She had endured it for years now, and it couldn’t go on. Something was changing inside her. The nausea. The tenderness in her breasts. She could not think about what it meant. Shewouldnot.
The candle guttered. She trimmed the wick and returned to her bleeding hearts, but her hand trembled, and the stitches she set were crooked. If she continued, she’d have to unpick themanyway, so she wrapped the silk in a cotton sheet to protect it from stray dust and ash and blew out the candle.
Then she sat in the dark, watching the tiny crack of daylight between the crooked shutters fade. She only had one hope left: the Nadir, the gargoyle assigned to address grievances between their kind and humans. Visiting his office meant she’d have to go out at night, something she’d avoided so long that it felt forbidden. But there was nothing else to be done.
Just before dusk, she made the dash to the Nadir’s office, hoping to time it right so she’d arrive at the door just as the sun slipped away so her tormenter would not accost her along the way. The familiar stairs down to the street were narrow and smelled of leather and boot polish from the cobbler’s shop.
Outside, she pulled her cloak around her shoulders and walked briskly, dodging the carts headed for the market, a group of children chasing a three-legged dog, two keepers walking in step with their hoods drawn against the dust.
The Tower, which she usually avoided at all costs as it was the likely home of the gargoyle who plagued her, rose above them all, marking her destination. Every step toward it felt like pulling a needle through stiff leather, pained and slow. But she persisted and eventually reached the stone steps of the Nadir’s office without incident.
The queue was short, only a handful of people waiting to enter the Tower’s lowest tier. She took her place at the end of the line. The woman ahead of her, a broad-backed laundress with a basket on her hip, gave her a brief, incurious look and turned away as the line began to move.
Hannalinde climbed the stairs one at a time, her hand braced on the cool stone wall for balance until she reached the top and entered through the imposing, carved wooden door. A hooded keeper at the desk, one of the humans who served the gargoylesof the Tower, greeted her as she entered. “Name and nature of your complaint?”
She opened her mouth. For one terrible second, nothing came out. “Hannalinde Lamont. A gargoyle has been…troubling me.”
The keeper’s quill paused in recognition. His gaze flicked to her face, her much-mended gray dress, her white-knuckled grip on the edge of the desk. Would he turn her out?
He wrote her name in the ledger and gestured toward the waiting room. “Take a seat. He’ll see you when he’s ready.”
She sat. She folded her hands in her lap to hide their shaking. And she waited for a monster to save her from a monster, because there was no one else left to ask.
Chapter 2
Rikard
The buxom human female straddled his roost and rode it like a pony, skirts hitched around her waist and the butt of a carved bone phallus clutched between her thighs like a saddle horn.
It was a good performance. Pudding was always a reliable entertainer, worth every copper he paid her and then some. She moaned in all the right places, arched her back so her considerable breasts threatened the limits of her bodice, and tossed her butter-colored curls with convincing abandon.
Two moths battled against the window pane for a better look, no doubt eager to flutter off and spread the news of his depravity. They’d carry this story to every lamp in the Tower before midnight.The Nadir dallies with human harlots. He prefers them to his own kind.
Well, it was true, so let them talk. Rikard watched from a chair with his chin propped on his fist, feeling nothing below the waist.
Not for lack of trying on Pudding’s part. She’d arrived at sundown and produced the bone carving with a flourish that suggested she’d been saving it for a special occasion. It was a human cock, rendered in polished ivory with meticulous anatomical detail, and she’d offered it to him with a grin.
“Made me think of you straightaway,” she’d explained.
“You thought of me when you found a man-cock,” he’d said flatly.
“Thought you’d like to see me on it. It might inspire you to take a turn,” she teased.
He’d bet her three silver coins that she couldn’t raise a twitch from him. She’d taken the bet and now here they were, the candle burning low and the moths losing their tiny minds.
He could already hear his mother’s scandalized shriek when the rumors reached her ears. His father would be secretly delighted. In the highest tiers of the Tower, the circle of counselors around the Zenith would sigh and shrug. They knew he was broken when they gave him the job.
“You’re not even watching,” Pudding accused, pausing mid-thrust. A stray curl stuck to the dampness on her lip, and she blew it away.
“I am watching.”
“If you were watching, your trousers would be tight.” She climbed off the roost and sauntered toward him, hips swaying with professional ease. She planted her hands on his desk andleaned forward, giving him a generous view of the cleft between her breasts. “Have a closer look. Go on, then. See if your soldier salutes.”
He looked. Her breasts were beautiful: warm, soft, extravagant. He admired the freckles that dusted her chest. He catalogued the rhythmic pulse in her throat. He breathed in her scent of soap and sweat and too-sweet perfume.
Not a stir from his cock. It hung like a dead snake in his breeches.
Pudding read his face and huffed, flopping back onto the visitor’s chair. She crossed her arms beneath her breasts, propping them even higher. “I haven’t conceded yet.”
