in,” you sighed, plonking yourself down in a worn armchair and gesturing to the sofa. “Make yourself comfortable, if you fit and aren’t going to break it. I have no idea if you’re actually made of stone or not, but if you were, I suspect you’d have fallen through the floor into Old Mrs. Allen’s flat below by now. The place isn’t that well built.”

He snorted at you and walked over to the sofa on his hind legs, where he sank onto it like a big cat in its enclosure and lay along the length of it with his wings pressed against the back cushion and his tail dangling artfully off to trial its tip along the laminate wood flooring.

“What?” he asked.

“Nothing,” you replied with a little smile. “You just look oddly at home on my sofa. I kind of imagined you’d be roosting up on the cathedral spires or something, but now I can imagine Rafael booking you a luxury penthouse hotel room or something for you to bask in.”

Vale’s muzzle twitched again, but this time it was distinctly amused. “He did offer.”

“But you turned him down?”

Reluctantly, he growled, “You’re correct about the cathedral.”

“Hot gargoyles caught your eye after all then?” you snickered, and the brief spark of amusement in his eyes guttered out.

“Do you talk to all non-humans as if they’re animals?”

You blinked. “That’s not what I meant. Do you always assume the worst in people?”

“Habit, I guess,” he snarled, tail flicking with annoyance. “And you didn’t exactly give the best first impression by trying to break into the castle I guard, did you?”

Your temper flared, fed up with his self-righteous tone. “So are you staying over here tonight then or going back to the cathedral in the cold?” you asked tersely. “Did Rafael sic you on me 24/7?”

“I am not his dog.”

“And yet you do his bidding,” you fired back, arching an eyebrow. “Tailing me all over the city and making sure I do as I’m told as well.”

“Gods, you ungrateful little thief,” Vale suddenly spat, raising himself up a little so he looked like a haughty Sphinx reclining on your old couch. “You lie your way into a celebration hosted by one of the most powerful vampires ever to have existed, betray his trust and his hospitality by attempting to steal from him, and then insult everyone associated with him after he’s been far more lenient with you than you deserve. He should have locked you in his dungeons for the rest of your miserable life. He’d have been well within his rights, you know?”

Something cold went through you at his tone, and any remaining, playful banter that had been ready on your tongue fizzled out to cold ashes. You felt your expression turn hard and bitter and unkind.

“I’d like you to leave now,” you said flatly. “I might be a thief, but that doesn’t give you the right to invade my home, camp out here, and give me shit when you know nothing of my life. I’ll be wherever your Master sends us tomorrow, but I don't want you in here now.”

Vale did have the grace to look a little chagrined at your riposte, his large, tapering ears flattening against his head. Perhaps he’d forgotten that he’d been loitering on your balcony like a creep before you’d let him in. Either way, he rose elegantly and walked again on his hind legs towards the balcony doors.

As he opened them, the rush and rumble of the city outside poured back in, accompanied by the sound of a sleeting rain.

Turning on the spot with his hand still on the door, he regarded you with those burning, golden eyes. “You’re right,” he said, voice low and soft. “I apologise for speaking to you like that. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

And with that, he closed the door, vaulted the balcony railing and soared away and up into the sky through the drifting veils of rain.

When you met him at the secure storage facility on the edge of town the next day, he was in his huge but very much human form, wearing that smart black suit again. 

After you’d stepped out of the car, boots splashing in a deep puddle, and thanked the driver, Vale offered you a curt but polite nod, and then frowned and lifted his nose to inhale the scent of what you'd brought with you.

“Cinnamon?” he asked.

“Cinnamon rolls,” you replied with a slightly forced smile. “Peace offering. I don’t know anyone who doesn’t like cinnamon rolls, but there’s always a chance, I suppose. There’s also coffee. I didn’t know how you take it, or if you even like it, but I got black and figured you could put cream and sugar in it if you wanted.”

“I —” he faltered, then said, “I… take it black with sugar.”

“Perfect. Here,” you said, and held out the brown paper bag with the cinnamon rolls to him, still warm and gooey from the bakery, and then passed him a large takeaway cup of coffee with three packets of sugar. He emptied the lot into the coffee and pocketed the wrappers.

“Thank you.”

So formal and polite.

He did eat both the pastries before you went inside though, and you shot him a sidelong look and grinned. “Gargoyles have a sweet tooth, eh? Who knew?”

His honey eyes glittered briefly and he hid a smirk behind the remnants of the pastry, licking the icing off his fingers in a way that made something coil up inside you in a way you didn’t want to examine just then.

“Terrible sweet tooth,” he mumbled.

4.

After that, you seemed to grow on him.

Admittedly, like lichen, inching and crawling your way across his awareness until he had little choice but to accept your presence, but still. 

You caught him watching you attentively while you spoke to Rafael’s other employees; he stopped growling at you when you said you needed to take a lunch break; he even bought you a sandwich on the day you left your wallet back at your apartment. He’d even cracked just the tiniest half-smirk when you’d looked up at him, genuinely surprised by the gesture, and beamed a ‘thank you’ smile of your own at him. Vale had shaken his head and half turned away, his inhuman irises gold in the grey, winter light.

Some jobs, like the warehouse of cinnamon roll fame, took several days for you to audit, and while you won over the various staff employed there, Vale trailed you like a huge guard dog. Or rather, like a livestock guardian dog: big, clearly capable of sharp and explosive violence, but delicately tender with his chosen charge. 

And apparently, you had become his chosen charge, for want of a better word. 

He held open doors for you, put himself between you and the dirty spray of icy slush kicked up by passing vehicles, and refused to let you buy your own lunch after that first time when he’d paid for it.

You didn’t steal anything else to prove a point like you had at the art gallery, and the systems were mostly fine, but you did point out one or two major vulnerabilities, and when you did, Vale listened as attentively as did the security teams to your suggestions. No one got their backs up about you pointing out a weakness or two, and by the time you’d spent three weeks working for Rafael — all the while experiencing a continuing radio silence from your uncle and Morag — you felt more fulfilled and part of a team than you ever had in your life.

Vale walked you back to your apartment after your last job was over, and sighed as he came to a halt at the front door. 

His form was now so much a part of the fabric of your life that it seemed strange to think that this six foot tall, broad-as-a-city-bus-across-the-shoulder man, with his dark skin and flaming eyes, could turn into a creature with wings and talons and a tail, and part of you was tempted to ask him to shift for you one last time and meet you on the balcony as he had after you’d given him the slip. Your practical joke, and the subsequent heated exchange, seemed like a lifetime ago now.

Instead of asking to see his wings and tail, you asked, “What happens now?”

Vale sighed. “I’m returning to Riverwatch tonight.”

At that, something twanged and reverberated through your chest, painful as a shout in a sanctuary, and you swallowed thickly. “You must be looking forward to getting your wings back… Can’t imagine it’s been too fun being grounded in the city with me for all this time…”

An odd look drifted across his gaze and he offered you his softest smile yet. “Quite the opposite,” he said. “And…” he huffed another gargantuan sigh and shook his head, his black hair shivering slightly with the motion, “…I’ve been meaning to apologise for how I behaved to you at the start.”

“I did try to rob the castle on your watch…” you conceded with a little grimace. “Aren’t you, like, contractually obliged to loathe me for that?”

“You did, but no,” he chuckled ruefully. “And after what little you’ve shared about your life working for your uncle, I can see it wasn’t your choice. Not really.”

You made a side-to-side gesture of your head. “Got me there. Speaking of my uncle, Rafael said the Mages’ Guild was handling it, and that he’d be in touch after my… uh… ‘punishment’. You know what he’s on about?”

The sideways twitch of Vale’s head indicated that he did know, but he wasn’t about to tell you. “It’s better that Rafael speak to you about it.”

“But —”

“—Please,” Vale said with a hint of that old growl back in his deep, gritty voice, though it wasn’t anger that tinged his tone with gravel. It was desperation. “Please don’t make me disobey my Master.”

He shuddered bodily, and after a little pause, you looked at him with fresh eyes. “I didn't realise it went that deep,” you said quietly, honestly contrite.

“My kind are different from many others,” he said in a steadier tone. “Once we pledge ourselves to a Master, we do not break the oath. We must be released from it. I swore myself to Rafael centuries ago and I must not disobey a direct order from him.”

Interesting. “And he ordered you not to tell me about his plans?”

“He did.”

“Fine. I won’t push.” You rocked back onto your heels for a moment, and then shrugged. “Well, I guess this is goodbye then?”

“For now,” he said with a smile, and held out his huge hand for you to shake.

You took it, but immediately used it to reel yourself in to his body for a full hug, letting go at the last second and flinging your arms around his neck. He smelled like cathedrals and rain-soaked stone and like misty autumn mornings and crisp winter nights, and you inhaled deeply, feeling something inside you uncoil. 

Vale went statue-still beneath you for a full two seconds before melting with a soft sigh that was almost a groan and closing his arms around your waist. 

“Don’t get too many hugs then, I take it,” you murmured in his ear, still straining on tiptoes.

“No,” came his honest, if breathy, answer.

When you’d dropped back down to earth again, you stepped back and felt something small and sinuous stretching between the two of you, though it had to be your imagination, surely.

Vale inhaled sharply in much the same way you did on the rare occasion you attempted a short sprint – as if his ribs pained him – and he swallowed thickly and stepped away. As he blinked though, his eyes flashed gold through the breath billowing through the air from your own shaky exhale. His breath, you noted, didn’t fog the air with condensation.

“You ok?” you asked.

He nodded. “I’ll see you,” he grunted, and turned abruptly, carving a path through the few pedestrians out on your residential street as he left.

You turned and pushed the apartment complex main door, surprised to find it already open. It bounced a little as you let it fall shut behind you, and you realised someone must have broken the lock on it. Making a mental note to email the building’s management — which would inevitably result in nothing whatsoever being done about it — you called the elevator and stepped in after it took its sweet time reaching you.

There was a soft smell in the lift, like graveyards and moss, and it reminded you of Vale, though it had a sharper scent to it, like incense.

At your floor, you stepped out and made your way to your front door. Sliding your key into the lock, you found the key oddly loose as it turned.

As though the pins in the lock had been tripped.

Still on autopilot, you shoved the door open and let it close behind you, sloughing off your coat and hanging it on the peg by the door.

In the dark of the corridor, something moved and you froze, like a mouse caught in a row of corn.

Too late, you realised that someone was in your apartment.

5. 

Claws grabbed you and you screamed in shock, but a cold, solid hand clamped across your mouth almost instantly, starving you of air as you were dragged through your own home, heels lashing out, legs flailing.

You caught a lamp on a table and it fell with a crash to the floor, glass in the bulb shattering.

“Stop struggling, human,” came a harsh, scraping voice behind you.

Twisting in the creature’s grip, you saw wings stretching out and for a wild moment, as their taloned tips cleared an entire wall of picture frames and sent them crashing to the laminate floor where they tumbled and broke like playing cards made of glass, you thought it was Vale who had you in his claws.

Flailing again, however, just as the creature took you towards the balcony and ripped open the door, letting in a flood of wind so cold it bit deeper into your skin than the gargoyle’s claws, you saw that this one was missing a horn and had a chunk out of their face as if their stone form had been damaged by bomb shrapnel. The scar was ragged and darker than their quartz-white skin, and their flesh glittered like ice as they lifted you bodily up and prepared to toss you over the balcony railing.

You screamed again, thrashing blindly in their grip.

Never before had it occurred to you that you would meet your end by being flung from a sixth floor flat onto the concrete below, but as the creature threw you like a child’s toy from a pram over the glass and metal balcony, that reality rushed inexorably over you.

A long, ragged scream tore itself from your throat and the wind rushed in your ears.

Wingbeats followed, and a laugh like breaking rocks sounded just as hands snatched you from your tumble and yanked you by the wrist into the endless night sky above.

You looked up and saw the marble gargoyle’s tail dangling like a ship’s rope in a storm, but if you tried to distract them, they’d probably just drop you, so you clutched at their ankle and screamed again, not caring if the entire population of vulgares in the city below heard you.

They pulled you up effortlessly and their other hand snatched for your throat. You felt something tug and then break, and realised Morag’s pendant had just come loose in their hold. They sneered at it, then flung it aside where it fell like a copper raindrop from the sky and disappeared into the swiftly vanishing city street below. 

A terrifying thirty seconds later, as the skyscrapers became children’s building blocks beneath you and the whole city opened out in a series of winking lights and steaming vents, you caught the frantic heartbeat of another set of wings.

Turning, your heart soared to see the colossal outline of Vale with his wings suddenly tucking to send him streaking like an arrow at the marble gargoyle.

Your attacker let go of you in surprise, and you began to fall.

Plummeting, you screamed again and watched as the gargoyles locked hind legs like eagles in a fight, and the ground rushed up towards you once again.

“Vale!” you yelled, and he spiralled wildly, pumping his great wings and flinging the paler gargoyle away, into the path of a construction crane over a nearby empty lot. The gargoyle collided with it, wings first, and shattered.

Vale paused, hovering for just a second, before his eyes flared bright gold again and his mouth formed your name, though the wind and the terror blotted everything out.

He entered a dive like a peregrine falcon, wings pinned back, his muscular body pulled taut as a high-diver’s as he plunged down towards you.

You didn’t dare turn your head to look down.

You were going to die.

This was it.

A car horn blared and you knew you were at the height of some of the top storeys now. Another second or so and you’d be a red mist on the pavement.

“Vale!” you sobbed, tears blurring everything down to the pinpoints of gold in his eyes above you.

At the last second, his wings furled wide as a ship’s sails, catching the wind, and he grabbed for your hands and yanked you upwards.

Forget the miracle of you not exploding into a bloody paste on the concrete – it was a miracle your shoulders didn’t dislocate.

Vale didn’t waste a second and beat his wings furiously upwards while you clung to his neck and burst into tears, shaking.

Strong arms closed around you as he wrangled you easily into a better position, the movement of his shoulders showing the physical strain of his immense exertions to get you both skyborne and out of sight as quickly as possible.

“I’ve got you,” he murmured, cradling you close. “I’ve got you. You’re alright. I’ve got you.”

He arced away, banking over the city but you didn’t see where he was headed until the lead roof of the ancient cathedral swam into view beneath you and he landed lightly on the small, flat section between the pitched roof and the balustrade and a hundred foot drop below.

Crying with a mix of adrenaline and relief, you refused to let go of him.

He furled his tired wings close around you, blotting everything out like a blackout curtain, save for the glow of his amber eyes. “I’ve got you,” he said, repeating your name and that phrase over and over until you finally stopped sobbing and looked up at him. “There you are,” he smiled. “I’ve got you.”

“Who… Who was that?” you choked. “What happened?”

He still held you – bridal style of all things – in his arms, but he began to lower you and open his wings again; slowly, in case it spooked you. It didn’t, and you found yourself on shaky legs while he steadied you with his clawed, three-fingered hands. You gripped his knuckles and he held you as tenderly as if you were a flower.

“They were Bound,” he said, as if that meant something.

“I don’t… I don’t understand… Did Rafael send —?”

“No,” he snarled, then gentled his voice again. “No. That one was not one of Rafael’s. My best guess is that someone used an oath-bound gargoyle to do their bidding, which was to snatch you and fetch you to them.”

“Who?”

“I don't know,” he said, eyes flaring like lit coals. “But you’re not safe in that apartment.”

“What do I do? I can’t camp out on the cathedral…” you said, looking around yourself for the first time.

It was only then that you realised you had an audience. 

Six beast-like shapes were crawling over the lead of the roof, their heads tilted curiously. You shrank away from them for an instant, but when Vale showed no sign of alarm, you took courage in that, and turned to look at them properly.

The smallest of them, with a feline build, small wings and goat-like horns, approached and bowed low to you both. “My lord,” they said in a voice like a handful of river gravel.

“Did you see what happened?”

“Aye, my lord, we did,” they replied, bowing respectfully to you as well. 

You nodded back, but let the gargoyles talk. The ‘my lord’ was new and interesting, and you looked again at Vale and wondered if he was some kind of gargoyle royalty. He’d certainly behaved imperiously enough with you to begin with.

“Did you recognise that gargoyle?”

“Yes, my lord. We’ve seen him flying over the city for the past two nights, my lord,” they said, and then raised one clawed hand to the west and added, “From that direction.”

Vale growled, deep and resonant, and then nodded curtly at the gargoyle. “My thanks, friend.”

“My lord,” they repeated, bowing low as if deeply honoured.

“Bring word to me at Riverwatch if he’s seen again. I’m going there now. You’re not to tell anyone where we went.” He cast a meaningful look at you, and then said, “I’m sorry to ask it of you so soon, but are you ready to fly again?”

“To Riverwatch?”

“Yes. It will be cold, but I’ll fly as quickly as I’m able to.”

“Ok,” you nodded.

If you’d stopped to think about it, you might have noticed you were going into some kind of shock, but you didn’t, so you just nodded and let him take you to Rafael’s castle.

As much as you might have wanted to cherish every moment of being curled up in strong, stone arms, the flight passed in an icy blur, and you had only vague memories of Vale’s landing in the courtyard and a hurried conversation between him and a vampire that might have been Matteo, before you were carried upstairs to a guest room and a bath was run for you.

“Strip,” Vale ordered in a gentle, firm voice. “You’re too cold.”

You blinked and tried to take in your surroundings for the first time: a formal, ornate bedroom, with ancient, oak panelling coming halfway up the walls to leave the rest adorned with dark green wallpaper embossed subtly with leaves like midwinter frost. There was also some heavy, dark furniture, and an oil painting of a waterfall over a dresser with a mirror.

You were sitting on the edge of a huge four-poster bed, and Vale stood nearby on his hind legs, wings tense but folded neatly, tail wrapped around his left ankle, looking at you with a concerned expression. He said your name and you swallowed and cleared your throat.

“I’m fine,” you said. “Thank you. And… I’m sorry for… for zoning out like that. It’s just…”

“Hey, you nearly died tonight,” he said, stepping closer and sinking down onto the floor at your feet, crouching there like an enormous guard dog. Admittedly, one with horns and wings and features more of a bat than a dog, but still. 

You felt safe and steady again, and before you had thought about what you were doing, you reached out your hand and cupped his cheek in your palm. He was warm where you’d expected his skin to be cold as mountain rock, and as you cradled his massive, anvil jaw, he tilted his face into the contact and let out a long, rumbling purr.

“Thank you, Vale,” you said. “Thank you for taking care of me, and for bringing me here.”

He sighed expansively, his barrel chest rising and falling, and his wings relaxed a little down his back, though he still looked like he wanted to say something. Whatever it was, he didn’t speak up. 

His tail uncoiled from his ankle to lie limp across the colourful silk rug that broke the stretch of dark floorboards just beside your bed. 

“You should get warm. I’ll see about getting you something to eat,” he said heavily, levering himself to his great height again and backing away. “There’s a bath waiting for you in the en-suite,” he said again, just to make sure you’d registered that.

You nodded, and went to bathe.

Questions drifted through your mind like the steam from the bath as you sat and let the warmth from the water soak into your bones. It was perfect; neither too hot nor too cold. 

Who had charged that strange, marble gargoyle with fetching you? And why? Who had known that you’d have finished your penance with Rafael that very night, and how?

The only answer you could come up with was one that shocked you to the core, despite knowing what he was like.

Your uncle.

After drying off and slipping into the deeply fluffy, white bathrobe hanging on the back of the bathroom door, you emerged into the bedroom to find not Vale or Matteo waiting for you, but Rafael himself.

He turned as you exited, and glanced down at the floor briefly before returning his red eyes to your face. “My sincerest sympathies for what you’ve been put through this evening,” he said in his honey-rich tenor. “I never dreamed he’d go to such lengths, or I would never have left you unprotected. Vale tells me your apartment is un-warded?”

You nodded. Then, “So it was my uncle then?”

“I’m sorry,” Rafael said.

“Tell me everything that’s happened.”

“I will, I swear it, but first you should dress and come down to eat. Carlotta has prepared a light supper for you in the kitchens, and if I may, I will join you and fill you in.”

You nodded, and he stepped outside into the corridor and closed your bedroom door. 

There he waited until you opened it again, dressed in your clothes that had been cleaned and freshened up with magic judging by the speed and efficacy of the job, and he led you through the maze of corridors and staircases to the castle’s cosy kitchen. 

The hearth was big enough to park a four-in-hand in, and herbs hung drying in bundles from the barrel vaulted ceiling — even a row of garlic which Rafael ducked his auburn head around with evident distaste. 

But this was not his kingdom — it was Carlotta’s, and the cook swatted her five hundred year old vampire lord and master on the behind with a wooden spoon when he tried to dip his finger into the soup that was bubbling away on a colossal cast iron range, making him yelp like a schoolboy.

“There’s garlic in that!” she scolded. 

You couldn’t help the laugh that escaped you, and Rafael turned to look at you with one eyebrow arched and amusement dancing in his crimson eyes. 

“Yes, well, quite,” he chirped, then headed to the scrubbed wooden table and drew out a chair for you. You slid into it and to your surprise, the vampire lord served you chicken soup while Carlotta cut up some deliciously fluffy bread for you to drag through the golden broth.

“This is amazing,” you murmured, eyes actually rolling a little as you tasted it.

“Grazie, child,” the older woman smiled. “Now, I leave you two to talk. Eh, Rafaello, where is the big one?”

“The big one is on the roof at the moment,” Rafael replied, “Conferring with several of his kind from the city who brought word to confirm my suspicions regarding tonight’s events.”

“He will be wanting soup too when he is done,” she said. “Greedy boy. I leave it there to keep warm.”

“Grazie, Carlotta,” Rafael smiled, adding something else to her in what you assumed was Italian, and which made the lady’s already rosy cheeks go dark and her eyes close with embarrassed affection.

With just the two of you left in the kitchen, Rafael told you quietly about the events of the past few weeks. 

“Before I reported the attempted burglary on the night of the Winter Ball to the Council of Mages, I spoke to a friend of mine who sits on the Council. They said that the Council has been looking for any excuse not only to demote your uncle from their ranks, but to see him stripped of all privilege within the magical community and perhaps even put away for good.”

Your eyebrows rose.

“I see that’s news to you…”

“Yes and no,” you shrugged, taking another glorious spoonful of soup and savouring the rich flavours for a moment. You never cooked anything like this for yourself, and even your favourite restaurants couldn’t hold a candle to Carlotta’s cooking now that you’d tried it. “I know he’s been into some dodgy shit for a long time, but…”

“He’s been aiding in the transport of magical beings for use in experiments by the less than scrupulous members of our little community,” Rafael said and your stomach dropped. “Of all kinds, from Fae to dhampir to… even to mages themselves.”

“He’s been selling his own kind for study?”

“Indeed. But they had no proof. He’s been extremely careful. But with your testimony under compulsion — I’m sorry that was necessary, by the way —” he added, and you inclined your head to show you bore no grudge, “— and the evidence of the undetonated seal-breaker with his magical energy still in it, the case against him was overwhelming.” 

He swept his long, red hair back off his face and sighed, suddenly looking a believable five hundred for the first time. 

“So I took my case to the Council and they stripped him of all rank and recalled his eldest son — your cousin — from his studies to take over the estate.” Rafael regarded you slantwise for a moment and then asked, “What’s your opinion of your cousin?”

“I don’t really know him,” you said honestly. “We used to play together when we were small, but then he started showing magic and, well, I didn’t, so we were separated. He was always kind when we were younger though, and when I saw him during the school vacations and stuff he was always polite. Unlike his father. I’m not sure he knew what his uncle was using me for…”

“He didn’t.”

“So… if my uncle was stripped of his powers and stuff, how come he was able to send a… a gargoyle to take me? And why?”

“He wanted to punish you. The Council released him on the condition that he have his magic bound. They thought him neutered, but apparently even magically gelded he was still dangerous. For that, I must apologise. I thought you would be safe.” Rafael sighed. “He called in a favour and had one of his accomplices send out their gargoyle to bring you to their lair.”

“Why? I’m not magical? What use could I be to anyone?”

Rafael stayed silent for an uncomfortable beat of silence and then said. “His accomplice was a vampire.”

“Oh,” you breathed, and then, as the realisation hit that you had just escaped either thralldom or a long, drawn-out exsanguination, you said again, “Oh. Shit.”

“Indeed. And on behalf of those of my kind who would never think to apologise to a human, I can only apologise again. And,” he added with a little smirk brightening the corners of his mouth and making his ruby red eyes glint, “Perhaps offer you and your friend Morag positions here at the castle.”

You blinked. “What?”

“You appear to have worked very well with Vale, and I wonder if you would like to live and work here, under my patronage and protection, as part of my security team. Morag is an excellent archivist and I’m in need of someone to go through my library and sort it all out. She’s accepted already, by the way, but only if you accept too.”

Swallowing a wad of soup-softened bread that had temporarily lodged itself in your throat, you gulped. Just as you’d been about to give him your reply, a shadow moved in the doorway and your gaze flickered to it.

“Don’t lurk in corners, old friend,” Rafael snickered without turning around.

“Master,” came Vale’s deep rumble, and he stepped into the room, murmuring your name too. “You feeling better?”

You nodded. “Carlotta left you some too,” you added, and Vale shook his head, laughing.

“She’s always trying to feed me up.”

“She called you ‘greedy’.”

“Did she?” he said dryly. 

Vale helped himself to a massive bowl though, and came to sit beside you on the bench that ran the length of the table. It seemed so oddly domestic to be seated at the castle’s kitchen table with a vampire opposite you and a gargoyle beside you. You felt like you fitted there for the first time in your life, and the realisation drew a soft choking sob to your throat and tears to your eyes.

“What is it?” Vale asked, his food forgotten in front of him.

Smiling, you looked between Rafael and Vale for a moment, uncertain how to express all the wonderful things you were feeling. Instead, you set down your spoon and laid your hand over Vale’s huge, three-fingered, clawed hand on your right, and, a little more tentatively, you reached across the table and settled your warm palm over Rafael’s chilly, elegant hand. You squeezed both and said, “Thank you. I accept.”

Rafael slowly turned his hand over and squeezed yours, while Vale did the same.

The vampire then excused himself and said he needed to speak to Matteo about helping some of the vampires and dhampir who had been recently freed from your uncle’s operation to find new homes.

“Let me know if I can do anything,” you said as Rafael left, and he nodded once.

Vale finished eating his cauldron full of soup at about the same time as you finished your second helping, and when you were ready to leave, you asked him to walk you through the castle so you could start getting to know it.

You ended up at your bedroom an hour later, and he turned to go after bidding you goodnight, but you caught his hand and called his name. “Wait… could… could you stay? Please?”

“Is that what you want?”

“I wouldn’t have asked otherwise,” you growled but Vale only smiled.

“Alright. Do you wish me to… shift?”

“No. No, I’d like you like this,” you said, running your hand up over the thick bones of his wrist and up his muscular forearm and watching his wings shiver in response.

That night, you were too exhausted to do anything except pass out in bed, wearing only your underwear and pressed against the leathery skin of Vale’s huge chest. He cradled you in his arms and when you half turned over and looked up at him just before sleep claimed you, he frowned. “What?”

Suddenly embarrassed, you shook your head, face flushing hot.

“What?” he chuckled, nuzzling the back of your neck with his muzzle.

“I was just going to ask if you could put your wing over me too,” you mumbled into the pillow.

Immediately, he stretched the canvas of his dark wing over you like a second roof, and, feeling shielded on all sides, you slipped into the deepest sleep you could remember enjoying for years.

6. 

When morning came, Vale was still curled around your body, but his huge hand was now splayed flat across your stomach and, poking you in the backside, was an unmistakable erection.

Rolling a little, you saw that he had taken on a more stone-like appearance overnight, and your heart warmed that he felt safe enough to slip into a deeper state of relaxation around you. For someone so vigilant, it must have taken a lot.

You let your fingers play over the hard ridges of his ribs and down to his narrow waist, over his flank and down the muscles of his hips where his tail dangled down onto the base sheet. You reached down as far as you could and picked it up in your fingers, toying with its surprising weight and running your palms up and down its length the same way you would have done with his cock. 

After perhaps ten minutes of decreasingly chaste attention, Vale gave a huge groan in his sleep and rolled a little further onto his back, though his wings stopped him from turning over completely. You shifted too, and saw his cock had emerged fully from its protective sheath. You’d glimpsed the sheath before — small and subtle when he wasn’t aroused — but now the full length of him showed and he was hard and flushed and leaking freely.

Precome drooled down onto his stony, chiselled abs, and his red cock bobbed and twitched. One leg twitched too, extending and lengthening, and his claws caught the duvet and dragged it further down his body to reveal all of him.

Bright red and pointed at the tip, his cock was so inviting, so you trailed your fingertips over his pelvis and around the generous curve of his balls to tease the base of his sheath. He clearly enjoyed that a lot, as his cock drooled more precome onto his stomach and he moaned luxuriantly. You looked up at him and found his eyes open and glowing gold, his massive jaws parted to reveal his chunky canines and his blue-black tongue was lolling ever so slightly.

“Good morning,” you smiled.

“It is,” he replied. “Fuck, don’t stop, please…”

For a moment, your fingers had fallen still, but at the request that ground out of him like grist from a millstone, you closed your hand around the base of his cock again, as best you could because he was too big to close your fingers around completely, and began to stroke him teasingly slow.

“Wait, let me… let… let me just…” he panted, seeming lost already as he requested to readjust his position so that he wasn’t half-crushing his wings. He sat upright, spread them out, then lay fully on his back while you lay nestled beside him. 

You were in no rush to make him come, and you took your time exploring his strange, exciting body.

Before too long though, his massive chest was heaving and a steady line of precome poured and dripped out over your fingers and onto his stomach. His huge thighs began to shake and quiver as he flexed his taloned feet and his tail snuck along between your thighs and started to tease you in return, though you weren’t sure he was fully conscious of what he was doing.

Occasionally his wings tried to beat, which had the effect of raising his shoulders up off the bed, making his spine arch sinfully and drawing your eye down to his groin again where his poor cock was begging for release.

“Please, please… please make me come, please,” he gasped, eyes rolling back in his head as you moved to kneel between his spread thighs and caress his heavy balls in one hand and his slick, straining cock in the other. “Please, fuck —” he yelled, horns catching the pillow as he tipped his head back and raised his great muzzle to the ceiling, teeth bared in a desperate snarl.

“But I’m not done exploring you yet,” you grinned, moving a few minutes later to straddle his hips. His cock immediately slipped between your cheeks, slick and easy and so inviting.

His hands clamped down on your hips as you ran your palms through all the mess that had collected on his stomach and up over his arching ribs towards the vaults of his collarbones and the tight bands of muscle around his shoulders and down his arms. You rocked your body back so that his cock slid along your cleft and he groaned so low you felt the rumble of it travel down your spine.

“Please, gods above you’re perfect, please,” he chanted, words thick and slurred. “Let me taste you?” and when you nodded, he lifted you by the hips and drew you down to his face.

The heat of his tongue as he laved it all over you, swallowing you and growling around the taste of you, sent a spike of arousal through you so keen you almost came on his muzzle.

“That’s it,” he crooned as he felt you teetering on the edge. “That’s it, let me taste you. Give it to me. Let me…” and he sucked just-so, and you came so hard you almost blacked out. 

Your back arched and he moaned with pleasure as you came for him, held in place by his massive, clawed hands. 

When you finally stopped coming, he laid you down on top of him and used your still slick body — slick from his mouth and slick from his cock — to work his way back between your cheeks. He fucked your thighs with his huge cock, his hips rocking and pumping desperately, his tail snaking up your legs to part and tease you even further. He pressed his cockhead against the ring of muscle where no one had ever touched you before and when you moaned, he started to purr.

It sounded like blocks of stone grinding against each other, and as he panted, and fucked you from below, you reached your fingers up for his tapering ears and ran a fingertip along the delicate edge and then down his throat, then over his shoulders to the leathery membrane of his wings.

“Oh, fuck,” he snarled, lurching and then somehow thrusting harder and faster against you, that searching tail adding little sparks of pleasure to each movement he made, “I’m going to — fuck, if you keep touching me there I’m… oh…” He gasped your name, teeth bared as the purr became a growl, and said, “I’m yours… fuck… I’m —” 

Ropes of hot come seared over your skin as he gave himself to you with a roaring bellow that shook the furnishings in the room and the windows in the casement.

When he eventually slumped back, exhausted and spent, he kept his arms wrapped around your lower back, pressing you to him as tightly as he could.

It took a while for his breathing to slow and his thunderous heartbeat to return to a steadier pace, but you lay there atop him, equally exhausted, and happy to stay there forever as far as you were concerned.

Before too long though, he cracked a golden eye open and regarded you carefully. “Are you alright? I didn’t hurt you?”

“‘Mfine,” you mumbled, cheek pressed against his stony pec.

Vale raked his claws down your back in a feather-light pass and you shuddered all over again, feeling some of his come drip down off your body and onto his, or onto the sheets beneath.

“I nearly lost myself there,” he murmured. “I’ll run you a bath and we can get cleaned up.”

You drifted, dazed and hazy and satiated, and he carried you to the bath and washed you, and when your body woke up again at the easy, gentle caress of the washcloth across your thighs, he took care of you a second time too, lifting your body easily in his arms and using his mouth to wring every last drop of pleasure you had left to give him.

He carried you back to the bed, and drew the duvet over you. “Sleep,” he said, stroking a hand over your head. “I’ll be back soon. There’s something I must do now though.”

“Mn,” you nodded, and let your body go heavy again.

When you woke, it was about midday, and you were still alone.

After dressing, you wound your way through the castle, intending to head to the kitchen for something to ease the gargoyle-loud growling in your stomach, but you paused at one of the landings in the residential wing where your bedroom was at the sound of male voices conferring softly.

One you recognised as Rafael’s warm tenor, and the other, when answering what had sounded from the inflection like a question, was Vale’s rumbling bass.

“I could not ask that of you, Master…”

“You’re not asking it of me,” Rafael snapped. “You wouldn’t ask it of me. I know you wouldn’t. You would serve me loyally until you crumbled away to dust, no matter that you’ve found your mate.”

Your heart stopped at that. He couldn’t mean you, surely?

“Before you say another word, Vale, I release you from your bonded oath. You are free, my friend.”

Vale gasped audibly, and then fell silent. 

For a long time, all you could hear was your own thudding heartbeat in your ears. Then, you heard a soft thunk like someone dropping to one knee, and you drew a little closer to the slightly open door, pressing your eye to the crack between the hinges and the frame.

Yes, Vale was on his knees before Rafael, head bowed, wings spread wide in what looked like a ceremonially vulnerable pose. 

“Master,” he breathed. “Rafael…”

“Go. You won’t have to search far to find your mate either,” Rafael chuckled and you nearly swallowed your heart back down as he flicked his red eyes up to the door.

You took a reeling step back and prayed Vale wouldn’t find you eavesdropping. Instead, you waited in the corridor for him to emerge, which he did a moment later, and he drew to a halt.

“You… heard that?”

“Some of it,” you confessed. “I didn't mean to listen in. I just happened to be passing.”

“Will you have me?” he asked. “If it’s too soon, then I understand.”

“How can you be sure? You’ve bound yourself to Rafael for centuries. You’ve known me for three weeks.”

“Gargoyles have no heartbeat,” he began, and you frowned.

“But I heard… this morning… and before…”

“Our hearts beat when we find our mate. We come truly alive and leave the stone behind. I’m mortal now, as you are.”

You swayed. “Shit, Vale… I’m sorry…”

“Don’t be,” he chuckled, taking your face in his huge, gentle hands and kneeling before you. “I’ve waited all this time to find you.”

A golden light began as little more than a faint glow around his horns and down his wings, but soon it became so bright you had to close your eyes. “Vale?” you breathed.

“I’m yours,” he said simply. “And if you’ll let me make my oath to you one day, I will bind myself to you, as is the way of my kind.”

As the light soaked into his skin again, you stared down at him, short of breath and a little dizzy. “Vale?” you asked.

“Yes?”

“Take me flying again?”

_

Whuff, what did you think of that one? I hope you enjoyed it! I'm hoping to do a few more stories in this modern setting in future...

Check out the masterlist of previous stories here too!