Chapter 19
Rikard
He was hard.
The irony was so vicious it could have drawn blood. Trapped in stone with the dawn light warming his frozen hide and his wife’s scent still thick in the air, Rikard’s cock was perfectly hard and catastrophically useless.
In fact, every daysleep he was hard, when his body was locked in stone and could not take advantage of the fact. What a cruel joke.
Another joke: Hanna still thought he was asleep when he was stone.
No, not asleep. She thought he was absent.
That he was simply an empty stone statue with no thoughts or feelings.
Though it was a well-guarded secret from humans, he probably should have told his wife that he heard and saw and felt during daysleep with a clarity undiminished by the stone.
But if she’d known, she never would have given him that little gift of her pleasure. And the things she’d said…
He did not believe them, necessarily. Too often, desire loosened the tongue. But they still plunged straight through his heart like an arrow.
She was gone from the nest chamber now, eating and chatting with Carlijn from the sound of it, but he was stuck here for the next twelve hours, empty-armed, thinking of her. How she felt under his fingers. How she sighed and said his name.
All day, he tracked her by sound: the pad of stocking feet on stone, the scrape of the bread knife, the hiss of a candle being lit.
The rustle of fabric as she dressed. The soft splash of water in the basin.
Each small domestic noise layered over the memory of the sounds she’d made in the nest, and the combination was torture.
The hours crawled by, the sun tracking across the nest. He had a lot of time to think about what he was going to do when he woke. What he’d say to her.
He did not want to say too much and embarrass her.
What she’d done was so vulnerable, and he knew she would not have shared that with him if she was aware he could see and hear her.
But she wanted to share it with him, if not now, then someday.
And so he dedicated his thoughts to how he might give her pleasure…
or rather, how he might encourage her to find it herself.
After all, he could not help her in certain regards, even if she decided he was a worthy audience after sunset.
She had needs. Her body was hungry, and she was touching herself with her own fingers because they had an agreement that he’d never bite nor bed her.
But there were other cocks. Detachable ones.
Like Pudding’s bone phallus, the one she’d produced from her basket with such theatrical flair.
Polished ivory, anatomically detailed, rendered by someone who understood the engineering of the thing as well as the aesthetics.
He’d dismissed it at the time as a prop for Pudding’s performance, a curiosity, nothing that concerned him. It was still under his desk, probably.
The sun slipped beneath the horizon and the first breath tore through him. He flexed what was left of his wings, shaking off the day-dust, and went to find his wife.
Hannalinde was at the table, her embroidery in her lap, and she gave him a quick, searching glance. “Good evening.”
“Good evening.” An afternoon’s thoughts flew from his head. Suddenly, he didn’t know how to talk to her. He sat down at his place and let her serve him from the tray, then ate in silence, as did she.
He finished and pushed back from the table before his parents made an appearance and delayed his departure.
“Are you going to the office tonight, or will you stay home again?” Hanna asked, a note of hope in her voice.
“Going,” he grunted. He couldn’t skip another night or the Zenith would hear about it. Might already have. As he passed her, he grazed a knuckle along the curve of her jaw. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
The Nadir’s office was in a worse state than he’d anticipated. Complainants crowded the hallway and waiting room, and the line stretched halfway around the base of the Tower. He didn’t even have time to think about the basket under his desk until it was nearly dawn.
He rushed to finish up the notes in his ledger before sunrise left him frozen here and Hanna wondering where he was. He fumbled under his desk, searching for the basket, but it was missing.
“Keeper!” he called urgently, not wishing to waste time looking for it if someone knew where it was.
Tonight’s unlucky liaison popped her head in the door. She was broad-faced and middle-aged, with a rare cheerful smile under her hood. Most keepers were more somber.
“Have you seen the basket that was under my desk?”
She coughed, trying to hide a laugh. Clearly, she’d looked inside it.
“Yes, of course. I put it away in the cabinet myself.” She hurried to the side of the room and retrieved it from a locked cupboard.
She handed it to him without meeting his eyes and rushed out, only to pause in the doorway.
She motioned to the open door, a question on her face. “Would you like some privacy?”
She clearly thought he intended to use it himself. Flustered, he waved her away, muttering, “No need. It’s for my wife.”
“Lucky woman.” The keeper scurried off before he could apologize or invent another explanation, thank the fallen gods.
Basket looped over his arm and thudding against his side, he made his way up the ladders to the seventh tier as quickly as he could. His wife was not a lucky woman. But she deserved pleasure too, and if he couldn’t give it with his own body, perhaps this would be an acceptable substitute.
He made it back to the eyrie with minutes to spare.
Dawn was already creeping across the stone, and by the time he’d set the basket beside her sewing things, the freeze was climbing his legs.
He barely reached his roost before it took him, his head turned toward the window to check how much time he had left.
Unfortunately, that position did not afford him a clear view of Hanna.
In his peripheral vision, she stirred in the nest. He heard the furs whisper as she rose, her soft yawn. Bare feet padded on the stone floors.
Outside the room, the scrape of a chair being pulled out. The knife sawing through bread. The bright, gossipy tones of Carlijn joining her at the table. The two of them talked about their plans for the day while he lay frozen and waited.
Then the conversation ended, a door opened and closed, and Hannalinde’s footsteps returned, moving about the space as she dressed and did her hair. A splash of rosewater perfumed the room.
She stopped. The rustle of linen wrapping being moved aside.
He couldn’t see her at all from his angle, but he heard the intake of breath.
“Oh!” Shock laced through her tone. “That’s…unexpected.”
He wanted to kick himself for being so cowardly as to leave it for her to find. He should have given it to her in person, along with an explanation. He would have, if he had thought about it for more than three seconds.
The rest of the day was agony, waiting to be released from daysleep.
He could only imagine what must be going through her mind.
Of course, his reputation for depravity preceded him.
She had even met Pudding and perhaps heard of the things he’d asked of her.
The performances. Of course, she would assume he wished the same from her.
By the time dusk fell, he had convinced himself that she hated him, or at the very least, was repulsed by him. He was prepared to move out of the nesting chamber and roost exclusively in his office, should she so wish it…if she would even speak to him.
The dust was still on his shoulders when he found her on the balcony, stitching something inside a wooden frame. He sank to his knees in front of her. “I owe you an apology. I beg that you will hear it.”
She lifted her pale brows, searching his face. “What for? The…gift?”
“Yes. It was badly done. I should have waited to give it to you in person, so that I might explain what it is.”
“I think that’s fairly obvious.”
“The object, yes. That is obvious. But my intent is not. I do not ask anything of you. I only wish for you to find happiness in whatever way you can. I thought perhaps since I cannot provide for you in certain ways, you might want…” His throat grew dry, so he had to begin again.
“If such an implement is helpful to you, then I will be glad for it. But if it does not please you, do not feel obligated to accept the gift.”
She set down her needle and put the embroidery frame to one side, pink blooming across pale skin like dawn across the eastern sky. Her lips parted.
Before she could speak, he added, “There is something else I must apologize for.”
Her smooth forehead creased. “What is it?”
“I should have told you this when we married. Daysleep isn’t what you think it is.
Gargoyles don’t sleep. We’re frozen, but we’re aware.
We see. We hear. We feel.” He held her gaze, and her eyes widened.
The color in her cheeks spread as the understanding arrived in stages, each one visible on her face like the turning of a lock mechanism, pins falling into place. “I saw you, Hannalinde. I heard you.”
The lock finished turning. Her mouth opened.
“You heard me,” she repeated. “That morning I lay in your arms.”
“Yes.”
“The things I did. The things I said.” Her voice was barely a whisper. “You should have told me.”
He hung his head. “I know. I’m so sorry. I enjoyed watching you go about your daily tasks, so I postponed it. I thought it harmless. I did not know you had such…urges.”
She covered her face with her hands. “I am utterly mortified.”
He had botched this beyond belief. “I can see that. I’m sorry.
And I realize now that the gift was ill-thought.
I was so desperate to satisfy you that I got caught up in the moment.
I will take it away so you do not have to see it again.
I’ll toss it in the burn pit myself.” He certainly wouldn’t be asking another keeper to throw it out. He’d had enough humiliation as it was.
She looked from her hands with teary eyes. “Oh, don’t destroy it. It’s quite a fine carving, isn’t it? I think it must have taken some skill.”
He nodded, a little bewildered at her protest. “You wish to…keep it?”
She bit her lip, as she gave a tentative nod. “It was a gift from my husband, was it not? There is nothing wrong with keeping it as a memento of his regard.”
His breath quickened. Perhaps he hadn’t ruined everything. Perhaps she even…liked it. “Will you use it, do you think?”
“Don’t ask me that,” she said swiftly, her neck mottling.
Chastened, he sat back on his haunches. Once again, his impulsiveness was too much for his human wife. But how could he act otherwise when she elicited such strong feelings in him?
To his surprise, Hanna reached out to cup one side of his face. “To tell you the truth, I don’t know the answer. I still have many fears and old injuries. I don’t know if these will be helped or hurt by your gift. And I am still embarrassed that you saw me act so wantonly.”
“It was beautiful,” he interrupted. “You were beautiful.”
Her lashes quivered against her cheeks, and her smile trembled. “You are very kind to me. Thank you for doing so much to make me happy. And thank you for finally telling me the truth about daysleep.”
“Don’t thank me,” he said automatically. He did not deserve it after behaving so badly toward her.
She leaned forward and kissed his forehead, a searing brand on his skin even though her touch was light. “Yet I am thankful. I’ll be embarrassed for a week, but thankful nonetheless.”
“I will roost in the outer rooms from now on,” he swore, but Hanna shook her head, mouth pressed in a firm line.
“No. It is your chamber as much as mine.”
“With my eyes closed, then.”
Her hands left his cheeks and wandered to his brow, smoothing his hair before combing through it with her fingers, grooming him like a gargoyle mate.
“If you must.”