The Gargoyle and the Gypsy: A Dark Contemporary Romance (The Sacred Duet Book 1)

by Dr. Rebecca Sharp

  He let out a bitter laugh that cut right through my straining heart.

  “He took my face. He took my mother. He took my fiancée. Trust me, I’ve ensured that there’s nothing left for him to take from me.”

  The color drained from my face as I pulled my shaking hand away from him.

  Fiancée.

  “Y-You had a fiancée?”

  Why was I surprised? Why was I more than surprised? Suddenly, the man I saw living inside a cathedral, shielding himself from the world and everyone in it, took on a whole new light.

  A light which illuminated a heart which had once cared for someone.

  A light which cast away the perception I’d constructed—that though Quinton was no virgin, he’d never been attached to anyone more than for a physical moment.

  Like me.

  But I’d been wrong.

  He’d loved someone enough to want to marry them, and I hated how the thought bothered me so much.

  I hated that I’d let myself develop feelings for the damn gargoyle who protected me and made my heart race. I hated that I’d let myself indulge in feelings I swore I didn’t need and never wanted, my only comfort being that he seemed to be indulging in them, too.

  But now, I realized it wasn’t his first indulgence.

  The reality wrapped around the balloon of my heart like a chain anchored to an anvil as it dragged it down mercilessly to the pit of my stomach.

  “I should get go—”

  A vise-like grip of warm steel clamped around my wrist.

  “Quinton!” I exclaimed, tugging at my arm, unwilling to let him see the turmoil of jealous possessiveness I didn’t know how to handle.

  “She worked for him.” I stopped resisting.

  “What?”

  “Sophie, if that was even her real name, worked for Méchant.” he sneered and looked down where his fingers held me. “When he realized my mother wasn’t of much use, lacking any real knowledge about my father and his work, he planted Sophie in her life and used my mother to introduce her into mine.”

  Oh God.

  “I was young. Everything was going great in my life and suddenly, this woman appeared in it who was everything I thought I wanted.” His laugh was like bubbled acid. “And she was… because that’s what she made herself to be.”

  I swallowed hard.

  He released my wrist but instead of letting his hand fall, I reached out and grabbed the warm flesh, bringing it to my lips until I could feel the steady thump of his pulse under the meat at the base of his thumb.

  His lips parted at the gesture. The hurt and hatred in his expression softened by the tenderness of my touch.

  “We’d only been dating six weeks before I proposed, fooled by some excuse or another why she was going to be leaving Paris soon and couldn’t stand to be part of a long-distance relationship.”

  As he spoke, I continued to press soft kisses to the palm of his hand, over the lines that traced his fate as though to promise him there was more to live for than righting all the wrongs done to him.

  He let out a long groan, the kind only the most painful memories naturally incur.

  “That was what my mother wanted to warn me about,” he rasped. “The night she asked me to meet her at the church, thinking of all places a sanctuary would be safe, it was because she needed me to know Sophie wasn’t real at all. Though my mother seemed to have realized just what kind of man she’d married, she hadn’t realized the extent of his malice or his plans until finding out they involved me. And that was where her line was drawn.”

  I bit into his flesh, gently, but enough to give a focal point to his pain.

  “She couldn’t stop what he did. But she could stop him from involving me,” he continued, breathing deeply and only finding a release each time my teeth nipped at his skin. “She came to tell me about Sophie, and how Méchant wanted to use me against my father and the Valois.” I watched the muscles in his jaw flex into stone. “But, of course, he had eyes and ears everywhere. He knew we’d be there. And he made us both pay.”

  “I’m sorry, Q,” I said with a voice that was barely above a whisper.

  Each layer I peeled back about that night seemed to reveal another that was even more heartbreaking than the last.

  “That’s why you don’t trust me.”

  The thought dawned on me. It wasn’t because of my appearance or my work, like I’d assumed having been burned by the same accusations in the past. It was because of this—a betrayed heart.

  The hand I held in front of me dove behind my neck and pulled my face within an inch of his.

  “For better or for worse, Gypsy, I’ve trusted you for a long time now,” he said roughly, his eyes caressing hungrily over my lips. “If I hadn’t, I would’ve killed you.”

  And then his lips claimed mine.

  Desire, emboldened by the possessiveness I couldn’t shake, escaped with my tongue as it dove into his mouth, sparring with his.

  Licking and sucking, the kiss was hot and so desperate from being caged inside reason for days. I felt the inside of my thighs grow wet as my head tilted, giving him deeper access. I could kiss him for days, forgetting that my lips and mouth were made for anything else except to be one with his. And each stroke of his tongue further intoxicated me with the mix of desire and danger which coated it so sweetly.

  Quinton groaned as he ravaged my lips, biting at the tender flesh and marking it for himself. Man marks his possessions once to warn others from what is his.

  But my monster? He marked me each and every time to warn me of the claim he’d staked.

  A claim that couldn’t last.

  I pulled back, breathing raggedly, and stood before any last trace of sense was gone.

  He needed to heal.

  And I needed to shore up the walls around my heart that was far more captured by my gargoyle than I’d realized.

  “I need to get to work,” I offered, smoothing down my dress and retying my hair where he’d dislodged pieces from its scarf. “I’ll be back in a little while. Please, stay in the bed. It’s just one more day,” I pleaded, seeing the look in his eyes that made me feel like he was about to pounce. “Otherwise, I’ll have to chain you there.”

  With that, I turned and made for the door.

  “Don’t make promises I might want you to keep.” The gruff words trailed after me, all too tempting reminders of the kind of need I was trying to bottle up.

  The kind of need that was like a monster who’d allowed me to cage it.

  I could tell myself all I wanted that I was still in control, but the truth was my need could escape its cage if it wanted.

  And I was afraid that soon, I wouldn’t even bother to fool myself with the cage at all.

  Esme

  I’d finished the north tower in two hours. And by the time I was done, the rain was coming down in torrents.

  “Merde,” I swore and picked up my pace, carefully jogging with my bags along the façade walk—the same place where I’d almost fallen to my death—until I reached the safety of the south tower which held the largest bell in the collection.

  Emmanuel.

  Setting my equipment down with a huff, I stared at the overwhelming, giant construction of brass, knowing if it were to go off right now, it would not only blow my ear drums, but send me flying from the tower like a comic-book character into the streets below with the earth-quaking resonance.

  Thankfully, I had several more hours before it would sound again for its evening toll.

  As I began to set up my equipment, my phone rang.

  I bit my lip and hesitated. Giselle. I’d already ignored two calls from her yesterday, opting, again, for a text to let her know I’d survived the blast and was okay.

  I couldn’t ignore her again.

  “Hello?”

  “Esme!” she exclaimed with a gasp of relief. “Mon Dieu, mon amie. I’ve been so worried.”

  “Giselle, I told you I was fine,” I soothed, grunting as I pulled out my tripod
, going through the motions I could probably do in my sleep anymore as I set up my laser.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Scanning the bell tower.” I had to be honest when I could. And when I was tending to the stab wound of the scarred gargoyle who lived in Notre-Dame, I definitely couldn’t.

  “You’re working?” She let out a litany of curses that only Giselle could make sound far too pretty for what I’m sure their translations were. “Are you serious?”

  “I’m fine and I have work to do. Why wouldn’t I be working?”

  Her answer was a very long, exaggerated sigh. Acceptance that she wasn’t going to win this argument.

  “I was so worried when I saw the news, Esme. Mon Dieu… The footage of you playing and then, out of nowhere, a riot breaks out. And then the explosion. My heart stops every time.”

  I paused, propping the phone to my ear with my shoulder and wiping my hands on the side of my long blouse.

  “I was worried, too,” I admitted, though I held back that I was mostly worried about the man who’d almost died trying to stop it.

  “Esme…” she trailed off, my confident friend suddenly not too sure of what she was about to say. “I have to ask… Mathieu begged me to ask… The man with the scars—Quinton… Have you seen him?”

  I froze.

  My heart felt like a single solitary gong of the bell tolling in my chest before it went silent, letting the heavy beat radiate fear through my body.

  “No, I haven’t,” I lied. And I lied easily. In fact, I lied and the words escaped easier than the next breath I drew. “Why?”

  “W-What do you mean? Haven’t you seen the news?”

  “No.” My voice was thick and tense. “What’s on the news?”

  “Oh, Esme. The videos. The footage… They’re saying that Quinton is responsible for the whole thing a-and that he killed three men who tried to stop it.”

  I reached out but there was nothing around me to hold on to as I collapsed onto the wooden floor, each gasp for air feeling like I dragged in nothing but water that was rapidly filling my lungs to drown me.

  “They’re blaming him?” I choked out, barely registering the thunder and lightning that began to burst over the city, raging against its foolish inhabitants.

  “Well, not exactly,” she explained. “Monsieur Bonheur told the police he saw a man with a half-scarred face approach you from where the fight broke out. And then, after the explosion, saw the same man fighting two other injured men, killing them, and tucking what looked like more explosives into his jacket.”

  My mouth went dry.

  Quinton had told me about the other explosives when we talked about what happened. How he’d thrown them into the river, letting the water render them useless, before returning to the cathedral.

  He’d taken them to save the crowd. To get the bombs away from innocent people at the risk of his own life.

  “They don’t know his name. No one does. Well, except us… because of Léo.” She paused to swallow. “But Léo hasn’t been able to contact him, that’s why I asked—why Mathieu wanted to ask. We haven’t said anything… but they’re looking for him, and Léo’s afraid he doesn’t know.”

  I cried, tears soaking down my cheeks.

  “Esme?” I stared out in a daze, hardly hearing her. “Esme!”

  “Yes. Sorry. I just… I can’t believe it.”

  There was another pause, and I knew my response was quickly torpedoing the lie I’d presented her as truth.

  “Why not?” she asked quietly.

  Possessiveness. Protectiveness. Whatever it was that surged through me was unfiltered and fierce.

  “Because it’s a lie, Giselle,” I bit out, curling my fist into my shirt. “I was there. I was on that stage. I looked out in the crowd and saw as the fight began right before I looked down in front of me and saw Quinton standing there, coming to protect me.”

  “Esme—”

  “No,” I cried out, interrupting her. Even though I knew it wasn’t her making the accusations… even though I knew she, like her husband and Quinton’s friend, Léo, were actively trying to protect him, I still lashed out. “He tried to protect me and then he tried to protect those people,” I declared viciously. “If he hadn’t attacked those three men, that bomb would’ve detonated inside the crowd rather than at its periphery. And two more alongside it had he not fought, not in—”

  I broke off with a loud gasp, clapping a hand over my mouth, my finger slipping against the tears that covered it.

  “Esme…” A different kind of worry entered her voice. “Are you sure you haven’t seen him?”

  I didn’t pause. Didn’t even hesitate. “Yes. Not since that night.”

  I didn’t care.

  I didn’t care what she knew or whose side she was on. I didn’t care that she was my friend and she might only be trying to help.

  All I cared about was the broken man who’d sacrificed everything to save me.

  If he hadn’t come to me, would they have seen him? If he hadn’t been worried about me, would he have been able to stop the riot from the shadows?

  If he hadn’t saved me, would he have been spared becoming the villain?

  I forced the lump in my throat back down where it belonged.

  I didn’t have many things that I truly considered mine. Not a home. Not a job. Not even my name.

  My work… I glanced at the laser. That was mine.

  And Q… I shuddered. Somewhere along the line, he’d become mine, too.

  My gargoyle. My monster. My savior.

  And mine to protect.

  And knowing all of what had been taken from him, I couldn’t—wouldn’t trust anyone with where he was or what he’d told me.

  “I haven’t seen him, Giselle. I’m sorry,” I repeated, my voice steady and calm even though the turmoil inside me raged far worse than the storm. “I have to get back to work. I’ll call you soon.”

  I clicked off the phone without giving her a chance to ask any further, let alone say goodbye.

  I stared at Emmanuel, the bourdon, in front of me. The largest bell of the set which produced the lowest tone.

  I felt like the bourdon. Heavy and somber, wondering how I was ever going to lift the weight—a weight that felt similar to the twenty-nine-thousand-pound bell—in order to make a sound.

  Looking out the window of the tower, I saw the rain coming down in such thick sheets it was almost impossible to see any piece of Paris through it. It was as though God himself had sent another flood to rid it of evil.

  Pulling myself up, I set my scanner to start before sinking back to the floor. I thought I’d have a few hours to try to sort through my feelings for Quinton before seeing him again.

  Instead, I had to figure out how to tell him what I’d learned.

  I had to figure out a way to tell him how the public was reacting to the events of the other night. My chest constricted again. And here, I thought his physical wounds would be the hardest thing to heal.

  But how did you tell a man that the city he’d given everything to protect believed him to be at the heart of its destruction?

  Quinton

  My lips thinned with both fear and frustration as I paused at the doorway to the crosswalk.

  She’d told me to stay put—and I would have—except the damn woman didn’t come back. And when I heard the storm pick up and the rain begin to beat against the rose window with the violence of an unhinged mob, my heart slammed against my chest in fear that something had happened.

  That she tripped. Or slipped.

  That she’d fallen and was injured or—

  The thunder drowned out my growl as I strode out into the deluge, limping across the stone walk as fast as I could, heading for the south tower. Truthfully, my side hurt less than the sprained or, more likely, torn ligaments in my knee.

  My face was pelted with the rain as I looked up, trying to catch a glimpse of Esme. Swearing when I couldn’t see anything, I instead satisfied myself w
ith the knowledge that I didn’t see her dangling from any edge and hadn’t found any of her equipment bags abandoned in the rain.

  The need to find her drowned out the pain of the last stairwell as I finally barreled through the door to the damp and heavily beamed bell tower.

  “Q!” She gasped in surprise at the other end of the room, looking up from her camera as I invaded her shot.

  My chest heaved first with relief and then with frustration.

  “What are you doing?” she demanded an instant later, disappearing from my sight for a moment through the maze of structural beams erected to support the tower and the massive bells, and reappearing again without her camera around her neck. “You shouldn’t be here. I told you to stay in bed. Your shoulder—Your knee!”

  At her cry, I glanced down, wondering if I’d lost the lower half of my leg the way she reacted. But seeing that it was still there—still attached at the joint—albeit still swollen underneath the wrap she’d stabilized it with, I returned my glare to her.

  “What am I doing? What the hell are you doing, Gypsy?” I demanded, trying my best not to limp as I approached her.

  “Me?” she replied, indignantly. “I’m doing my work—I’m doing what I told you I would!” Her eyes flared as I closed the space between us, grunting as I carefully navigated the path outlined for tourists that still involved avoiding canted and low hanging beams. “Why are you here? Why did you move—”

  “Because it’s a damned torrent out there,” I snapped, flinging my arm toward her—toward the window behind her where the rain blew in with each gust, “and here you are, with your fifty pounds of shit crammed into a few bags, traipsing all over the cathedral.”

  Her eyes widened as I towered over her, invading every inch of her space so there was no doubt how fucking serious I was right now. No doubt how fucking scared.

  “Merde, you took so long I thought maybe you tripped or slipped and fell—that I’d come out here only to look over the edge and find you—” I broke off, hating how I couldn’t even bring myself to finish the worst of my thoughts.