CHAPTER ONE
RAVEN
Living in a converted church was supposed to be ironic. A goth girl in an old house of God, how edgy. But lately, weird shit kept happening that had nothing to do with my aesthetic choices.
Stone chips scattered across my balcony every morning. My decorative crosses kept turning upside down. And there was this constant feeling of being watched, especially at night when I touched myself.
Which I'd started doing with the curtains wide open because something about being watched made it infinitely hotter. Every night at 2 AM, I'd spread myself across my bed, fuck myself with my favorite toy until I came screaming for my "dark guardian" to claim me. Pure fantasy, obviously. But the exhibitionism thrill was real.
Tonight, I was done with the mystery. Three AM, full moon hanging heavy over the city, and I was climbing onto the roof to figure out what the hell was damaging the old gargoyle statue.
What I found broke my brain.
The gargoyle was moving. His stone hand clawed desperately at his chest, cracks spreading across the surface to reveal something underneath that pulsed with otherworldly light.
"What the fuck?"
His head snapped toward me. Those carved stone eyes fixed on mine with an intensity that made me instantly wet.
"You can see me." His voice was like gravel and sin. "You can actually see me moving."
I should have run. Instead, I stepped closer. "Yeah, kind of hard to miss the moving statue."
"The church was deconsecrated. The binding's failing. I'm trapped between forms." More stone cracked and fell away. "Three years of this torture."
"Three years?" That's when I'd moved in.
"Three years of watching you." His stone gaze burned into mine. "You're the one in 3B. The girl who fucks herself every night at exactly 2 AM while calling for her dark guardian."
Heat flooded my core. "You've been watching me?"
"I've been going insane watching you. Listening to you beg for exactly what I am while I'm trapped in stone, unable to touch you, unable to give you what you're screaming for."
My mouth went dry. The raw hunger in his voice made my panties flood with arousal.
"What's your name?"
"Ezekiel." Red light flickered in those stone eyes. "Touch me."
"What?"
"Your blood. You have Bennett blood—I can smell the magic in you. Your touch might free me."
I reached out without thinking. The moment my fingers touched his chest, the stone cracked like lightning. I jerked back,but the sharp edge had already sliced my palm. Blood dripped onto him.
The reaction was explosive. Light erupted as stone shattered away. When my vision cleared, there was no statue.
There was a god.
Six and a half feet of alabaster muscle. White hair falling to broad shoulders. Black horns curving from his temples. Red eyes that burned with hunger. Massive black wings spread wide.
And he was naked. Completely, gloriously naked with a cock that made my mouth water—pale, ridged, and already hard for me.
"You freed me," he said, voice now pure dark velvet. "The binding transferred to you. I'm yours now, Raven."
"Mine?"
"Body and soul. I exist for you now." He stepped closer, and I could see his cock twitch. "Three years of watching you pleasure yourself. Three years of wanting you. And now..."
