15. Soren
SOREN
My wings come open the moment her taillights turn out of the lot, and I plant my feet to keep from following them. Being apart from her is already a fight, and she hasn’t been gone a minute.
“Your mate is beautiful, brother,” Sable says beside me, watching the same empty road. “And she has a strong heart.”
“She does.” I don’t try to hold back my smile. “I asked her if she could love a monster. She told me she’d take a whole demon, so long as he helped with her bills.”
Across the lot, Devon finally quits gawking and walks himself to his little car. He’s young yet, and anything my mate protects, I protect. The boy drives off with no idea he’s gained himself a shadow.
“We are in a different time.” Sable turns a slow circle, taking in the dark shopping center. “It is difficult even for me to comprehend, being accepted this widely.”
“I want Treasure to have everything she desires,” I tell him, and my claws curl with how much I mean it. “This town is on that list.”
“Then let us go look at the land.” Sable rolls his shoulders, ready for the sky.
“What about that disgustingly messy dragon?” I’m not done with tonight’s business yet. “Did you get him to speak on the robberies?”
Sable nods. “It’s been odd. Shadow Suds first, then a warehouse. He suspects the diner will be the next target.” He tips his head at the building behind us. “The one where your mate is employed.”
My ears twitch back flat. “No one will harm my mate.”
“Of course not,” Sable says, mild about it. “Shadow Wolf Creek will witness its first murder if anything comes near that diner.”
Wind slams down on us from the dark. Jalen drops out of the sky half-shifted, his massive wings spread wide, and the empty parking lot shudders when he lands. They fold away behind him while we’re still turning around.
“That would be why nothing has approached the building,” he says. “They know better.”
Sable and I trade a frown, then give the dragon our attention.
“Shadow Wolf Creek is a quiet town, and free of trouble. We work hard to keep it that way. Humans and supernaturals together.” Jalen strolls toward us and stops a polite arm’s length out, digging something from his pocket.
“Don’t get me wrong, we’re not a perfect town.
We have our setbacks. But we work to make this place a home, and that’s something I haven’t seen many humans open to doing. ”
We nod at the same time.
“I made a bold assumption about you two last night, and I suppose I owe you an apology.” He tosses what he’s holding, and Sable snatches it out of the air. A coin sits in his open claw, gold gone dark with age, struck in an old-country mint neither of us has seen since the hammers came.
“Took that off one of her ghouls at the warehouse,” Jalen says. “Whatever this witch is after, my money says it looks a lot like that.” He flashes his teeth at me.
“This is old treasure,” I say, studying the coin without touching it.
“And you two share a history with witches. Any idea what she’s hunting for?”
We shake our heads, and I set him straight. “Our connection to witches goes back many generations. My brother and I have no direct dealings with them.”
“Sure you don’t,” he says, grinning wider.
“You apologized for making assumptions,” Sable says. “Now you’re making another.”
“You’ve got a point. But I’m a journalist. I fact-check everything.” Jalen pockets his hands and quits grinning. “I need your help.”
“Alright,” Sable says.
Jalen counts it off on two fingers. “A guard on Shadow Suds and one on the diner, until I figure out what this witch wants. If you catch one of her ghouls on the land, send up a dragon’s call. Don’t just kill them.”
Sable tosses the coin back, and Jalen snaps it out of the air without looking. “I’ll take the patrol over Shadow Suds,” Sable says.
My wings settle. “I will stay with my mate.”
“And the weekends?”
I give him a long look.
“Alright, man, look.” He puts his hands up. “I know you’re probably still pissed about how I outed you on my podcast.”
A growl rises in my chest.
“I think Treasure really likes Shadow Wolf Creek,” he says. “So what’s the plan? You complete the mate bond and drag her off to be a nomad forever? Or do you let her be comfortable and give her a real home?”
“I do not like you,” I tell him.
Jalen spreads his arms wide. “We’ve got time.”
Sable puts his hand on my shoulder. “Go to your mate, brother. The land can wait. I’ll look over the cabin on my way to Shadow Suds and handle the rest from here.”
“I like working with you better anyway,” Jalen tells him. “You’re way less grumpy.”
I leave them to each other and take to the sky.
Shadow Park sits empty at this hour, the lake holding the moon on its surface. I drop through the old oaks at the north end and land soft on the bank.
My mate deserves better than a hungry gargoyle at her door. The fish here run fat and easy, and I take what I need from the shallows, without ceremony. It’s an ugly way to eat. It would put her off her own dinner to watch it, and I file that thought away for later.
Our chests rest at the tree line, buried under boulders no human hands could move. I roll my boulder aside and dig the smallest chest from the earth. We didn’t haul these across an ocean to let them sit in the ground forever.
I wash the digging and the whole day off in the lake, scrubbing the road dust and the grease-smell from my skin. On the bank I wring the water from my wings and knock the last of the earth from the chest’s iron bands.
Lamplight fills her window when I come over the rooftops, and what I see through the glass stops me on the balcony rail. She’s at her little table in her bonnet, bent over the sewing machine, humming to herself while her foot taps the pedal and my pants take shape under her hands.
She glances up and catches me through the glass, and she smiles quick and glad at the sight of me. I could stand on this rail all night for that alone.
She crosses the room, unlocks the door, and slides it open, stepping aside to wave me through. I duck in with the chest and set it down inside the door.
“I’m almost finished with your pants,” she says, and then she spots what I carried in. “What is that?”
“My brother and I brought some of our treasures to Shadow Wolf Creek,” I tell her, “in hopes of trading them for land.” I flick the latch open with one claw.
She gasps. The chest holds banded stacks of human money, loose rubies and diamonds, and gold coins piled to the lid.
She looks up at me. “Ohhh. So when y’all said treasures, you were not playing.”
“Why did you not rest?” I ask. She has been on her feet all day, and here she is spending what’s left of her night sewing for me.
She rolls her eyes at me. “I just found out I’m fated to a big sexy gargoyle.
Sleep can wait.” She waves a hand over the open chest. “You only get stuff like this in fairytales, Soren. I can’t get a man to bring me flowers on a date, but my gargoyle brings me a chest of his finest treasures, and we haven’t even been on a date yet. ”
She stares into the chest and doesn’t say anything else, and that worries me. “I have more if it is not enough.”
Her mouth flops open. “MORE? I can practically retire off what’s sitting here.”
I step closer. She doesn’t move an inch. I grin, gather her up against me, and lift her to my eye level.
“These treasures mean nothing to me. I have you. My real treasure.”
She settles her arms around my neck. “Will you stay with me tonight? And tomorrow night?” Her thumb runs along my jaw. “Can we go on a date?”
“A date?” The word sits strange in my mouth.
“Yeah. Show me what gargoyles do.”
“I am stone by day and a hunter by night.” I say it plain and wait for her to flinch. She doesn’t.
“Sounds like a good time to me.” She leans in and kisses my cheek.
I want her, and it is nothing tame. I hold it down, because she’s worn out on her feet and we have every night still to come. Everything about her is a marvel to me, and her heart most of all.
I dip low so she can reach past me and pull the balcony door shut. Then I tuck my wings in tight and carry her down the hall, ducking through her bedroom doorway. I lay her down easy on the bed.
“But I’m not finished with the pants,” she says.
“It does not matter, Treasure.” I lower myself to one knee beside the bed, take one of her feet in my hand, and work my claw gentle along the sole.
Her eyes fall shut, and the sigh that comes out of her is worth more than anything in that chest. “Ahhh. That feels good.”
“I will court you, if courting is what you wish,” I say, keeping my attention on the work in case the offer is a foolish one.
“I’m not asking to be courted.” Her head tips back with a serene little smile. “I just want to get to know you better. Plus, I’m probably not gonna last another night.”
I move to her other foot. “What do you mean?”
“I want to see what’s going on under that loincloth.” She cracks one eye open at me. “Lord, I pray I can handle it.”
I laugh at that, and I keep it quiet for the sake of her neighbors.
She yawns big, tugs her foot out of my hand, and burrows onto her side, comfortable in her pile of covers. “You think of yourself as a monster. Well, I think you’re beautiful.” She fights through another yawn to finish it. “And mine.”
She rolls onto her back and squints up at me. “My bed is too small for you.”
“I will build us a bigger one in the cabin, so I can hold you every night while you rest.”
She turns back to her side and puts her hand out for me. I give her a claw, and her fingers close around it. “Why am I so sleepy? I was good until…”
She drifts off in the middle of her own sentence.
I slip free, rise off my knee, and bend low over her. I draw the blanket up over her shoulder, tuck it in around her, and run the back of my claw down her cheek, light enough not to wake her.
“You don’t know what it means to me, to be loved,” I tell her, low, though nothing in this room is awake to hear it. “I don’t know how to give you the world, but I will spend the rest of my existence making sure you know it. You are the best gift I have ever been given.”
In the front room I latch the chest and set it against the inner wall, away from the glass door. If this witch’s ghouls hunt old gold, let them follow it here and meet what guards it.
Then I return to her doorway and turn her question over while she sleeps. A date. Hunting is out, because she’d care very little for how I feed, and I’d rather she keep her picture of me a while longer.
Then I have it. I’ll fly her over the town with all its lights, then out to the mountain land. She can walk the cabin that will be ours and tell me everything she wants changed. Whatever she names, I’ll spend my nights building it.
I guard the diner on her working days, and I love her by night. I stay right where I am and watch my mate sleep. Being anywhere else never crossed my mind.