She’sterrified. Of course she is. And it’s my fault, all my fault. Some bodyguard I am.
I open my mouth but the words tangle on my tongue.
The wail of police sirens pierces the tense silence. Backup. Finally.
Hours later,once the police have left, I sit across from Ecco in a secluded corner of the inn’s cafe, hands clenched around a mug of cold tea, staring into its murky depths as if it might hold the key to this whole mess.
My mind won’t stop replaying it: the stalker’s charge, Ecco’s scream, that nauseating scent. I was too slow, too distracted.
Ecco could’ve been hurt or worse and it would’ve been on me.
The honey-sweet timbre of her voice jolts me out of the downward spiral of my thoughts. “Graeme? Are you okay?”
Ecco reaches across the table and rests her small hand on top of my much larger one. The heat of her palm seeps into my skin.
I look up and meet her gaze, swallowing hard against the ache in my chest. Ecco’s face is ashen, her eyes haunted and ringed with shadow.
But her expression is one of concern. After everything she’s been through, everything I put her through, she’s worried aboutme?
“I...” The word comes out a croak and I clear my throat roughly.
What can I even say? That I’m a failure? That I’m terrified I won’t be able to protect her?
That the thought of losing her makes me unable to breathe?
I’m a gargoyle. I’m not supposed to feel fear, not supposed to feelanything. But with Ecco… I feel everything.
And I don’t know how to make it stop.
“All that matters is that you are okay, Ecco.” I meet her eyes briefly and then let my gaze drop to our hands, still too ashamed at my failure to look her in the face.
Ecco sucks in a shaky breath, her fingers tightening around mine.
“That definitely rattled me,” she says. “It’s unsettling to have a place that is so safe to me, like the Moonflower, violated by that… being, whatever it is.”
She shudders before pinning me with her violet gaze once more. “But you’ve been rattled too, Graeme. You’ve been quieter than usual, won’t even look at me. What’s going on?”
Damn, she sees right through me. She’s not going to let this go until I give her an explanation. And she deserves one, deserves to understand why I reacted the way I did today.
How I let her down.
I heave a sigh, the air heavy in my lungs. “Part of the reason I’ve always avoided relationships is that love has always seemed like a dangerous distraction to me.”
Ecco flinches and I wince, realizing how that sounded. Like I’m sayingshe’sa distraction, a liability. And maybe a small, stubborn part of me does feel that way.
But it’s not her fault. It’s mine.
“Let me explain,” I barrel on before she can interject. “You know that my parents died when I was young. They were bodyguards, too. And they were so in love, so wrapped up in each other, that sometimes it felt like they forgot they had a son.”
I swallow hard against the bitter tang of old resentment.
“When I was seven, my parents were on an assignment. Guarding some VIP with major threats against them. They took it seriously but… but not seriously enough.”
My voice cracks and I duck my head, blinking back the sting in my eyes.
“They missed the signs of a bomb,” I continue. “One of the few things that can kill a gargoyle. Because they were too wrapped up in each other.”
Ecco sucks in a sharp breath and I can’t look at her, can’t bear to see the pity in her eyes.