Chapter 17
Finn
This woman is going to wreck me. I leave my filthy clothes on the floor by my bag to deal with later, more worried about getting back into bed with her.
By the time I make it there, she’s unhooked her bra, throwing it on the floor somewhere on the far side of the bed.
I slide in next to her, looping an arm around her so I can pull her close.
She should be right next to me. She should always be right next to me.
My wife. My pretty little wife who made me come the hardest I ever have, and I haven’t even been inside her yet.
I turn on my side, drawing her into my chest and wrapping one wing over us, closing us in and protecting us from the outside world.
It’s likely some leftover primal instinct from whatever gargoyles were long before we had places like Hearthstone to keep us safe, but I can’t fight it.
I need to know she’s safe in my embrace, that I’m protecting us from any harm.
She hums and snuggles closer. I had every intention of coming back to bed and fingering her until I could go again, but I remind myself that she hasn’t had sex in ten years.
She clearly needs something different, no matter what she said about going again, and she’s turning to me for comfort. Maybe we both need it, honestly.
“When you told Caroline off earlier…” she begins, then trails off.
“Yes?” I prompt, curious where her thoughts have gone. I’ve been purposefully not thinking about that, about the simmering rage under my skin at the thought of what happened. But if she needs to talk about it, then I can manage to control myself.
“Nothing. Just—no one’s ever done that for me before.”
I suspected it, but it hurts to hear nonetheless. “No one?”
“Well, G would have. She doesn’t like people being mean. But I worked hard so she never saw the shit like this. Not that there was a lot of it. People aren’t awful. Even Caroline isn’t awful. Just—clueless, I guess? I didn’t want G to be any more aware of how little I belong here.”
I hold her tighter, my wing fluttering around us with dissatisfaction. “You do belong here.”
She laughs, the sound coming out as a tiny, dainty little huff. “Your wing tickles.”
“Cassidy.” We’re going to have this conversation.
She heaves a heavy sigh. “You heard her. A thrall. A pet for her kids to suck blood from. I was good enough to be G’s nanny for years, not good enough to stay here on my own.
Good enough to ring up their groceries—until someone else comes along that they think deserves the job more. It is what it is.”
No. I refuse to allow it to be that way. I know logically that I can’t single-handedly change everything that’s wronged Cassidy, but I can damn well try. “You do belong here,” I insist. “And I’ll fight anyone who doesn’t see it that way.”
She traces my chest with the tips of her fingers. “I don’t think you’re a fighter, Finn.”
I tilt her chin up. “Baby. You’re my wife. But even if you weren’t my wife, I’d still say the same thing. No one gets to treat you as lesser. You belong here. And I’ll make sure you—and everyone else—knows it every. Damn. Day.”
She shivers. “I’m your wife,” she repeats, and I think she’s finally getting the message, but then she says, “Don’t you think this is moving a bit fast?
We barely knew each other, and now we’re married, and we’re starting a relationship but we’re already married, and—” She cuts herself off, shaking her head.
“Do you want to slow down?” I will, if that’s what she wants and needs. But fuck, I don’t want to. I want to go full steam ahead, showing anyone who ever looks our way that this is my wife.
I’ve never been public about anything before.
I’ve been withdrawn my whole life. Even my prior relationships were all quiet things: not secret, but private.
I’ve never wanted anyone around the way I want Cassidy; I will be public for her.
I will be loud, and I will make sure this entire town and the whole damn world know how amazing she is.
“No,” she laughs. “I don’t want to slow down. But I don’t know how you go from being married to, I don’t know, a first date? It’s strange.”
I kiss the tip of her nose. “It might be,” I agree with her. “But it’s ours. And I swear to you, wife, that I will make every day of it worth it.”
“And what if in a few years, you want something else?” she asks. “Someone more right for this place?”
“You are right for this place.” My frustration is spreading through me, growing bigger every time she questions it. I’m not irritated with her. I know where her worries come from. But the fact that she doesn’t know, that not everyone has made it crystal fucking clear to her, is infuriating.
“And children?” she presses. I jolt in surprise. I didn’t expect to be talking about kids today. “I’m just saying, someday you’ll realize that having kids with a human runs the risk of—well, of them being like me.”
So Hugh’s comments the other night got to her, then. I want to break his face for that.
I don’t say anything for a moment, digesting all that’s behind that comment. I take so long that she starts to squirm, and my wing automatically tightens over her, like it has to stop her from escaping.
“Finn,” she whines.
“Shh. I’m thinking.”
“See, I knew it’d be an issue,” she mumbles, voice muffled by my chest.
“It’s not an issue, Cassidy. Let me think.” I don’t mean to snap, but I do, and she goes completely still. I sigh and rub a hand over her hip in what I hope is a soothing way. “You’re pretty fucking great,” I say slowly. “And kids like you would be a blessing. Do you want more kids, Cassidy?”
I feel like I’m doing a delicate dance. We’re on the deep-end of this relationship without having done any of the preliminary work, and I feel like I dove in without knowing how to swim. I’m going to figure it out, though.
“Someday, maybe? Not right now. I know I don’t have forever, but I need some time first. But… I won’t have them be like me, Finn.”
“Human?” I ask, trying to be gentle but aghast at the implication. How badly have we messed her up to make her despise her own species?
“Discarded,” she says simply, the one word cutting my heart.
I picture little Cassidy. I imagine she looked like Georgia at that age, all pigtails and cute chubby cheeks, with a scattering of freckles. I think of her mother having to explain why her dad isn’t around. Why she couldn’t live here anymore.
Honestly, it’s a miracle that Cassidy doesn’t hate all of us. And perfectly understandable that she’s worried for her future children.
“Cassidy, I’m sorry your father abandoned you.”
She’s silent for a moment. “I like to think it’s not because of me, not really. I was an inconvenient result of a one-night stand. My parents didn’t love each other. I like to think it’s because of that, not because of me turning out human.”
“If we did have a kid,” I say carefully, a wild thing to say that makes my heart beat a hundred times faster, “then I swear, baby, I’d love them.
It doesn’t matter if they’re a gargoyle or a human or they get the shifter gene or somehow something else entirely.
It doesn’t matter one bit. They’d belong here and in my heart as much as you do. ”
She’s quiet for a moment, then mutters, “You’re a smooth-talker, Finn Delaney. You hide it well, but you are, underneath it all.”
No one has ever accused me of that in my life. Not even my own mother would say I’m good with words. But for Cassidy, it’s almost easy. It’s not a chore to say how I feel.
I kiss her forehead. “And I mean every damn word,” I promise her.
I’ve never thought about kids before. I mean, I’ve thought about them in a hypothetical sense, but not in a real, might-have-one sense.
But with Cassidy? Whenever she decides she’s ready, I’ll be more than happy to have a couple with her.
Human, shifter, or gargoyle, it doesn’t matter—I bet she’d be an amazing mom.
“What happens if the town meeting doesn’t go my way?” she asks quietly after a few minutes.
“Then we stage a protest and refuse to leave this house,” I say immediately. “Chain ourselves to the front door.”
She nudges my side. “I’m being serious.”
“So am I.”
“Finn.”
“Cassidy. There is no future where you are not in this house. I won’t let it happen.”
Universe, please don’t make a liar out of me. Don’t make me break her trust so early into the rest of our lives.
“You don’t control the world,” she murmurs.
“I won’t let them take your home, wife.”
She sighs. “I wish I had your confidence.”
I kiss the top of her head. “I’ll be confident for both of us for the time being, then. It’s okay.”
I thought tonight would end with sex, but I’m not upset that it hasn’t.
If anything, I’m glad we got all of this out between us.
I don’t want there to be any confusion between us when we start this.
And we are starting something. Something wonderful, and something that’s going to last if I have anything to say about it.
She nestles deeper into my chest, and I drape my wing more firmly over her. “You can sleep, you know,” I murmur. “I promise I’ll be here in the morning.”
She presses the softest, sweetest little kiss into my chest, and my skin tingles long after she falls asleep.