4. Thoren

Chapter four

Thoren

(He was definitely hired on the basis of his assets)

I 'm not the only person who saw that, right? How did I not notice that before? It's not subtle. Not even a little subtle. The new butler has a badonkadonk .

"What was that ?" Greeley demands, turning his gaze from the now closed door to Uncle.

"What?" Uncle asks, affecting confusion, but we can all smell the deception.

"That ass ." Walker says it like an accusation. Honestly, I would bet the floor of the foyer that Uncle hired him less on the basis of his resume and more on the wideness of his ass.

"Uncle." Reeves and I growl in unison. He's the son of my mother from the same sire, and we often sound like each other.

Uncle gives us all a sheepish smile, shrugging as he replies. "I didn't think any of us would mind a change in scenery."

I move to pinch the bridge of my nose, but Faulkes is so big I can't reach, so I just pat him and run the tips of my claws up and down his back to soothe the poor guy. He misses Arcan the most out of all of us; Arcan running away hurt him deeply.

"Uncle, you can't hire someone solely on the size of their ass. He needs skills! He needs to be able to run this place." He needs to not ever bend over again.

"Dibs," Hawthorn says as casually as anything.

"No." It comes out less like a rebuke and more like a claim, but I'm not going to think about that. "No one is calling dibs on the new butler. He might not even be the new butler tomorrow. We are not keeping a man hired because of the size of his ass." I shoot Uncle a narrow eyed glare.

Uncle smiles like I'm silly, and I dread the next thing out of his mouth. "He has perfectly good qualifications. I just liked his ass more than the other candidates. I wouldn't hire someone unqualified for the job, Thoren. You should trust me more."

"Should I?" I ask, even though I probably do trust him more than I should.

Uncle pouts. "I'm the most trustworthy among us! I am always honest and pure and kind and innocent of any wrong-doing. How could anyone doubt the wonder that is me?"

I wish I could say that he's exaggerating, but he actually believes the words out of his mouth, and I think we would also mostly agree. He is as much one of the Trustworthy as the rest of us.

"You are wonderful," Faulkes agrees, kisses my cheek, and gets to his feet. "I'm going to the roof." He yawns, hiding it behind his hand before heading toward the door.

I stand because a roof nap sounds good, but Hawthorn also stands, looking like he's about to go harass our new butler, so I resign myself to a full day of training to keep him occupied. "Hawthorn, training room, let's go."

Hawthorn gives me a sour look. "C'mon, Thoren; you already beat the shit out of me yesterday!"

I settle my face into a neutral mask. "And I will keep doing it until you learn how to handle the threats that Uncle sends you out to neutralize. I don't ever want to find you possessed by a shelak ever again."

I hadn't told any of our brothers that yet, and a chorus of surprised what-the-fucks follows the announcement accompanied by Hawthorn turning a shade of purple I've never seen on an adult gargoyle before. I keep my face neutral, but my heart does a happy little jig at his discomfort.

"Come on, feun . Let's go," I urge him.

Hawthorn might be an attention whore and an idiot, but we're still brothers forged in the fires of adversity, and he perks up when I remind him of that. All of these gargoyles are feun to me, and I am the same to them, which is why I'm not going to let any of them get away with losing the sharp edges of their training and experience.

In the elevator down to the training room, I touch Hawthorn's elbow. "Why're you covered in mud?"

He glances at his stained shirt. "It's not mud," he replies with a grim set to his jaw.

My heart turns to stone and stops beating in my chest as I ache at the implication. "Did we—"

"No! No," he quickly interrupts. "Faulkes and I went to visit the nest earlier, but when we got there, nest Helvidi was hatching. One of the hatchlings was too weak to break out. The nurses were occupied with the other hatchlings and didn't see the struggle, so I jumped in to help. The crevele collapsed before I got the hatchling out. It was injured but alive."

I'm torn between gratitude that our nest is safe, and sorrow for the injured infant. They will heal, but hatching injuries are visible and lead to life-long debilitation. The rest of that hatchling's nestmates will likely reject them, and they'll end up growing up alone. It's not a death sentence, but it is a hard life.

"Poor thing," I sigh. "Hopefully their aunt will make up for the lack until they find their path."

Hawthorn nods. "She seemed regretful but willing to take up the challenge."

Very few gargoyles would reject an injured infant, but their nestmates are too young to carry the burden of their pain and usually reject them because of it. "I'm glad."

I tug on the bond between us, reminding us both of the importance of the bonds gargoyle nestlings hatch with. We've had this connection since before we were born, and we've strengthened it over time rather than let it go. We're feun to the end, and we're both grateful for the connection that keeps us together.

Hawthorn leans into me, I wrap my arm around his shoulders, and we walk out of the elevator directly into the training room together like that. I love this man, and I'm about to kick his ass for the second day in a row because this idiot needs the attention.

I adore my family.

I wake up with the dawn and shift from my stone form to my human skin, staring out at the shadowy valley where we've chosen to reside. Uncle came to Earth before the rest of us and bought this mountain valley so that we would have privacy for our work. The land is so different from Ukon, but after so many years, I find it as beautiful as the humans who live here do.

My home planet calls to me, the darkness of the land and the volcanic hot springs. Ukon has two suns, but the planet is gravitationally locked with their orbits. It is always day on the bright side of the planet, and the night is eternal on the dark side. My people live and flourish on the dark side, and on the side of eternal day, our fellow sapients thrive, the tevatyl. The In'ai could never stand the brightness and heat of that side of the planet and were unaware of the tevatyl living there. We never told them of the other sapients, and the tevatyl gratefully offer a tribute of wealth to the karkoyl every year on the anniversary of our independence.

Stretching, I wipe away the longing to see the stars of my galaxy and grumble about having to be awake during the day. Generally I take on the responsibility of being awake when the sun is shining because the rest of my brothers are unbearable if they have to rest at night. Faulkes especially gets grumpy when he has to work during the day. I would rather he stay happy and content if I can help it; he's more sensitive than the rest of us to interruptions of his usual schedule.

Once I'm awake and fully shifted into my human form, I take the elevator down to the house and head to my room. I pull off my loincloth and throw it into the particle cleaner hiding in plain sight as a laundry hamper in my bathroom and step into the shower, shedding my human skin. Human soap is toxic for my natural skin, so I cleanse with the sand we import from our home. It buffs out the grime from the day before and gives my body a soft sheen without stripping my skin of its natural chemistry and balance.

Once I'm clean and fresh, I step out of the shower and dry myself by shifting to stone and letting the water evaporate off me naturally. My stone form stores much of the water in the tiny pores and the rest evaporates away, then I shift back and pull my loincloth from the particle cleaner. I tie it on as I leave the bathroom and pull a card from the pouch tied to it, touching it to a bloodstone rune on the leather to activate the spell that will shift the bevelan leather from loincloth to pants. It morphs into soft leather pants as I walk to my closet where I keep all my shirts.

I dislike wearing cloth, but the soft cotton of the open front poet shirts I have custom made for myself is bearable. They also reflect the nature of my inner self that I rarely get to indulge in with a job as demanding as mine. I'm creative, and before I became a soldier, I was an entertainer. I entertained our oppressors, but regardless of the audience, I enjoyed my work. My favorite part was the smiles that I'd draw from the slaves because the In'ai didn't always hear the barbs in my performances but the slaves did.

I pull a shirt off a hanger and don it, making sure it lays on my body the way it's meant to. Tits out, I like to say. I didn't pierce these nipples to hide them behind cloth.

Once dressed, I draw a line of kohl under my eyes and give them a little wingtip, then check the time. I head to the kitchen where our chef, Jax Stuart, will have breakfast for me ready. The only days I skip my morning meal with her are her days off. Those days I go without eating since it's not a necessary function for my body every day.

I could shift to my stone form, and as long as I stay stone, I don't need food. The only reason to eat is because I expend excess energy in my skin shifts, especially the human shift. That form takes far more energy to sustain than either of my natural shifts. The only good thing about that is that I get the joy of eating Jax's food.

When I enter the kitchen, Jax casts a glance at me and points to a plate with what looks like a small quiche on it, some tomato slices, fresh mozzarella and basil, and a small bowl of strawberries with a dollop of yogurt and a drizzle of honey. I grab the plate and the roll of utensils next to it and sit at the kitchen table.

"It looks delicious," I compliment.

She snorts as her fake fairy wings catch on a row of hanging cast iron skillets. I was told when she moved her own cookware into the house that using cast iron skillets adds iron to the food she cooks in it, thereby adding to the nutritional value of her food. We didn't think that gargoyles would need iron as a dietary supplement, but since she started cooking for us, we all feel sturdier, as if the extra iron is adding to the density of our natural forms. We sent the information back to Ukon. Since most of our people will literally eat rocks to replenish any mass converted to energy, we don't exactly have a lot of scientists studying nutrition.

Fuck, we're still recovering from a thousand years of enslavement, so we don't have a lot of scientists at all. For a while we were completely reliant on the tevatyl for all our educational needs. We've got a lot of ground to make up for, which is one of the reasons Uncle Maxime agreed to take on this position with the IPPS; in exchange for our posting here, the IPPS is working with our government to bring the karkoyl up to date with the other members of the Alliance of Species.

As I start eating, Jax sets another plate in the place where I got mine, and a few moments later, our new butler walks in, wearing the same type of plain black suit he wore yesterday. He doesn't immediately notice me, and when he picks up his plate, he says a few words to Jax, turning his back to me.

Now that I'm aware of it, his ass pulls my attention straight to it. It's the biggest bootie I've ever seen on a human, though I've seen porn with this body shape as the main aspect of the images. He's shaped like a pear with a straight body from his shoulders to his waist, then he expands in a beautiful curve to an ass anyone with a brain would want to play with. His thick thighs hold up that caboose and flow into legs hidden by the pants he's wearing. He can't hide how big his feet are, though. At least as big as mine, and that tells me this guy probably isn't fully human.

The pouch on my hip shifts, and when I look down, one of the cards flies out, hitting Dec's shoe. He doesn't immediately notice, so when he turns around to bring his plate to the table after his conversation with Jax, he startles at seeing me.

A smile creeps up my lips, but I squash it by shoving some fruit in my face.

"Good morning, Thoren," Dec greets me, stopping in his tracks. "Do you mind if I join you?"

I kick the chair across from me out and wait until he puts his plate down before using my fork to point to the card on the floor behind him. "You mind grabbing that for me? Must've fallen out of my pouch."

Dec turns, sees the card, and bends over to grab it, giving me the absolute best view of his ass. His upper body disappears, leaving the heart-shape of his lower half for me to enjoy for a second. He straightens and turns around, catching me staring. I feel absolutely no shame about that, but his cheeks turn a tempting shade of pink, and that alerts the inner bloodstone krake that my species evolved from to a potential new obsession. Our species' evolutionary ancestors were obsessed with reds and pinks and collected anything in the red spectrum. Watching Dec turn pink stirs that inner beast.

Ok, that is embarrassing. I got over my obsession with pink when I was a child, but apparently this man's ass has a way of turning me back into the primal krake that I was pretty sure I'd gotten past once I matured a bit.

I take the card from him. "Thank you."

I glance at it, and what do you know? It's The Fool again. What the fuck is happening here? Do the cards think Dec will be a fun new adventure for me? No! Well, maybe. I mean, it could be fun to tease him a bit. I wonder...

"Uncle says you graduated top of your class from Mrs. Cavenaugh's academy?" I can't very well go around making the butler blush if it's going to traumatize him or drive him off. "What brought you there?"

Dec smiles fondly and pulls out a tarot card from the inner pocket of his jacket, showing me a surprisingly good representation of him on The Fool card from a human deck of tarot cards. "Actually, it was this card in conjunction with a benevolent shop keeper that started me on this path. He scared me when I first saw him, but when I pulled The Fool out of the spread, he told me that I was starting a new adventure and gave me the academy's card and a reference. The card and reference qualified me for a scholarship, and it was the best thing that's happened to me in years."

I wince inwardly, hoping that doesn't mean he's had a difficult life. Humans tend to fail their most vulnerable neighbors, and somehow Uncle always manages to find ones that society has failed. Jax paid for culinary school by running drugs for a gang that I had to intimidate into giving up its claim on her. Our gardener, Alex, was tending public gardens for free as a means of staving off existential despair before she got a job with us and was finally able to afford the gender affirming care she needed to thrive. Her assistant, Angel, walked up one of our mountains with the intention of getting lost because he'd lost his mate. Uncle found him and he's been tending to our gardens and his grief ever since.

The point is, I don't know why I expect Dec to have a history that doesn't include some kind of distress. Obviously, I'm hoping for something that doesn't align with the will of the stones in this old house.

"Can I ask why you haven't had enough good things happen in years?"

Dec's face saddens, but he replies without the hesitation that I would expect from someone trying to protect their vulnerabilities. "My uncle passed about three years ago, and it's been really difficult since then. He raised me after my mother abandoned me, but I wasn't prepared for life without his constant presence and support. It turns out, I'm pretty shit at life without someone to give me direction." He stops and his eyes widen and his cheeks turn pink again. "I mean, I can totally run this house without constant supervision. I am totally a badass butler. I mean, I excel at this job and enjoy it very much. I apologize for my crude language."

Relieved that it's only the loss of a parent that preceded his arrival, I chuckle at his sudden attack of professionalism. "Since you're not on the clock for another fifteen minutes, I think we can forgive the use of perfectly common language. I believe Jax is on the clock and I've heard her drop three fucks, four dammits, and a shitty in the last ten minutes. I'm pretty sure it goes along with her angry fairy goddess vibe."

Jax laughs and tosses a finger at me. "In my domain, my word rules. If I don't threaten these machines, they think they're in charge. Can't get complacent or the smart fridge might decide it's smarter than me."

I point to her and wink at Dec. "So you see, use the language that empowers your inner divinity."

A polite, professional smile rests on Dec's lips. "Of course, sir."

I wonder what it will take to break that mask of professionalism?

An answer comes to me a second before I open my mouth. I don't know if it will do it, but the way he popped off the first time I asked gives me hope. "What's your name, Dec? What's Dec short for? Deceptive?"

His professional smile remains firmly in place. "No, my mother couldn't make a dec ision to save her life."

I laugh, shaking my head. Somehow I doubt she named him Decision.