Chapter 11
HADRIEN
“I’m sorry if I said something that upset you,” Lilia said in a gentle tone.
I took seven deep breaths while my hands trembled at my sides. “Never. Tell. Me. About. Battle.” My voice sliced with a sharp edge.
“You’re right,” she agreed with a resigned sigh. “I shouldn’t have said that.” She lowered her head. “I was trying to find a way to relate to you, but I guess it backfired.”
“Splendidly.” I huffed. The back of my neck tensed. The problem was that a part of me knew she was right—and that enraged me more than anything.
But I couldn’t leave her out here alone. It went against everything in my nature as a protector.
And beyond.
Don’t look at her. My eyes betrayed my command and traveled over to her.
She’d pushed some of her dark hair back and let the rest fall loose over her shoulders.
Her eyes, when she glanced at me and quickly away, caught the moonlight and held it a moment before she looked toward the tree line instead.
Her hands were at her sides, the darkness concealing fingertips stained green from her hours in the garden.
I’d watched those hands and the way she worked them through the herb beds, pressing into soil, turning a leaf, cupping a root.
The same hands that had just touched my arm as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
A pang of yearning struck me. I’d been alone for so long, and even if we were arguing, I didn’t want to pull away from her. That perplexed me most of all.
My hand twitched to rise and touch her face, to see if her cheeks were as soft as they looked. Her chest rose and fell with quickened breaths, whether from arguing or rushing to catch up to me—maybe both. Would her skin feel hot beneath my fingers? Would she tremble beneath my touch?
And her fragrance. That in itself was its own kind of calling—wild and mysterious.
Before I did something stupid that I’d regret and scare her away, I forced my hands to my sides.
“Come on,” I said in a gentler tone with a nudge of my head. “Let’s go back to the castle.”
What Lilia had said last night replayed in my head while I resumed my watch from stone the next day. I’d moved to a turret closer to her room and didn’t want to think too hard about that.
It’s just natural gargoyle instinct, I rationalized.
What tormented me most was how she’d called me out—rightly so—and what she’d said wasn’t entirely wrong. I’d mocked her optimism and her stubborn refusal to accept defeat.
I hadn’t expected to hear that lecture from a tiny human woman. And although she was arguing in the forest with a gargoyle twice her size, she didn’t cower.
I didn’t want to admit how much that landed. How right she was. How long it had been since anyone had spoken to me that plainly.
When she came outside later that morning, she looked up and gave me a small wave. Locked in stone, I couldn’t do so much as blink to acknowledge her. While she pulled weeds and tended vegetables, I watched her. That was all I could do—watch and wait, watch and think. Maybe fantasize…
No. I couldn’t think about her in that way. She was human, I was a gargoyle, and we couldn’t stand each other.
Right?
After sundown, I flew down and found Lilia inside the castle, sitting before the hearth. The flames cast light and shadow on her face, showing the worry there.
“Are you all right?” I asked.
She pulled her gaze to me and forced a small smile. “Just thinking about my family. Hoping my brother’s okay.”
“He looked healthy the last time I was here.” I nodded, not sure what else to say. “I’ve been thinking about what you said, Little Thistle.”
She slanted her head. “I have a name, you know.”
“Oh, do you?” The sardonic tone returned before I could stop it.
“Yes. It’s Lilia.”
I exhaled through my teeth. “Fine—Lilia.” The words came out rough. “What do you need for us to try again at the wards?” I tried to school my tone to steer away from sarcasm and failed. “More herbs?”
She glared at me, then looked away. “I don’t have my books. I’d left them all at home.” She snorted. “I didn’t think I was leaving my cottage for a permanent departure.”
Right. I bit my tongue to keep from snapping. But I couldn’t have let her leave with what she knew of the wards. Then again, she’d mentioned being squeezed by the queen. Surely that meant she wouldn’t collude with the queen and betray me, right?
No, now was not the time to question that. We were here now and stuck together on a mission that would no doubt fail.
Don’t think that way. That’s exactly what she called you out on last night.
I hesitated. Perhaps I might have some resources that would help, but they were tucked away where no one but me could access them. No one else had entered that room for years. It was the one space in the castle I protected above all else because it held the secret of my doomed fate.
But what did I have to lose by letting her search for options? I was running out of time, and standing in front of the hearth bickering with a woman who smelled of damn herbs and flowers wasn’t going to help.
“Come with me,” I said.
She cocked her head. “Where?”
“Gods of Stone, you are exasperating, woman!”
“Because I asked a simple question?”
I motioned with my hand. “Come with me.” I didn’t wait for her and strode down the stone hallway, adding, “Before I change my mind.”