18. Treasure
TREASURE
Iwake up flat on my back in the biggest bed I’ve ever slept in. Halfway to sitting, I have to stop and rest on my elbows. Log walls stand around me in low lamplight, every piece of furniture built for someone twice my size.
A deep, sweet ache sits low in my belly. Pressing my hand over it brings back all of last night. “Ohhh.” Lord.
Then I catch the rest. My skin is clean, the sweat and tears washed off me while I slept, and these sheets are fresh ones. Someone ran me a bath and got me through it without waking me once. I know exactly who.
I lie right back down for a minute. No one in my grown life has ever handled me this sweet. I don’t know where to put that yet.
Soren ducks through the doorway with a loaded tray on one big hand, and my stomach growls. Scrambled eggs, toast, sausage links, sliced fruit, and a glass of orange juice sweating down one side.
“You are awake.” He checks me over. “You slept too close to dawn, Treasure. You will have to wait here with me until sundown, and then I will take you home.”
“That’s fine.” I take my time scooting back against the headboard and smile up at him. “I really don’t think I can walk anyway.”
His eyes flare bright at that, and he doesn’t try to hide it. He crosses the room on those impossibly quiet feet and settles the tray on the bed beside me, careful with the juice.
“The food is from the wolf pack. They came in the night, cleaned, stocked the kitchen, and left breakfast warming on the stove.” He smiles. “And made sure there are… electronics in the home, so you will be comfortable while you wait for me.”
“Hold on.” I lean forward over the tray. “They did all that last night? While I was asleep?”
“They wished to welcome you.” His wings loosen behind him.
I open my mouth to say something about strangers in my house while I slept, then shut it. They left me a hot breakfast and a full kitchen. I cannot even be mad. This town, I swear.
Then he steps back from the bed. His wings flatten against his back, and he puts his eyes on the window instead of me.
“If you do not wish to stay with me,” he says to the window, “the alpha says he will help you with transport into town.”
There it is. My chest goes tight. I fold my arms over it. “And who’s gonna watch you while you’re in stone form?”
“There is no need to worry about me.” His wings pull in tighter.
“Well, I do.” I wait until his eyes come back to mine and hold them. “You’re my mate, Soren. And last night was beautiful.”
He returns to the bed and stops close enough that I have to tip my head back to keep his face in view. I move the tray to the nightstand and wince my way off that tall mattress.
“Treasure, no?—” He grabs for my waist.
I put one hand up, and he freezes. “You’re wrong, by the way. About the worrying.” I get my feet under me, sore as they are. “I bet you don’t even know what it feels like to be taken care of, do you? You’ve spent your whole life putting everyone else first.”
The rumble in his chest cuts out. His claws stop mid-reach, and for once my gargoyle has nothing to say.
“Well, that stops now.” I poke my finger dead in the middle of all that muscle. “You don’t get to lose yourself in me. That’s not how this works. You become a new version of yourself, same as I’m doing, and when we do things, we do them together.”
I reach up and lay my hand against his cheek. His eyes close. He leans in with all that weight behind it, trusting me to hold it.
I bring my other hand up and make him look at me. “I don’t want to be worshiped, Soren. I want to be loved. I want a partner.”
He goes down. His knees hit the floor, and I sit back on the edge of the bed as he lays his head in my lap, wings spilling low on both sides.
I cradle the back of his head, and his pointed ears twitch under my fingers.
“My only requirement is that you wear pants.” His shoulders shake once under my hands. “Because what you’re packing under that loincloth? Oh no. No ma’am. I already had one woman pull a measuring tape on you in broad daylight. I am not going to war with some ravenous woman over what’s mine.”
He lifts his head out of my lap. There’s a shine in his gold eyes.
“I will wear the pants,” he says. “But I will not agree to not worshiping you, Treasure. You are a gift. A true treasure from the gods.”
I roll my eyes and laugh anyway. “Okay, baby. Okay.”
The window changes, the black outside going gray at the edges. Soren rises off the floor fast and moves for the far corner of the bedroom.
“Soren?” I grab the bedpost.
“The sun.” He puts his back to the corner and lowers himself into the crouch. His wings fold tight, and his claws curl. “Forgive me. I wanted more of the night.”
Then it takes him, and I watch all of it with my hand over my mouth.
The gray doesn’t take him in any order that makes sense. It starts at his feet, skips to his wingtips and pours over the folded webbing, then runs up one arm while the other stays living, midnight-black skin going granite in patches.
His jaw catches next, and his eyes hold mine while they still can. The gold dims. The stone closes over his face last.
I slide off the bed carefully and cross the floor. My hand’s not quite steady when I lay it against his cheek. Still warm, same as that first day outside the diner.
“I won’t leave you, Soren. When you wake, I’ll be here.”
I give him one more pat, then hobble back to the bed and the tray on the nightstand. It’s a full breakfast. I’m starving. I grab a sausage with my fingers and fold a piece of toast around it.
“I’m gonna need a long recovery after the way you banged me out,” I say, pointing my toast at him, and take my first bite.
Sore doesn’t cover it, but it’s the good kind. Last night plays back in full color while I chew. My careful gargoyle held out as long as he could stand it, and then he didn’t. I watched all that self-control lose to me, his wings spread wide over both of us.
I press a hand to my forehead. “Whew.”
“I can smell you.” His voice rolls through the room, easy, clear as if he’s standing right behind me. “You are aroused again.”
I choke on my bite and turn myself around on the bed. He’s still a statue, stone from crown to claw, not one thing about him moved.
“How?—” I point a finger at him.
“Your claim mark, my love.” The words come from somewhere under my own skin. “You were granted more than the years. The bond does not go quiet when the sun rises. Nothing of mine is closed to you anymore.”
I bring my hand up to the mark on my neck. It sits warm under my fingers. I trace the shape of it, grinning at him.
“So I’m not just left to my thoughts, huh?”
“No.” He sounds pleased with himself. “And I love it when you hum. You hummed between tables at the diner. You hummed that first night in your apartment while the water ran, and I stood at your window and memorized it.”
I stop with the toast halfway to my mouth. “Hold on. You watched me?”
“Yes.” He doesn’t even have the decency to sound sorry about it.
A stalker with wings should scare me. Mine brought me breakfast. I shake my head and go back to my tray.
I settle back into the covers with another sausage and give the room a good long look. These windows need warm curtains, yellow ones, since someone in this house is finally going to benefit from my favorite color. That dresser is older than me twice over, and I could sand it down and stain it.
My empty picture frames are coming up this mountain too. I’m thinking one of us at the festival, and one of my mama on her first visit, smiling hard and pretending she isn’t scared of my husband. I’ve got years of decorating opinions saved up, and this cabin is somewhere to spend them.
I’m deep in curtain planning when the mark on my neck goes warm. His voice comes through rough, and it’s not aimed at me at all.
I want to stuff my tongue back inside her and let it live there. It has no other duties today.
I sit straight up off the covers and clutch my invisible pearls. “PARDON me?”
He clears his throat, which is a neat trick for solid rock.
“Apologies, Treasure. I did not mean for you to??—”
“Umhmm.” I pick up my juice and take a long sip, smirking at him over the rim.
He groans through the bond, long enough that I almost feel bad for him. “It is another side effect of the claim. I did not say those words to you. I thought them, and it seems that while I am in the stone, you hear my thoughts as well.”
“Umhmm,” I say into my juice.
I keep my face nice and pleasant. Sure enough, the mark heats up, and his thoughts come through it, unguarded.
So many positions owed. Upside down. On her hands and knees at the edge of the bed. Bent over the arm of the— He chokes the thought off, and it slips loose anyway. I would eat her pussy until she cries and then fuck her through the crying, and she would thank??—
“Tell me more.” I set my juice down and scoot to the edge of the bed, batting my eyes at him.
“Treasure. Please. Do not push my thoughts.”
I flop back and grin up at the ceiling.
“My gargoyle is obsessed with me.” I stretch until my toes point.
I’m gonna love it here.