Page 55 of Bent Out of Shade
Giulia purred, nudging the girl’s hand with her head.
This was some cue for all three to descend on the gargoyle, kissing, hugging, and petting her, telling her how brave she was.
I did a little dance around their circle of love, my arms out, ready to grab a human when the temperamental gargoyle hit her limit of physical contact and filleted one of them, but it never happened.
The girls asked Giulia where to find her and promised to come visit. Then, thanking me again, they left, once more chattering among themselves a mile a minute.
Giulia rubbed her ear, watching them leave with a wistful smile and something harder to place.
I screwed up my face, casting about for where I’d seen it before. It finally hit me because both Emmett and Pyotr had shared that expression. “Giulia?”
“Hmmm?” She turned to me. “Sì. Grazie, Miriam. You saved me.”
“You don’t owe me thanks.”
“Good, because it took you forever to realize that gargoyle mediators cannot attack any other supernaturals. I could have been badly hurt.”
“I’ll try to be quicker on the uptake next time. That aside, would you like to come for dinner sometime? Even if you don’t eat, that’s okay because my golem friend, Emmett, doesn’t either, though Pyotr does. He’s another gargoyle friend.”
She blinked at me, jerking her head.
Scared I’d offended her, I took a couple steps back.
“We are…friends?” she said carefully.
I winced. I’d messed up the start of our relationship. True, I’d been saving my own ass, but for someone who’d prided herself throughout her professional career on the importance of women supporting other women, I’d been needlessly cruel.
“I’d like us to be friends, if that works for you,” I said. “I’m sorry for the way things started, and I take full responsibility for that.” I smiled. “Also, I think you’d like my daughter.”
Something hit me in the chest and I winced.
Her ring lay on the grass.
“Oh, no.” I picked it up, the cunning beauty of the poison ring subsumed by the ugliness of me taking it from the gargoyle, who, despite her flashing eyes and jutted-out jaw, looked achingly vulnerable. “That’s not why—”
There was a rush of wind. Giulia was gone.
