Sugar and Stone: A Gargoyle Monster Romance by Hall Ava

Author:Hall, Ava
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2024-01-07T00:00:00+00:00

20

JOCELIN

There had been plenty of red flags and clear openings. I’d had an abundance of opportunities to walk away from this before things escalated, and judging from the state Raoul was in, it would have been the prudent thing to do. I’d seen him angry before, but not like this. Right now, we were both liable to do something we’d regret.

As if reading my thoughts, Raoul growled in my ear, his breath hot against my neck. “You do not want to push me right now.”

But I did. I didn’t just want to push him, I needed to. I needed this. This angry, burning thing that kept my demons at bay.

The irony of that sentiment was not lost on me, but I couldn’t process that yet. I always knew my dad’s black and white view of the world was too good to be true, but I hadn’t been prepared for that many shades of gray.

Humans killing each other under demonic influence. The police, oblivious to the dangers they were digging up. My father, at the heart of it all. Monsters fighting other monsters. Killing them.

But Nicolas had warned me that monsters were not the only thing that Raoul killed. Just because there was something out there worse than him did not make him good by default. None of what I’d discovered made what the gargoyles had done to me okay, it just made it… complicated.

“What are you going to do?” I asked sharply.

My skin was tingling everywhere I felt Raoul pressed up against me. He was holding both my hands behind my back easily, as if I were nothing more than a little butterfly he had pinned by the wings. He could snap me like a twig if he wanted to, but still, that same, inexplicable certainty filled me, telling me that he did not want to. No matter how angry I was, no matter how many lines I crossed, he didn’t want to hurt me. Even restrained as I was, trapped between the bookshelf and the gargoyle at my back, I felt safe.

Except…

I knew I wasn’t.

I could feel it in the tightness of Raoul’s grip as he held me. There was none of the usual caution I’d seen before whenever he handled me. He felt furious and feral, like he was only a heartbeat away from losing control entirely. For some stupid, selfish, reckless reason, I wanted to push him over that edge. I wanted to push him over so he could drag me down the other side with him.

“I’m not a demon. I’m not a monster,” I said over my shoulder, although I wasn’t sure if I believed that anymore. “Are you going to kill me too?”

He leaned in even closer and I sucked in a breath. I could smell that slippery, slimy black substance on him, which I now realized was the blood of a demon. It reeked of sulfur and rusted metal, but beneath that was something else. There was a different scent that I had come to recognize.

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