Page 9 of Heartsong
“I-I don’t…” She buried her face in her hands, fingers working at her temples. “I don’t know what any of that means.”
He purred for her again, trying to soothe her obvious discomfit. “What is your name?” he asked, trying to distract her, trying not to sound as eager as he was.
Reluctantly, quietly, she said, “Anna.”
“Anna.” A fine human name. “I have longed to find you and look upon you, my Anna. It may have taken centuries, but I regret none of the many years it took to bring me to you.”
Through her hands, he heard a groan and something like, “Who says things like that?”
He gave her her peace, content to hold her and take in the smells of the trees and night air. There were few animal sounds, but then, all the wise animals would have hidden away at the arrival of such a deadly predator as him. Though it was disconcerting not to see many stars, the moon at least was familiar, the pearly orb ringed in blue as it shone upon them.
Frey waited as she continued her little circles—but she went on so long and with her brows drawn so low, he began to worry.
“Anna? Are you all right?”
“I need to go home,” she said, “now.It’s too much—I feel the migraine coming on.” She groaned, body folding in on itself.
“You are ill?” The bottom fell out of his stomach.
No. Impossible. He wouldn’t allow it.
“Bad headache,” she said. “I get them. I need to go home and take my meds.”
“We will get you anything you need, my Anna,” he assured her. “Just direct me to your dwelling.”
“Oh, no, you don’t—wait wait wait—aah!”
With a bounding leap, Frey threw them back into the sky, his wings flapping mightily, his resolve hardening. They would get his mate her medicine, they would talk, he would explain things, and then, perhaps, she would let him kiss those pretty lips of hers.
He always did like a plan.
4
Anna clapped a hand over her mouth, muffling her scream as the city whizzed by in streaks of light. It was also to keep down the dinner sloshing in her rebelling stomach as she flew toward home in the arms of a fucking monster.
Guardian. Gargoyle. Grotesque.Whatever!
She was hallucinating. Or she really had passed out back in the gallery. Neither option seemed great, but it beat whatever this insanity was.
A groan escaped her as they banked hard, but when she was finally able to peel open an eye, she recognized the distinctive silhouette of Grace Cathedral’s pair of towers. With a shaky hand, she patted the gargoyle, pointing him westward.
With a few tiny moves of his massive wings, he adjusted their course, and soon they were soaring over the Presidio.
As they drew closer to her building, Anna couldn’t help the panic knotting her throat, threatening to cut off her airway. What was she thinking, showing a gargoyle where she lived?
It’s either that or stay airborne.
Not an option. She’d do just about anything to get to her meds in time to avoid a full-blown migraine. Those began when she was fifteen, growing in number and severity as she moved out, scraped her way through college, then ingloriously entered the job market. Her new neurologist, whom she could see now thanks to the museum’s health plan, emphasized that stress was likely a large factor in her headaches.
No surprise. Anna’s life had been one big stressor after another. Between the unstable home life and parade of sketchy boyfriends her mother provided, Anna had left the moment she could. Nothing had ever been handed to her. She’d earned her place in college, earned every scholarship and grant and student job. She’d tried hard to make other degrees work, things high paying like accounting or coding, but her brain just didn’t work that way. So she made do. She always made do.
The headaches had unfortunately been the only constant in her life for over ten years. Her mother never took much interest in her, and once she was out of sight, she was out of mind. Unless of course Shannon needed something like a few bucks to get her through the month.
Anna had gotten through college and her first handful of jobs barely managing the headaches. She’d lost jobs over not being able to work. She’d lost friendships not being able to go out. Last year, as she sat alone in her dark apartment on her birthday, she’d vowed to stop letting it rule her life. The night after her first shift at the museum, Anna had made every medical appointment she could.
She would get this under control and her life back.
That promise to herself beat desperately at her temples, the muscles of her forehead tight, making her a bit more amenable then she normally would’ve been to flying around the city at night in the arms of a mythical creature.
