Page 117 of Labor of Love

“Not unless you decided you’d like to be,” Marcus explained. “There are no empty ones now, but getting one built for you wouldn’t be an issues if you’d prefer to live in the treetops. We can scout out which tree would be best for you and then you can touch base with our architect to see which design you’d like best. They take roughly six months to complete, because everything is done by hand, but there are plenty of rooms inside if the one I have in mind for you isn’t to your liking.”

“No, no, I-I oh my goddess, whatever space you have for me will be perfect,” Laney stammered, the tears that had welled up in his eyes made it difficult to see Marcus.

He had to fight down the choking feeling he suddenly experienced as so many emotions slammed into him.

“Theres no need for anyone to go through the time or expense of building a whole home just for me,” Laney rushed to explain. “I-I’m just stunned to even be offered a room and a place to stay. I was just going to let you know that I’d need to unbind my wings before I could fly up to a treehouse with you if that’s where we were headed.”

“Unbind…” Marcus stammered, a look of horror on his face as his eyes raked over Laney’s body. “Was that by choice, or did your ex-fiancé’s family do that to you before dumping you in the city?”

Squirming in his seat, Laney let one shoulder rise, then fall again.

“I see,” Marcus growled. “The guards of Oceanview had better hope I never encounter them.”

“Thank you, again, for coming to our rescue,” Laney said, his hand drifting down to rest over his still flat midsection.

“Would it be too personal for me to ask how far along you are?” Marcus asked.

“Barely three months,” Laney replied. “We’d only just realized it a few days ago and tried to rush into a wedding.”

“And when you arrived and they started asking questions about your family so they could reach out to them about the wedding, that’s when they discovered you were exiled for being of mixed ancestry,” Marcus surmised.

“No, I just told them upfront when they started asking about my family,” Laney explained. “We weren’t even there a day when everything blew up on me.”

“When…. when did they drop you in the city?” Marcus growled.

“This morning.”

While Marcus blew out a long breath, Laney sat confused about the intense rush of concern radiating from the gargoyle. It still lingered in the air around him even as he felt Marcus wrestling to put it away.

“You must be starving,” Marcus murmured. “We should have stopped for something along the way. It’s just rare for me to eat anything the humans prepare. Not when they boil, burn or fry the very essence out of damn near everything while drowning it in salt.”

“I noticed. I tried a bit of something one of them threw away,” Laney admitted. “My stomach was growling, and I’d started getting dizzy, but it just made me throw up a few minutes later. I’m not proud of it, but I stole some fruit from outside of a little corner grocery mart and ate that while I tried to figure out what to do.

“You have nothing to be ashamed of,” Marcus said, reaching for him, just like before.

There was a pause before Marcus let it fall back to his side again, leaving Laney with a strange ache in his belly that had nothing to do with hunger. Their eyes met and Marcus cocked his head, his lips parting, just a little, before he shook himself, and reached for the doorhandle.

“Let’s get you some food,” Marcus said as he opened the door, leaving Laney no choice but to get out and join him.

“That would be wonderful,” Laney said, despite the lingering disappointment that followed him all the way through the large door that led from the garage inside the manor.

“We can stop in the laundry room and put your things in a washer on our way to the kitchen,” Marcus offered. “No one will bother them, there are several machines.”

“Thank you, that would be wonderful. Are there shops nearby where I could buy things, once I’ve settled in and started working?”

“The whole village lies on the other side of the manor. We are the first line of defense for all those who live in Darkling Wood.”

Darkling Wood.

The words rolled through Laney’s mind in a voice he barely remembered. Trying to picture a face to go with it didn’t produce anything but hazy memories of pretty skirts, most of them in bright, shimmering colors.

Save for one.

It had been the same deep shades of gray, black and rich, vivid purple as the wings that lay wrapped beneath the cloth under the t-shirt and hoodie he had on.

“How many people live here, in the manor?” Laney asked. “And are they who I’ll be a companion to?”

“Yes, to the second part of your question. And we do mean it in the truest sense of the word companion. No one will ever askanything inappropriate of your position. They know the rules and what being a companion does and does not entail. You job will be to assuage the loneliness of those of us who tend to spend too much time secluded due to the role we play within our village, the research we’re engaged in, or the tasks we’ve been assigned,” Marcus explained.

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