Page 11 of Stone Cold Alien

“Why?”

I held up my hand. The tips of my fingers had begun to harden again.

Her expression changed. She crossed the distance between us and crouched at my side. Warmth returned as soon as she came close, restoring movement to my fingers.

“Is that because I moved away?” she asked.

Only a mate could wake a petrified gharrgoil. Now it seemed that only her presence could stop the stone from returning.

“Yes.”

Robyn glanced towards the castle entrance. “How close do I have to stay?”

“I do not know.”

I had finally escaped my prison, only to discover that my freedom depended on a human.

Chapter 3

Robyn

The grey skin on Sten’s fingers softened as I crouched beside him. A moment ago, it had been hard and immobile. Now he could bend his hand again.

I stayed close, just in case he was going to have another deterioration. I didn’t understand what was happening, or why it was happening to me.

Nothing about this was possible. Stone didn’t turn into skin. Gargoyles didn’t breathe, speak or attempt to fly. They certainly didn’t crash into castle courtyards and argue with nurses on their way to a blind date.

Yet Sten was doing all of those things.

“What are you?” I asked.

His golden eyes narrowed. “A gharrgoil.”

“A gargoyle.”

“Gharrgoil,” he repeated, putting more of a growl into the middle of the word.

“That isn’t an answer.”

Pam came closer, still holding her phone. “He’s an alien.”

I just looked at her. My brain didn’t process what she’d said at all.

“An alien,” I repeated.

“Yes.”

“As in spaceships and other planets?”

“Exactly.”

I laughed. There was nothing funny about the situation, but my brain seemed to have run out of sensible reactions. This was ridiculous. Talking gargoyles and now aliens.

Sten scowled. “You find this amusing?”

“No. I’m trying to decide whether I fell off the ladder and hit my head.”

“You did not fall,” he said in his adorable accent. His voice was low and deep and entirely too seductive. It did things to me that I didn’t want to examine further.