Chapter 5
Adela
He was a gargoyle. A very much alive and moving Gargoyle. And he was sitting on my couch, marveling at all my knickknacks.
Setting down a cup of tea for him, I sat in the chair across from him. Taking a deep breath, I tried to think of what had even happened.
“You broke my binding,” he said with that deep, alluring voice of his. “How did you do this?”
Leaning forward, I said, “Your binding… so you were bond there? Did someone put you there? Have you been alive this whole time?”
“Yes.”
“Yes, to which question?”
He raised an eyebrow at me. “All of them?”
I rubbed my eyes, trying to process all of this. “Okay, let’s start at the beginning. I was just there to assess you, clean you up, and make any repairs if they were needed. I didn’t know you were real. I thought you were just carved out of stone.”
“I am.”
“You are?”
“Yes.”
It was his turn to lean forward, closing the gap between us. “What was that spark you caused? A spell?”
A lump formed in my throat. I tried to cough it away, but struggled. Taking a sip of tea, I tried to wash it away.
Clearing my throat, I whispered, “It was a soul spark.”
“A soul spark? What is this?”
I couldn’t look at him as I said it. I tried to hide my mouth, my gaze, even my posture.
“It’s magic’s way of telling two people their souls are compatible.”
“Compatible? What does this mean?”
Heat rose in my face. How was I going to explain this to a gargoyle of all things. Swallowing hard, I instead stood up, turning away from him and his piercing yellow eyes.
“What I want to know is why it woke you up? It shouldn’t have done that.”
His eyes were on me, even as I looked out the window into the garden. All these years, all this time, I never had a soul spark happen. I thought I was doomed to date losers and be alone. Then, when I finally got one, it was with a gargoyle that no one even knew was real.
Iris would not let me live this one down.
“What does it mean that we are compatible?”
I took a deep breath.
“It is nothing set in sto—” I smiled at the phrase, “—it is just magic saying that um…”
I was having a hard time vocalizing this to man. I didn’t know what he knew, who he was, or why he was frozen above our town.
I took another deep breath. “It means that if we were to be together, it would work out.”
“Be together? I don’t understand. Aren’t we together right now?”
Spirits above and below, so help me.
“How long were you in this world before they froze you up on that pedestal?”
He thought deeply for several moments before he said, “I don’t recall a time I wasn’t up there, truthfully. It is all I have known.”
“Why were you up there? Who put you there?”
Again, he paused before answering.
“I don’t know? I just know it is my duty to protect this town.” He looked down at his clawed hands, studying them. “It is all I have known.”
“Have you… have you been watching all this time?”
“Yes.”
Sitting down next to him, I took his clawed hand in mine. I couldn’t say why I did it. It just felt like the right thing to do. Clenching my fingers around his, I pulled it into my lap, placing my other hand atop them.
“That must have been very lonely.”
His eyes searched mine, dancing across my face, examining everything about me.
“Very.”
A heat was growing inside me as he stared at me with intensity. My cheeks were likely scarlet. Dropping his hand, it fell to my thigh, and I stopped for several moments, my brain not processing what was happening. He hadn’t pulled his hand back, merely let his hand continue to rest on my thigh.
He was a man of stone who never interacted with humans, Adela. He didn’t know what he was doing to you.
Reaching for his tea, I tried to hand it to him. “Have you never tried tea before, Mr.—Wait, what is your name?”
“Korvex. And no, I have not had a need to consume anything.”
Korvex. That felt like a gargoyle name.
He took the cup of tea delicately, his hand finally removed from my thigh. I let out a breath, relaxing as he brought the warm tea to his lips. I had put sugar in it by default, I always enjoyed it a little sweeter and hadn’t thought about what a gargoyle’s preference would be.
He sipped it carefully. His eyes snapped open and he smiled.
“I like this!” In one large swig, he drank the whole cup. “Do you have more?”
I laughed and told him I’d make him more.