4. Thoren

Mate, mate, mate.

My body sings with need for her. From the moment she fell into my arms in that water, I felt that bond snap into place. I’d heard so much about it over the years, how it feels and what it’s like. But I never imagined it would feel so right . Even though she is small and human, she is perfect to me. From her yellow hair to the flare of her hips, I am besotted with her.

But I can smell the terror coming off her in waves. She is scared and sad and very much out of her comfort zone. I’ve never heard of the place she hails from, but that doesn’t matter anymore. She’s here with me now, where she belongs. Kaia says gargoyles don’t exist in her world, that there are stories of them, but that’s all they are. Figments of imagination , she had said. So she knows nothing about what I am or my people’s customs.

I don’t want to scare her; it goes against my very nature. Gargoyles as a people are fiercely protective, especially of those they love. But holding back everything I feel through the mated bond is going to be difficult. So far, I think I’ve just managed to make her think I am perpetually in a bad mood. But what else is a man to do when he actively has to think of things to keep his dick from swelling?

I saw the way she looked at me in the water, her eyes trailing over my body and widening when she looked between my thighs. It was all I could do to keep myself from swelling with pride. Every man wants to impress his woman, and I am thankful that the cold water did not cause an adverse reaction while she was around.

And her body, sweet Gods. Her nipples were pale, almost the same color as her perfect skin, and pointed from the icy chill of the lake. I wondered what they would look like after my mouth had spent some time with them. Would they turn pink under my ministrations? She tried to cover herself once she realized she was naked, but her small hands could do very little to hide that beautiful body from me.

My sister told me something like this would happen. Ever since she was a small child, she’s been able to see things, things she shouldn’t be able to know. When she kept getting her predictions right, we had to stop questioning it. She was gifted by the Gods with foresight, and she told me my mate would come from a different world. It was her most outlandish prediction, and I struggled to blindly believe her, but now…

“Um, thank you for the shirt,” she says, walking out from the darkness of the hallway to find me sitting in a chair next to the fire. I had to have a drink to calm my nerves while she dried off and changed into something clean. I’ve never had someone of the opposite sex in my home. Anytime I needed to satiate the monster inside of me, it was done at their home. This place is a sanctuary for myself, and I never wanted my future mate to have to share a bed with me that I’ve shared with another.

“Are you tired?” I ask her. “Hungry?”

As an answer, her stomach gives a loud growl. She clutches it, and her face turns a deep shade of pink. I must say I love it when she flushes, the blood bringing life to her cheeks and chest. She looks as if she needs both food and rest.

“Sorry, yes. I guess traveling through worlds makes a girl hungry.”

“I don’t have much,” I tell her regretfully. “It’s just me out here, and it’s been a while since I’ve stocked up.”

“Oh, that’s okay. I don’t want to impose.” She takes a step backward, like she wants to run away to the bedroom and hide. “Really, I’ll be fine.”

“No.” I stalk over to her, more forcefully than I intended, and halt her with a firm hand on her shoulder. “You will come eat. I have some stew that I made yesterday. You will eat that.”

“You’re kind of bossy, aren’t you?” she asks, reluctantly putting one foot in front of the other until she’s standing in the small kitchen. There’s an old wooden table in the middle of the room, and I gesture that she should sit there while I prepare her meal. I try not to stare at how edible she looks wearing my oversized tunic as a dress. And I definitely try not to think about how she’s bare underneath.

“I don’t stand for foolishness,” I tell her. “You are hungry, and therefore, you will eat. You are not a bother.”

The air rushes out of her in a big whoosh. And then, small, pitiful noises come from her mouth. I turn around to find her weeping with her head hanging in her hands, her elbows keeping her propped upright on the table. Her shoulders are shaking from the effort to hold in her cries, and suddenly, I feel like I have failed her.

“Kaia,” I say, my voice quiet and gentle as I squat down beside her.

“Oh, god!” she cries out, wiping the tears off her blotchy cheeks. “What happened?” she asks, as if I have the answers she seeks. I regret that I do not. I want to put her fears to rest, but how do I do that when one of the fears is most likely… me?

“I’m so sorry.” She wipes the snot unceremoniously from her nose and looks at me with her big brown eyes. Fat tears spill over and run down her cheeks. “You were nice to me, and you’ve taken me in. And I repay you by crying and snotting all over myself at your dinner table.”

“I don’t understand what you went through today, Kaia,” I tell her gently. “But I do realize it was traumatizing for you. The least I could do is offer you a safe place to sleep and a hot meal.”

She snorts, her lips and eyes turning up on the sides. When she smiles, a small indent appears on her left cheek. I find it incredibly endearing. My hand twitches, yearning to reach out and touch it — touch her. I want nothing more than to take this weeping woman into my arms and make the pain go away. But I can’t do that. She doesn’t understand what or who I am or what or who she is to me .

“You’re very nice for a gargoyle.” Her voice regains some of its normal sass.

“Met a lot of them, have you?” I ask, standing back up to warm her stew.

“No,” she admits with a sigh. “You are, indeed, the first. You’re giving your people a good name, though.”

I glance back over at her, and it warms me to see her smiling again.

“So, what do you do? Can you tell me some things about yourself? I think I might feel more comfortable if I knew more about you.”

“What do I do?” I don’t understand the question.

“Like, for work? A job? How do you make money?”

“Ah, yes. I am a blacksmith.”

“Wow, a real-life blacksmith. Holy shit.” Her soft laughter is like a balm to my soul. “That’s a dying art where I’m from. No one really does that anymore.”

“Absurd. How do you protect yourself, then? Do your people not need swords or knives?” Thinking about her being so unprotected fans the fire of my anger. “How stupid.”

“Uh, we have other ways of protecting ourselves, I guess. We have sophisticated locks on our doors and video surveillance systems. A lot of people own guns as well.”

“That is all foreign to me. I don’t understand your world.”

“Same here, buddy.”

I don’t like it when she calls me that. I do not wish to be her buddy .

“So, you’re a blacksmith. You make anything other than swords and knives?”

I grunt and nod as I spoon some stew into an old cast-iron pot. I think I actually got it from my mother, who got it from hers. It’s beginning to rust around the edges. I’ll need to clean it and seal it again to keep it from being ruined.

“Many things.” I hang the pot over the stove. “Right now, I am working on restoring the old cathedral in town with a few others. Nails, horseshoes, latches on windows and doors, and utensils for eating. I am relied upon by many in town.”

“And you like that,” she says, reading me better than I thought a non-magical being could. Or maybe she does have power. Maybe she does have something hidden beneath that human facade. I sniff the air again, discreetly, but I don’t smell anything except the bubbling stew and her vanilla hair. “You like that people rely on you? Since your species are protectors?”

I cringe at the word species . “You can just call them my people or gargoyles.”

“Right, sorry.” She shakes her head as if trying to physically make herself understand everything.

“But, yes. I suppose I like it.” I use a thick towel and grab the pot from the stove. My bowls are crude and misshapen, evidence from when my younger sister decided to try pottery. It did not go well. “Here.” I sit a bowl with a large spoon down in front of her. “Eat.”

“Are you just going to watch me eat?”

“I am not hungry,” I tell her, pulling the other chair out and sitting down. “You are. Eat.”

Her eyes flare, and I can tell she wants to be defiant. I think that might be the thing I love most about her — her sass. She is constantly swearing and speaking her mind. I like that. It means she is strong and clever, not easily swayed.

“Fine.” She gives me a look and then picks up the spoon and dives in. “But not because you told me to,” she says around a mouthful of stew. “Only because it smells and tastes fucking divine — oh my lanta . Did you make this?”

“Mm.” I nod.

“Fuck.” She moans again, her tongue darting out to lick the spoon clean, and my cock takes notice. “This is the best thing I’ve ever eaten. Shit, maybe I’ll just stay here with you forever. How about that, God of Lightning?”

I snort, the closest to a laugh she’s getting tonight.

“Eat your food, Kaia. We will figure out your future in the morning.”

I would love to keep her here forever. But she doesn’t need to know that yet. The Gods only just gave her to me, birthed out of the lake like a small child on wobbly legs. Naked . Her groans as she licks her lips between bites take me right back to holding her almost naked form against my torso, my blood begging me to take her right there in the air.

Godsdammit .

“I need some air.” I stand abruptly and leave the room, walking outside and into the edge of the woods before she can stop me. Having her in my space without being able to touch her is going to be far more difficult than I thought. Her scent wraps around me like a vise grip, and her little innocent moans as she eats… fuck .

I palm my cock through my pants, and instantly, I know it’s not enough. It won’t be going down anytime soon. So, against my better judgment, I shove my hand under my waistband and pull it out. Leaning one arm against a tree, I stroke myself with rough, violent pulls. It doesn’t take long before my seed sprays across the trunk of the tree.

It’s not enough, and it won’t keep the mating call at bay for long. But at least I should be able to last the night.