How to Seduce a Gargoyle in 10 Days (4 page)

Ginger offered them a smile. “Come along then.”

Slade was right behind her, and he nodded to Raven. The two obviously knew each other.

“How are things at the library?” She struggled to make small talk.

“That’s how we met, actually. I’d been turned into a cat.”

Ginger paused, her hand fluttered to her chest. “A cat? You weren’t by chance fiddling around with Mordred Shadowins’s little black book were you?”

Raven narrowed his eyes. “Actually…”

Ginger laughed. “Oh my.”

“Do you know who cast the spell?” Raven asked.

“It wasn’t you, was it, Ginger?” Hemi looked horrified.

“Oh, no. It wasn’t me. It was the warlock’s own mother. Aradia wanted to teach him a lesson if he ever thought about stepping out on Midnight.”

Raven’s dark brows furrowed as he scowled. “I can’t be angry now. I still want to be angry, but I can’t. If he did step out on my sister, I’d beat him until I couldn’t raise my arms. But being a cat… that was not fun. Her hellhounds tried to eat me.”

“Eat you? Please. Damnit and Stop That are still regrowing the bites you took out of them.”

Ginger grinned. “That sounds like it was an interesting evening.”

When they got to the grotto, Slade made it his business to perch on the nearest rock and keep scanning the surrounding area for threats.

This wasn’t exactly what she had in mind.

But she manifested the picnic and tried to enjoy her time with Raven and Hemi.

“So, it’s serious enough that you’re meeting families?” Ginger quirked a brow. “Has he met your father yet?”

“Dad has been too busy.” Hemi looked away. “But we’re getting married.”

Ginger could tell that Hemi didn’t expect her to be pleased. She put her hand on Hemi’s. “I’m so happy for you.”

“Are you?”

“Yeah. I know things haven’t been… easy. And since your dad and I split up, I’ve realized that a lot of that has been my fault.”

“Ginger, I don’t know what to say.” Hemi couldn’t look at her.

“You don’t have to say anything. I’m just hoping you can find it in your heart to forgive me.”

Hemi sniffed. “All I ever wanted was a mom.”

Ginger put her arms around her carefully. “Maybe we can try again.”

“I’d like that.”

“Here, have some strawberry shortcake. You too, Raven.”

But Raven didn’t eat. “I noticed you have gargoyle security. Are you expecting trouble?”

“Well, you know, I’m alone here at the house.” She didn’t want to say anything bad about Gavin to Hemi. They were just now on newly tender ground.

Raven nodded. “I’m pretty good at hexes and wards. I can add an extra layer of protection.”

“That’s very kind of you. But Slade has it all taken care of.” She patted his hand.

If only she’d discovered the gargoyle flower years ago… Ginger was on the road to being happy, and it was all thanks to Slade. She looked up at him, and he nodded at her as if he knew exactly what she was thinking.

The rest of the morning passed pleasantly enough, and when it was finally time for her company to leave, Ginger had lost her gumption for seduction.

She supposed she might as well accept that this wasn’t going to happen.

“Would you like to join me, Slade?” Ginger asked. “You know you don’t have to stay perched up there on that rock like a…” Like what? Like what he was?

“Like a gargoyle?” he supplied.

She blushed. “Well, yeah.”

“You could come up here with me.”

“Okay.” Why not? Sexy times weren’t going to happen anyway. Ginger snapped her fingers, and she appeared on top of the rock next to him.

At least her magick was working correctly. That was always a plus. With the way her luck had been running, she wouldn’t have been surprised if she’d gotten nothing but sparks and a fizzle when she snapped her fingers. Maybe some dust…

She’d had enough of that, though. Ginger knew that more often than not, one got what one expected. It was time to start expecting good things.

Ginger started the day with no evil plots for seduction. No sad little commentary on the state of her life.

The sun was shining, the sky was blue, and she was a witch. It really didn’t get much better than that, did it?

Things could always be worse. She could be a mortal. A soul stuck in a tragically banal world of ordinary things like dentist appointments and dry cleaning. Ginger shuddered.

Instead, she could go anywhere in most any realm. She could play with the fairies and watch them light up the sky. She could go skiing with frost giants, taunt the closet gnomes, run with werewolves… Ginger could even find the end of the rainbow and drink stout dark beer with leprechauns.

She just had to choose something and do it.

Maybe she could get a new wardrobe. New skis? Or get her hair done. She had all this money, and she didn’t spend it on things that made her happy. She spent it on
supposed to
.

Like the outfit she’d worn to the bridal tea. She hadn’t really cared for it, but it was a
supposed to
.

This house. It was a
supposed to
. She’d rather have had something smaller, to be honest.

And her hair. The way she wore it short, almost like a football helmet. It was high society couture for a witch of her position, but she preferred it long. She muted the color of it as well, because no decent witch had hair that was practically fire engine red.

But Ginger did. That was why her mother had named her Ginger. She’d been born with a bright shock of the stuff right on top of her head. Her mother had always told her that a strawberry blond was much more proper.

Ginger decided to fuck the blond and keep the strawberry.

She looked at herself in the mirror.

The hard, pinched lines that had started to gather around her eyes were fading, and her eyes seemed to open wider, maybe even just a bit brighter. As if the travails of misery had aged her, and she shed them now like a snake shedding her skin.

Ginger snapped her fingers, and the football helmet hair was gone. In its place, bright crimson waves fell down around her shoulders in a soft cloud. She peered closer and saw that her skin seemed more dewy as well.

Who knew that the best beauty regimen wasn’t anything she could buy in a bottle. It wasn’t any potion or magick spell. It was just kicking her jackass warlock to the curb. If she’d known that, she’d have cut him loose a long time ago.

Instead of her usual pencil skirt and silk blouse, Ginger put on a pair of jeans and a soft t-shirt.

Damn if she didn’t like what she saw.

This was the self that had been suffocating inside of a box called
supposed to
.

She emerged from the bathroom to find Slade in his usual place, perched on her balcony.

Ginger opened the door and stepped into the cool morning air. She manifested a cup of coffee, bacon, eggs, and a Belgian waffle. The scents mingled and reminded Ginger of when she’d been a young witch and hadn’t had to worry so much about her figure. Life had tasted good then.

It could again.

“Good morning, Ginger. Did you rest well?”

She’d just stuffed a piece of bacon in her mouth, but rather than chewing stoically and waiting to answer, she gulped like the rowdiest of warlocks and found she didn’t give a shit.

“I did. Better than I have in a long time. It’s been like that since you got here. So, thank you for that.”

“Is it me, or that you got rid of Gavin?” His dark eyes focused on her intently.

“I haven’t been sleeping at night since I kicked him out, to be honest.” If she’d been following the rules of
supposed to
, she wouldn’t have let him know her distress. How had she lived like that? “He plays the victim, but I know he’s going to find a way to make me pay once he realizes I’m serious and I’m not taking him back.”

“Then maybe I should stay longer than ten days.”

“Do you think Aradia can spare you?” She bit her lip. “Do you even want to?”

He hopped down off the railing and extended his wings in a quick stretch before tucking them behind his back.

That was where she felt safest, cocooned by his shadow.

“You asked what I wanted.” He said this as if she herself didn’t know.

“Of course. You’re not a slave.”

“I am, in a sense. I signed a contract with Aradia. I belong to her, as does Valerian for the agreed upon term in the contract.”

Her heart plummeted down to her gut. All the things he’d done for her had been because Aradia ordered him.

“Oh.” She crammed another bite of bacon in her mouth to keep from saying anything stupid.

“My contract is up at the end of the ten days. If you want me to sign with you, I will.”

“I don’t want to own you.” She was horrified at the thought. Although, part of her was intrigued as well, as much as she hated to admit it.

“I can’t stay in warlock lands without a contract.” He extended a clawed hand and touched her hair. “Gargoyles like bright colors. We’re almost like ravens that way. We like to decorate our Aeries with pretty things.”

“Is that why you steal witches?” she laughed.

“Especially redheaded witches.” Her hair curled around his finger, and she found she had no more interest in the food. Only his nearness and the sight of that single curl wrapped around his finger. “This is your natural hair, isn’t it? Why would you ever hide it?”

“Because I was
supposed to
.”

“Probably because your mother feared some gargoyle would see you and snatch you up. He’d fly you away so far that she’d never see you again.”

“All because of my hair?” Ginger laughed again. “That’s something a witch can change at will.”

“Gargoyles can see through most glamours. Yours was so well done, I couldn’t. You must’ve practiced from a very young age.”

“Practically from birth. Hair this color isn’t… seemly.”

He roared with laughter. “You witches and warlocks so ashamed by the body’s own natural state. Why is that? I’ve never understood.”

“I guess I don’t understand it, either.”

“Think on what I said. I will stay with you, sign your contract. If you would like it.”

“You didn’t say if that’s what you wanted.”

“I offered it, didn’t I?”

“Yes, but Aradia told you to take care of me. How far does the contract bind your free will? Do you want to be here because she wants you here?”

“No, Ginger. I choose to offer it because if I don’t sign with you, I will renew my contract with her. I can never truly go home. I’ve lived among your kind for far too long.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I’m not. It keeps the peace. My place was never among the gargoyles anyway. I’m the odd one who never fit, who searched and struggled for his place, but never found it.”

“I think I know what you mean.”

He cocked his head to the side. “I think you do, too.”

Slade still hadn’t let go of her hair. He moved his fingers through the length with a certain reverence and she was content for him to do so.

“Are you hungry? Would you like some?” She offered him a bite of her bacon.

Rather than take it from with his hand, he leaned down over the succulent meat and showed her his teeth. When she didn’t flinch, he bit the bacon very close to her fingers—so close that his lips brushed against her skin.

“That’s how you feed a gargoyle.” He swiped his tongue against his lips.

So much for not thinking about what it would like to be carnal with him. She shivered all the way to her toes with sweet, sultry anticipation.

“I didn’t know you were so domesticated you’d eat from my palm.” Wow, was that sex-on-a-stick voice coming from her? She didn’t know she had it in her.

But she knew what she’d like to have in her.

Ginger didn’t bother to censor her thoughts or try to be proper or any of that other crap. She was done with that.

He laughed, the sound rumbling almost like thunder. “No, Ginger. I’m very much a wild thing. But so are you, aren’t you? It’s buried deep down, sliding beneath your skin like some dirty secret.”

His words cranked her desire higher. “Yes,” she confessed, the words falling off of her tongue, forbidden.

Instead of tasting like bile and ash, as they would have before, they were sweet.

“Just a little more, Ginger, and we’ll see the wild thing beneath. The creature you were meant to be.”

She had a feeling that when she did become that wild thing, that’s when he’d touch her, claim her. A part of her just knew that he was waiting for her to let go and blossom.

Her mother wouldn’t have seen this as blossoming, but Ginger didn’t care what she thought about it.

Aradia sent flowers and an invitation to come to tea on the tenth day.

Ginger sent a reply through her magick mail and agreed.

When Slade found her with the flowers, he arched a brow. “Lady Shadowins thinks she’s funny.”

“Why?” Ginger looked up from the strange, yet enticing orange blooms. “Are they going to grow teeth and bite me or something?”

“No, but I might.”

“Oh really?” She couldn’t help the grin on her face.

“Those are what warlocks would call an aphrodisiac. They drive a gargoyle’s lust very high. Makes our skin as sensitive as warlock skin.”

His loincloth did nothing to hide the effect the flowers had on him. At first, the idea intrigued her—especially the way he watched her. Like he was going to take her right there on the foyer table.

And she’d have loved that, no doubt.

But she still wanted him to want her for herself. Not because Aradia told him to, not because she sent some flowers to turn him into a sex-crazed animal. But just because he found her pleasing.

“I’ll throw them out.” She grabbed the vase and headed toward the kitchen.

“I’m not a beast, Ginger. I won’t do anything to you that you haven’t asked me for. Flowers or no. If you find them lovely, keep them.”

It was almost as if he could read her thoughts—she’d considered that frequently in the last few days, how attuned he was to her.

“I do find them lovely.” She bit her lip. Old Ginger wouldn’t have dared say what was on her mind, but she was tired of Old Ginger and ready for New Ginger to take the reins. “But I don’t want you to be uncomfortable just because I might enjoy looking at their blooms.” She took a deep breath. “And I don’t want you to touch me unless it’s what you want, too. Contract or no.”