20. Stella

20

STELLA

I breathe in the city-tinged air as Ben leaves his card with the landlord in case the man thinks of any other information to share with us. He seems more likely to reach out to me rather than Stoneheart’s people.

When Stoneheart claimed this territory, he became the new bogeyman. The king on a throne of blood.

My father sold his own people.

The sun is bright, but my soul feels cold. I just keep seeing the smiling women in the photograph with their arms around their daughter and son, the son sticking his tongue out.

“Stella.” The growl is familiar, but the man in the business suit is not. I frown at the stranger. There’s a black car behind him and a few people standing at attention who I’ve seen before but can’t quite place.

“What are you doing here?” he hisses as he strides forward. I freeze when I realize why a human-looking man with pale eyes and an entourage of people around him knows who I am.

I would recognize this force even with my eyes closed.

“Stoneheart,” I say in greeting.

There’s a surprised hitch in his step. Is it because I can identify him through his glamour, or is it my unapologetic tone? Ben steps closer behind me in support. If he’s surprised by Stoneheart’s appearance, he doesn’t show it, but there’s a wariness about him.

“I wanted to see the scene of the most recent missing family. You might not think I can be helpful, but it’s my place to assist,” I say.

Stoneheart’s face disagrees, but he doesn’t voice his opinion about my place in this territory. Probably because people are watching. And they are watching. The noisy street seems to have suddenly quieted. The humans still walk by, oblivious to what’s playing out. But the people hiding in plain sight, seated at the outdoor café next to the Sova’s building, waiting with a stroller to cross the street, pretend not to be trying to overhear our conversation.

Shifters and whatever other magical folk reside here are watching.

There’s a pause before Stoneheart strides back to the car and opens the door to the town car.

“Get in the car, wife,” he grits out.

I swallow at the sight of the giant back seat he’s directing me to. A shiver of trepidation runs up my spine at his anger, but it only serves to remind my body of what we did last night.

I knew he’d be unhappy with me, but I won’t let the controlling gargoyle tell me what my purpose is anymore. He had his chance.

I’m tempted to get out of riding with him, but with a look at his expression, which is eerie with a human face, I decide not to risk it.

With my decision made, I approach him.

“Lady Stella,” a younger blond man says from behind my husband with a touch of awe in his voice. “It’s an honor to meet you.”

Stoneheart rolls his eyes. “Andrew, ride back with Silas.”

“Who’s that?” I ask after the man ducks his head bashfully and walks to the other car. An official guy with a stiff posture and glasses who I assume is Silas in glamour nods to me before entering the vehicle.

“Your cousin. I’m making him useful. Now, get in the car.” He glares at Ben. “Meet us back at the penthouse.”

“I’ll remind you again that I don’t take orders from you,” Ben says coolly before checking with me.

The leather of the back seat is comfortably warm after the chilling things we’ve discovered, but Stoneheart intends this to be a private ride together. Fuuuck .

The gargoyle narrows his eyes at me, and I meet the challenge.

“It’s okay, Ben. I’ll see you back at the penthouse,” I say.

The look on Stoneheart’s face says Ben’s going to pay for resisting his order. He leans toward him, his voice low. “You told me that she’d be safe with you.”

“I was safe,” I argue.

“But not secure,” Ben says as if on some other wavelength than me. “I knew what I was doing, and I’ll pay the price for it.”

Stoneheart’s nostrils flare, but Ben is gone before he can push him in the car with me like he seems tempted to.

With grace and what must be the most expensive type of glamour, Stoneheart slides into the back seat with me. I go to move to the seat across, but his hand grips my thigh as if to keep me from moving away from him.

The privacy window is up, blocking us from the driver. We’re alone.

“Explain yourself,” he orders. His voice harsh in the space. The glamour practically simmers with the energy he’s giving off. I design a few glamours a year myself, but not quite of this caliber. As impressive as it is, it’s distracting me from tracking his emotions.

Or I’ve just never seen him as angry as this.

“Can you turn it off?” I ask, trying not to dwell on his anger.

Stoneheart frowns. “Turn what off?”

I wave my hand to encompass all of him. “The glamour.”

He narrows his eyes. “I’d think that this appearance would be more comfortable for you. People have accused my true form of being intimidating.”

“I’d rather face the real you no matter how intimidating,” I whisper. I told myself that I’d be strong in the face of opposition to my plans, but it’s hard now that I’m so close to him to disregard the influence he has over me.

There’s an insidious part of me that still wants to please him.

Stoneheart keeps his gaze on mine as he twists one of his many rings. When it clicks, the illusion falls away. His wings hold tightly to his form, but his size is formidable. He is very intimidating, and I’m regretting asking him to remove the glamour, but not because I’m afraid of him.

My body hums, I press my thighs together against the gathering heat there. It’s unfortunate that an angry, mean Stoneheart really does it for me.

His nostrils flare, undoubtedly picking up the scent of my interest, but he doesn’t make any move to answer it.

“Stella,” he says, breaking me from my trance.

Oh yeah, he’s waiting for answers, not about to rip my clothes off and call Ben in to toy with me. Pity.

“This is my territory too,” I say. “I’m going to help look into these disappearances. I can’t just stay up in my workshop. These people need to see me. Need to know that I care.”

“And how can you help?” he asks, the roiling anger under his surface pauses for my answer.

“They had one of my charms.”

Wards are expensive, and most are charged by the presence of the occupants. How many of the people who have been missing months or years had wards that were as undisturbed as this family’s but weren’t noted because they were drained by the time Stoneheart’s people started investigating?

“I think fae magic of some sort could be sneaking past active wards,” I say.

He stiffens. “That’s possible?”

“I’ve known someone with fae blood to have the ability,” I say, keeping it vague. Katarina’s ability is a secret. “I won’t know until I do more investigating.”

Stoneheart’s frown is a fearsome thing. A part of me thinks he’s going to whisk me away to the Firefly and lock me in my workshop, but he doesn’t, and I’m going to spend too much time later wondering why I’m disappointed that he’s not as protective of me as Kalos is of Katarina.

Instead, the gargoyle sighs and slips off one of his rings and slides it onto my thumb. It barely fits, but I gasp, my fingers stroking the warmed metal as my heart lurches. Sensations clamor to the forefront.

It’s captivating. He’s captivated. By something…I push the first suspicion of what down for now. I won’t make the assumptions I did our first night together.

The silver ring has a Celtic design in the side. Under the emotion it carries is a woven purpose that I frown and try to decipher.

Stoneheart pauses like he’s regretting gifting me the ring. Is it because it’s so valuable or because it has so much of his essence on it? The hesitation disappears faster than I can define it, and he speaks. “If you’re going to be wandering around the territory, you will wear that. It will keep people from being able to be successful in long-range attacks. You will also start combat training?—”

“I’m not really athletic,” I say, blinking in surprise. And what can I really do against someone who can turn into a lion? Though to be fair, most shifters don’t fight in their animal forms, something about their animal selves lacking the same motivations as their human selves. But they are faster and stronger.

Stoneheart’s eyes narrow, and he continues, ignoring me. “ And you will take a real bodyguard with you.”

“Ben’s a bodyguard—” I start.

He scoffs. “I picked Ben because of his skills of being a companion to you and his abilities, not because his presence will stop an assassin in their tracks.”

I arch my brow. “You picked Ben to get in his pants.”

“And in yours. Are you complaining?” he asks on the edge of snapping his teeth at me.

Am I? “So, I have your permission to work on this problem?”

“I didn’t think you needed it.” Stoneheart’s eyes glitter in a way that I think is respect before he looks away. “Keep Silas up to date with your progress.”

I nod, a little breathless that he’s giving me what I’m asking for so easily. Even if there was that comment about training. That’s definitely not going to hold when whoever he selects to train me realizes how useless I am at it. “Thank you.”

The thick silver of the ring keeps trying to catch my attention with that heady flavor I can’t quite make out without some heavy meditation sessions.

“It does seem that I’m the one giving all the gifts recently and receiving none,” Stoneheart muses. The tone of his voice isn’t quite right. There’s that underlying tension that sounds like… jealousy?

I freeze when it clicks. Last night, after Stoneheart gave me the labradorite, and I gave Ben the charm his energy changed. Each move and harsh order brimmed with it. But it wasn’t from sharing me, it was that Ben received something from me, and Stoneheart didn’t.

Did me giving Ben a gift signify more than I realized?

Have I hurt Stoneheart’s feelings? That should be impossible, but I think I have.

I clear my throat. “I seem to remember a demon on his knees for you. Wasn’t that a gift?”

Stoneheart’s expression is blasé. “We both know he was on his knees for you.”

After days in this gargoyle’s presence, the edifice covering his emotions cracks. I want to run my fingers down every hint, but that’s the Stella before our wedding night. The one who wanted something more with Stoneheart and got burned.

But it doesn’t mean that I can’t have a taste.

I lean forward and press my lips to his. The contact makes me feel reckless and alive even though it’s a chaste kiss that he doesn’t deepen. I pull away, and he’s watching me like one would a wild animal. Cautious even as his tongue licks away my flavor.

My body hums with shame that I’ve unintentionally hurt his feelings, but the dark part of me that enjoys the grittier parts of these emotions takes notice and wants to flex. Just a little bit.

“And what about me going down on my knees for you?” I slide off the seat, and I kneel before him. “Is that a worthy gift?”

“Stella,” he growls. The gray tone of his skin darkens on his cheeks. “This isn’t the time?—”

“I want to show my appreciation,” I say, and it’s true. He’s a conundrum that I want to tackle. Other than the humiliation of the first night, he’s been…if not generous, accommodating. And this might be a little more for me than it is for him.

My hands move to his kilt. I expect him to stop me, but he doesn’t. I undo the enclosures, exposing his cock.

I suck in a shaky, surprised breath. He’s already so hard. The bulbous shape at the bottom of his shaft that is his knot is an angry purple. His scent causes my mouth to water, and the expression on his face is almost as fierce as when he to discovered me on the city street.

“So would this be an adequate gift?” I ask softly, my fingers sliding softly up his heated skin. The touch is a tease for both of us.

This isn’t submitting, not really. Or that’s what I tell myself anyway.

“Perhaps,” he says, seemingly unaffected, but my fingertips burn against his throbbing cock.

“Your body seems like it wants this, but I’ll stop if you want me to,” I say, my tone careless but breathless at the same time.

“Do you want me to admit I’m like this every time I catch scent of your arousal? Would that make it easier to try and manipulate me?” he snarls.

Is that what he thinks I’m doing? I guess that makes more logical sense than that being around him does things to me.

“I don’t want to manipulate you.” The confession is hushed, and my body is pulsing in time with his. I want you. It’s a confession that doesn’t need to be voiced but keeping it a secret helps me feel safer in this type of play, so the words don’t escape me.

“Then suck me, wife. Give us both what we want.” The growl to his words causes my core to contract, and I nearly whimper in need but follow his order.

I take him into my mouth, and we both moan. The bitter tang of precum and the leashed violence of his flesh against my tongue makes me squirm.

He grips my hair, pulling at the roots in a way that shakes the boundaries I’ve built between us. He hums in satisfaction as I allow him to direct my pace and push against the back of my throat.

“So pretty and happy with your mouth full of me,” he says.

My cheeks burn, and my body eases against my permission to the part of myself that he expertly handled before, that wants to be handled. My eyes glaze as I take him deeper, falling into the delight of following his orders.

His words are almost a purr. “You’re so wet from this that I bet if Ben were here, you’d beg for him to fill you up.”

I gasp, but the grip he has on my hair doesn’t let me take much of a breath before his cock is painting my tongue with more precum. My legs shake and need has me pushing my panties down to my knees to touch myself. My pussy is so wet that I can’t help skating past my clit to sink my fingers inside of myself so I have something to clutch around.

He presses deep in my throat until I gag and nearly come from the way my body tightens. I whimper, but Stoneheart doesn’t let up.

“Easy, sweet firefly, don’t take more than you can handle.” He lectures me like his grip isn’t what is pushing me forward. “I can hear how wet you are. Will you beg me to let your demon fuck you when we meet with him again? Will you even last that long?”

I make a small sound of frustration. My impatience and self-preservation need this to end because I’m enjoying it too much. I’ve heard enough rumors and witnessed Ben’s action last night, to know what he needs to come. I force my fingers leave me and grip both hands around the spongy flesh at the bottom of his shaft.

I test the give of his knot in my hands, and Stoneheart stiffens. My mouth softens around him at the thought of how this part of him would feel inside me. I don’t even know if it would fit, and it’s so hard. There’s some give to it, but it would really require my body to stretch to accept it.

I squeeze the knot, wanting my reward and for this gargoyle to shatter like I have multiple times for him.

“Harder,” he snarls under his breath. “It would be a fight for your body to accept my knot. So tight that you’d make me lose my mind.”

I squeeze as hard as I can moaning at his imagery. Fuck. I want that. I want him to be pressing hard for this part of him to lock inside me. Stoneheart’s grunt is the warning I get before my mouth fills with his release. I swallow and lick away the remnants, a little punch drunk even though I haven’t achieved any release yet.

Stoneheart lifts me from the floor of the car and rips away the panties tangling my legs before positioning me to straddle him.

I gasp at the contact of my bare pussy sliding against his spit-soaked cock. My hands clutch his muscled shoulders, and I rock my hips without meaning to. The pleasure at the slide takes my breath away.

It would be so easy to slip his still-hard cock inside me, but Stoneheart doesn’t allow me to move much with the grip he has on my hips.

My mind chants obscenities, and my vision blurs.

One of his claws releases the grip he has on my hip and traces over the neckline of my dress. I blink and look down at the chain and medallion he’s toying with almost without thought.

It’s my charm that wards against pregnancy. Mine is simple for a charm maker, a symbol stamped disk, but the gold hums well against my skin. He knows the significance, it’s commonplace in our world.

It would be so easy to let him inside me, to beg for it. He could fuck me in this back seat, and there would be no physical repercussions. But how far would I let his glinting eyes take me? Would I be inviting the war inside my body instead of just between the two of us? Would he shred my soul as surely as my peace of mind?

Do I care?

I can barely breathe. He lets me roll my hips against him, and the cascade of sensation has my head tilting back.

“I bet you ache to feel me inside of you.” His words are hypnotizing. “Your cunt is so slick like it wants to stretch to take me.”

“Fuck,” I say out loud rather than just chanting in my head. I look down at the mess I’m making on his cock. His cum and mine mix stickily against my inner thighs, and his knot is shiny with lubrication.

This is it. I’m going to fuck my husband because if I don’t, I’m going to combust.

“Do you want that?” he taunts. “For me to leave you filled with my seed so no one will doubt who owns you?” Stoneheart’s pale gaze is dark with promise.

I freeze, and my body cries out in denial as my brain catches up. His hard cock pulses against my clit, but that word ruins this . Own .

Maybe if our past wasn’t already full of wounds I would enjoy being owned , belonging to someone.

But that’s not what this gargoyle is offering.

“You don’t own me.” My words leave me on a rasp.

Stoneheart’s eyes get dangerously intent, as if he’d like nothing more than to disprove that, but I’ve found my boundary, and it’s not moving even for this devil.

“I’ve given you permission to have a claim on me. If you want to own something, adopt a plant,” I say.

His eyes flash at my words, like he wants to thrust inside me and prove me wrong, but I stand by my words. It doesn’t make a difference if I have his mating mark or if he fills me up like he’s threatened.

I’m a person. I may have been instrumental in a trade for peace, but I won’t be owned like an object to be discarded.

And because I don’t know when I’ll next be close to him, my thumb traces over his lips. They’re so soft compared to how unforgiving everything else about him is. They twitch under my touch, and I pull away, unable to interpret the hard look on his face.

“Well played, wife.” His cool words contrast with his burning cock against me.

I clench my jaw, coming back to our odd stalemate where I stumble around this gargoyle. I pull out of his arms. My body is angry at the interrupted release, but the burn of winning this round is vibrant if bitter.

“Thank you for my gift,” he says as I fall back into the seat beside him, trying to ignore the spike of embarrassment and the wetness between my thighs.

I have nothing to be embarrassed about. I wanted to taste him, and I did. If he wasn’t so intolerable or just kept his damn mouth shut, I’d have enjoyed an orgasm that would have blurred the lines between us.

As it is, my body is left disappointed.

“Much better than what I was going to ask for,” he adds when I don’t respond.

I freeze in my process of pulling my dress down and wondering where my underwear went. The awkwardness and curiosity rushes back faster than my brain can come online. “What were you going to ask for?”

Stoneheart shrugs and does up his kilt again, hiding his fearsome cock. “I would have settled for you calling me by my name. You do know it.”

Remy. I swallow, and my blush is hot. How is he always able to knock me off my axis?

Finally, I lean back into the seat, facing forward and abandoning the search for my underwear. So what if someone else finds it? The people here want us fucking like rabbits, right?

“I’ll have to add that to the list of the other gifts I’ll be giving,” I say primly. “But it’s rather low on the list. I currently like the other recipients more than you.”

“And what sorts of gifts do you have in mind?” he asks, suspicion loud in his question as if he’d rather claim all my gifts for himself.

I evade my urge to dissect that and focus on my new goal instead.

I only need to figure out how to accomplish something that’s never been done before. This territory needs to believe it’s protected, and I finally know how I’m going to serve that.

“Well, husband,” I say, not ready to delve into the quagmire of my emotions that come with speaking his name, nor do I want to satisfy his wish. “I’m going to make charms that protect against fae magic.”