Stone Solitude by A.C. Warneke

for the temporary reprieve. His resolve hadn’t wavered, he was still going to seduce the girl and break the curse, but having met her face to face, he wished he wasn’t so ugly. Even his gargoyle form was preferable to the hideousness of his distorted face.
    She had liked his gargoyle form, at least she had when she was ten.
    Fuck it, he couldn’t stay in this room a moment longer. He had to see her. It wasn’t too late, just past ten, so perhaps he would find her at the library once again. If he saw Xerec, he’d just tell the demon to go fuck himself because he wasn’t going to explain himself to anyone.
    Tucking his massive wings against his body, he grabbed the dark cloak and draped it around his shoulders. He caught his reflection in the remnants of the mirror and shuddered; he looked like a fucking hunchback. A twinge of conscience pierced him and he regretted the fact that Daisy unknowingly bound herself to him when she was a child. It had been her hand that had woken him up and it was going to be her blood that was going to set him free.
     

     
    Daisy poured over the words in the old book of fairy tales, fascinated by the impossible tales of gods and curses and love and hate. Even though she was supposed to be working on her paper, she had gotten sucked into the fantastical myths. She never would have picked the book up but it had been in the wrong section and she grabbed it so she could move it. But then she made the mistake of opening it. 
    There had been a chapter about wolves that looked very interesting and she wanted to read it later on but at the moment, she was far more interested in the gargoyle mythology. According to the story, gargoyles were born from the love of Apollo for Medusa, a love that was tragic and beautiful and everlasting. She couldn’t imagine only being able to spend a few years with the love of her life every five hundred years nor could she imagine having to give her children up before they reached the age of ten.
    For some reason, the image of a hulking cloaked figure flashed in her head and she flushed. Certainly she wasn’t interested in Roman for they had barely exchanged a handful of words before she bolted on him. She doubted she would ever see him again and if he saw her, he’d probably run in the other direction before she had the chance to apologize.
    If she wasn’t interested in him then why was he occupying so many of her thoughts? Ever since their brief introduction on Friday, she had spent far too much time wondering about him. What did he look like beneath the voluminous cloak that he hid under? Was his skin gray all over? Was he one of those mythical gargoyles that she had been reading about?
    She really needed to concentrate on her paper since she had lost most of Friday being a chicken and then on Saturday she could barely concentrate. Sunday the library had been closed and then tonight she had discovered the absolute treasure that she was currently reading. The book occupied all of her thoughts and she was starting to imagine things that just weren’t possible, like a god falling in love with a Gorgon.
    Says the Siren with a latent wolf.
    But surely gargoyles weren’t the love children of Apollo and Medusa and Roman wasn’t a gargoyle. That would be too much of a coincidence. After all, she had decided to write about gargoyles because she had been fascinated by them for as long as she could remember though she didn’t know why. She had also been dreaming about them for the last ten years. Gargoyles were simply on her mind and she was trying to make Roman into something he wasn’t because he intrigued her.
    With a sigh, she pushed the wonderful book aside and dragged the huge tome she needed to read back in front of her. The usual origin myths were all there, from the use of gargoyles as protectors against evil to the design of them as water spouts. Compared to the lyrical prose of the other book, this book was dreadfully dull and it was difficult to keep