We’d been traveling for nearly three hours, and the tension between us was thick enough to taste. Val kept glancing at Samara, his gaze lingering on the way her hips moved with Buttercup’s gait. Each time he looked, something hot and possessive coiled in my gut.
Many say gargoyles are coldhearted; that not only are our bodies made of stone, but so are our hearts. So why did Val’s history with Samara bother me so much?
I’d first met Val shortly after the curse set in when I was a quarter of a century old. Every firstborn male in my line was cursed to a life of turning to stone because my great-great-grandfather cheated on a witch. Everyone knew you did not fuck with witches.
It wasn’t a choice to turn to stone, and it was an inconvenience to turn to stone at regular intervals. I had to do it daily, or I would be stuck in stone forever. The last thing I wanted was to be one of those who sat idle on a rooftop until danger appeared. Some might want that, but I didn’t.
Otherwise, I’d gotten used to being cursed. You sit. You watch. You wait. Protect. Kill. Repeat.
I’ve seen a lot in my years. People forgot we were watching and said some ridiculous things in front of us. It was how I knew the look of yearning and pain in Val’s eyes. He’d stumbled upon me in the garden, drunk and ramblingabout nothing going his way. He’d pondered if gargoyles could feel anything and began stroking me behind the ears.
Night after night, he came to me, treating me like I was his pet, until I couldn’t take it anymore. I’d shifted and kissed the anguish right out of him.
The anguish, I now realized, had probably been for Samara.
The squirrel’s obsession with her was even worse. He rode beside Samara, his eyes never leaving her for long. He gave her the kind of protective and adoring looks that made my panther want to rip his throat out just on principle. All I knew was that when he was around, my panther was scratching to get out. My panther never scratched to get out.
What was it about her that had them both so enthralled?
I sniffed the air, trying to focus on the mission. Something was off in this forest. There was a scent I couldn’t quite identify—decay or magic gone sour.
A branch snapped somewhere to our left.
I froze mid-stride, ears swiveling toward the sound. The horses continued forward, oblivious. But my senses, heightened even further by the curse, picked up subtle movement about fifty yards out.
I let out a sharp, guttural snarl that meant danger was near.
Val pulled up on his reins immediately. “Amari?”
I stayed frozen, every muscle coiled tight, staring at the trees. My tail lashed once, twice.
Buttercup snorted a puff of smoke that spiraled upward, and Samara’s hand rested on his neck, her fingers threading through his mane. “We need to keep moving. Standing here makes us easy targets.”
We set off again, me trailing farther behind to ensure whatever had made the noise wasn’t following us. It wasmost likely another animal, but I couldn’t smell it over the stench.
This forest had once been considered the safest forest and had been a playground for shifters, especially wolves. With its proximity to the castle, many had moved into villages or to the far edges of it, preferring not to deal with Lilith and whatever now lurked among the trees.
I moved ahead, then circled back, my instincts screaming at me to stay close and to protect.
But protect which one? Val was my... what? Lover seemed too simple a word for what we had. And Samara was nothing more than a stranger who’d appeared out of nowhere to complicate everything.
Except my panther didn’t seem to agree. He kept pulling me back toward her, drawn by something I couldn’t name.
Maybe she was a succubus. That would explain why both Val and the squirrel looked at her like she hung the fucking moon. And why I couldn’t stop noticing how her body moved in those tight pants and how perfectly her body would fit under mine, even though I definitely wasn’t into women at the moment.
“We should stop to water the horses soon. There’s a stream about a half mile ahead.” Nico folded his map and tucked it into his bag.
Val maneuvered his horse closer to Samara’s, their legs nearly touching as they rode side by side. I watched him lean in, his voice dropping to what he probably thought was a whisper. “Remember that time we got caught skinny-dipping by that grumpy river troll?”
Jealousy was an ugly emotion. It made my fur bristle and my claws flex against the earth. And it was hitting me hard right now.
I slowed my pace as the scent of water mingled with the heavy forest air. The stream was wider than I expected, asilvery ribbon cutting through the dark woods. The sound of flowing water drowned out the forest’s eerie silence.
No threats that I could detect. No signs of disturbance around the water’s edge. But that strange odor still lingered, fainter here but persistent.
My muscles tensed and released as I shifted forms, bones cracking and skin stretching until I stood on two feet instead of four. My clothes felt suffocating for a moment before my body adjusted.
Val dismounted and stretched his back, eyes scanning the tree line. “Everything okay?”
