The vehicle parks. The hum reverberating from it comes to a halt, but the woman,my Summer,does not come out. I drop from the clouds and land in the trees.
I wait.
I know Summer. Better than any human. She’s the only employee of Hopkins, the eccentric male who bought me at auction and gave me a home, knowing my purpose. I know him too, though not well despite the many years I’ve been on display within his museum.
Hopkins once tried to learn my name, though he gave up rather quickly, laughing it off and patting my wing—as though it were a joke. He hasn’t tried since, knowing better than to trifle with dangerous things, preferring to collect and preserve. To remain neutral. I have sensed many dangerous relics within the walls of his museum where he provides a home for those who would be used by others for their own perilous gains.
He keeps us like trophies. I was lucky to be picked up by him before Adrial amassed enough wealth to purchase me again.
Summer has been his only employee ever, as far as I know. Why a young woman would want to work in a dangerous place like Hopkins’ Museum is beyond me, though I have ceased to care. I have no reason to interfere, despite wanting too, very much.
Even now, I can feel all the places she has touched and caressed. Her words and ideas, hopes and fears have fluttered through my thoughts, gifts she should not have given me. Her attentions have lulled me closer to the living than I have dared for a long, long time.
Dangerously close. For she has my name.
The door to her vehicle cracks open, and she steps into the golden light cast from the house’s front windows. Wearing a simple brown sweater and blue pants that hug her legs tightly, she looks around, wrapping her arms around her chest. A pair of glasses are resting on her nose, the thick lenses obscuring her eyes.
Her gaze passes over me without settling.
She’s… beautiful. Even from a distance, she is what I have imagined. Summer.Summer…
Like the season, hot and blistering and full of light. A season I cannot remember, illuminated by a sun I have not seen in centuries. A sun I may never see again, bound as I am to Hell’s servant. Yet here I am, gazing upon it once again.
Her hair is long and gold, pulled back in a high ponytail, messy and slightly lopsided. It careens down her back despite the cinch, as shorter strands spill over her shoulders. It is thick and supple with waves. Golden waves, sunbeams. I understand her namesake.
My fingers twitch to touch her locks, streak through them, and free them to flow across her shoulders.
With the light cast upon her, her hair glows against her skin. Leaning forward, I try to discern her features, but that same light throws her face in shadows, obscuring them, and I only capture a clear image of her silhouette when she picks up her feet and rushes for the house’s front door.
She is lithe, her legs long. And thin, too thin. Thin, lithe things are too easily broken. Thin, lithe humans can’t afford enough to eat and are poor, yet the house and her vehicle suggest otherwise. The thickest, heartiest attribute she has is her hair. Her chest is shapely, though not as dramatically as her hair.
Yet she also has a job working for Hopkins. She is a woman who works beyond the house.
How much time has passed? I roll my shoulders back and crack my neck. Too long. I do not know the ways of this world. Perhaps human females are now equal to their men.
Something small lands beside me.
A bat. Soon another joins its side.
Summer stops before the door and looks around again. As more bats fill the sky, heading for me, she stiffens, her gaze searching, her body haloed. Sheislight—she is everything I have dreamed about and so much more.
A heaviness grows between my thighs, and it throws me off-guard, forcing my gaze down. Exploring with my hand, I find a large, overly sensitive appendage.
Frowning, I heft it upward.
There, in my hand, is a cock. Cumbersome and as solid as stone, I squeeze it. I try to tug it off, pulling at the tough skin of my groin. Twice the size of my hand and bulging with a steady flow of heat, it grows increasingly sensitive.
Bearing my fangs, I squeeze it hard, testing its attachment to my body. It does not give way. I can’t pull it off.
I have never had a cock before. I have dreamed of having one recently. But it was only a dream. Genitalia like this belongs to human men, not gargoyles. Yet here one dangles, growing warmer, heavier by the second. I run my hand up and down its length, palming the thicker tip, then down to cup my engorged testicles.
A groan escapes me, nearly giving my position away. I catch my breath when Summer looks away from the bats and straight at my tree, casting her clever gaze into the shadows. Her lips quiver so slightly, and while I offer a silent apology for frightening her, I become still as stone, tucking in my wings.
Finally, she turns back for the door and lets herself into the house without needing a key.
My frown deepens. The door is unlocked. I do not like that. More bats settle in the branches around me.
I stare at where she vanished, learning my cock with my hand, as hazy memories slip into my mind. My body formed this cock after she bled on my wing. After that dream...
