Chapter One
Tons of people get married when they’re drunk. Heck, look at Vegas. They make a business out of it!
Very few people get married when they’re asleep.
You might even say it’s impossible.
I would have said it was impossible.
Then, it happened to me. Yep.
One hell of a way to wake up—especially when you hadn’t even met your bride before the “ceremony,” and she didn’t even know you existed.
I don’t mean she didn’t know I personally existed. I mean gargoyles.
Sounds complicated?
Well, it is, and I hate it.
Crash! Bam!
“Genesiiiiiiis! Genesis!”
My “wife” hates it, too.
Let me start at the beginning.
“KELYN’S GETTING MARRIED!”
My mother’s voice crackles through the screen of my laptop. In fact—I couldn’t have told you it was my mother except from her voice. The camera was currently pointed toward her upper wing.
“Please tell me it’s not to that sculptor?” I carefully set another stone heart in a straw-lined crate.
“That sculptor’s name is Logan, and he saved your cousin’s life! Imagine, selling her off as a statue...”
“It was a dodgy lawn and garden company, wasn’t it? And what was Logan doing associating with those men anyway?”
“Saving old statuary from being turned into gravel for people’s drives and rock beds!” The camera abruptly turns, and I see my mother’s anguished face. “Can you imagine? Your cousin could’ve been lining someone’s car park.”
“I know. I know.”
“He’s a good man, is Logan. He didn’t shriek and panic when she woke up in his studio, and he’s doing his best to honor all the clan customs. What’s more, he’s descended from Clan Comyn.”
I cast an eye on the white tattoo outlined on my midnight skin. The Clan Davidson crest is tattooed on my bicep, just like it is on Kelyn’s. “Is he getting a tattoo?”
“Already has it. Now.” My mother’s voice turns hesitant. “You’re like a brother to Kelyn. You know she’s only got her sisters. She wants her heartstone to come from you. You can bring it over when you come the week before the wedding.”
My stomach twists. I’m no hatchling. I’ve certainly defied the family expectations before by leaving the clan years ago and moving to the States, leading a solitary existence for the last sixty years.
(Gargoyles live a long, long time. I’m only a young thing in my “twenties” even after seeing two hundred in the rearview mirror.)
“I doubt if I’ll attend the wedding, Ma.”
“What?”
My stomach forms an intricate braid of nerves. Even though I’m a young, independent male, I don’t like defying my mother. “I don’t like it. Gargoyles and humans have been enemies. Allies. Friends, even. But we’re not meant to be mates.”
My mother’s delicate periwinkle nostrils flare, and her eyes glow green. “We’re all made by the same Creator.”
“I know. I know, I’m not saying it’s wrong... It’s just not natural. Kelyn is setting herself up for heartache. She’ll be a widow by three hundred! Maybe sooner.”
“And I married the finest warrior Clan Davidson had seen in centuries, and I’m a widow all the same. Love while ye may, son.”
“Our race will die out.”
“It assuredly will with bigots like you about!”
“I’m not being a bigot, Ma!”
“You could have fooled me!”
“I’m being a realist.” I drag my talons through my hair in frustration. “There are so few gargoyles left in the world. Maybe less than a hundred clans. Our focus should be on finding mates within those clans to make sure gargoyles don’t die out.”
“Love, if humans marry some of us, if we marry Orcs, or whatever... It doesn’t mean we die out. It means we change. Our blood passes on. That’s all that matters.”
“Not to me. I’m not coming to the wedding, Ma. But—But I’ll make her heartstone.”
My mother wrings her hands as she paces past the camera. “God, give me strength. The wedding isn’t for another three months. I pray you change your mind. Kelyn will be devastated if you don’t come.”
“You don’t have to tell her why. Tell her... Tell her I couldn’t travel. Too risky.”
“Lying now? Your father would be ashamed, Genesis.”
“This is all out of proportion. You’re just going to have to accept that we have differing viewpoints, Ma. And besides—humans are tiny. Weak. They break too easy, and they’re flightless, tailless, and soft. They’re frankly—a little bit—ugly. I wouldn’t want to marry someone I’m not attracted to.”
“No, son, but Kelyn finds her Logan a fine specimen of a fellow. They’re adorable together. Look, I’ll send you their engagement photos—”
I groan. “Don’t waste your energy. I’m not going to magically think humans are cute.”
“You have friends that are humans!”
“I do! But I don’t want to marry them! Look, Georgie and Milo, my two best mates, they’ve both married humans.
They’re lovely girls. Very nice people. I can appreciate they’ve got certain attractive ‘attributes.’ They seem happy together.
I bought them both wedding gifts, I’ve gone to their houses for dinner— but it’s just not for me. It’s not for gargoyles.”
“For a being with night vision, you’re certainly blind.
I’m emailing you what Kelyn wants on her heartstone.
It’s obviously a little different because he can’t exchange his for hers.
The binding vows are different to make sure they take with a human and gargoyle.
Can you handle that, or do I have to get Uncle Galatian on this? ”
“Lord, no. Don’t bother him. How’s he doing?”
“Well, you missed his two-thousandth hatching day celebration. He got roaring drunk, kissed Maudie MacPherson and tried to get her to pull his tail, and fell off his turret. Thank heavens, it wasn’t sunrise yet.”
“Maudie MacPherson? Who is she?”
“The lady who runs the castle gift shop.”
“A human?”
“Aye, pretty, plump little thing with long blonde hair and a bit of an overbite. But very sweet.”
Oh, God. Even Uncle Galatian?? “I have to go, Ma. I’ve got an order to take to the Night Market.”
“Love you! Look out for that email!”
“Love you.” I end the call quickly.
Human fever. It’s spreading.
No one is safe.