He truly was a monster.

  It was hard to fathom that he was still chasing me after all of these years. How long had he been searching for gargoyle statues to restore? How many had he wasted his money on? How many had he destroyed in a fit of rage when I did not come out of them?

  Why was he still pursuing me?

  Getting up from the couch, I walked over to the chair Peony was sleeping on. I carefully slid one arm under her knees and slid the other around her back to scoop her up. She started to stir, but I quickly shushed her until she relaxed against me.

  Then, I carried her to her bedroom. Her bed was unmade, so I laid her down on the side that I assumed was hers, resting her head on the pillow. I covered her up and made my way out of the room as quietly as I could, closing the door behind me.

  Somehow, in all the talking we had done, I forgot to ask her where I was going to be sleeping or to ask for some bedding to make myself comfortable. The couch looked comfortable enough, and it wasn't particularly cold inside. I would be okay for one night.

  I had survived much worse—and spent nights in less comfortable places over my extended lifetime. One blanket-less night was not going to kill me.

  Chapter Six

  PEONY

  I woke up in my bed the next morning with no recollection of how I ended up there. It didn't take me long to reason that the gargoyle man in the other room must have put me to bed like a small child who falls asleep in the car.

  I probably wouldn't tell him, but I appreciated it. If I had slept on the chair, like I had many times before, I would have woken up with a crick in my neck that would have put a huge damper on my job for the day.

  I slid out of bed and stretched, trying to prepare my body for the work that was ahead. Since I showered the night before and didn't need another so soon, I went into my bathroom and started getting ready for the day.

  Once I was dressed and ready, I went to see what Thiebaut was up to.

  Surprisingly, he was still passed out asleep on my couch. One leg was thrown off the edge, resting on the floor, the other was on the back of the couch. His right arm was laying up over his head, and the other was laying across his chest.

  I couldn't stop myself from taking a moment to gaze at his physique unnoticed. He was like a hand-sculpted Renaissance sculpture come to life. And there he was, just sleeping on my couch.

  If we weren't in real danger, I would have been thinking much dirtier thoughts. As it was, I just didn't have the time.

  Instead of bothering him yet, I went to the kitchen and put on a pot of coffee. I threw some bacon in a pan on the stove and spread out a can of biscuits on a baking sheet to put in the oven. It wasn’t much, but it was the best I could do on short notice.

  After the biscuits were in the oven, I decided to start cleaning up a little while I waited for things to cook. It had been a long time since I had anyone over at my place, and things had gotten a little messy.

  When I wasn’t actively dating, I let things slide a little, and it had been months since my last partner.

  I was so busy tidying up that I forgot about the bacon actively cooking on the stove until the smoke alarm started going off, quickly triggering the smoke alarms in other rooms.

  Thiebaut shot up off the couch like a rocket and immediately started looking around for danger.

  “What is going on?” he yelled.

  “It's nothing. I burned my bacon,” I called back as I raced to the kitchen. If I didn't get there quickly, it was bound to catch on fire. I knew from experience.

  By the time I reached the kitchen, the bacon was a lost cause. I turned off the eye and grab the pan by the handle, tossing it into the sink.

  “Why didn't you wake me up?” he asked from the kitchen doorway as he stretched.

  His abs rippled, and my eyes were instantly drawn to his sex lines, those lovely muscle cuts on either side of his torso that led tauntingly into his pants.

  I quickly caught myself before he realized what I was doing and snapped my eyes back to his face.

  “After being trapped in a stone form for decades, I thought you could use a really good night of sleep on a mostly comfortable couch. You were sleeping so well I didn't want to bother you.”

  “I appreciate that, but you didn’t have to. I know we don’t have a lot of time to work with right now.”

  Thiebaut

  “I burned all of the bacon, and I can’t stand the look or smell of cooked eggs right now. But I do have some biscuits that are about to come out of the oven. There is butter and jam in the fridge. Local honey by the coffee maker. Let’s at least eat some breakfast first,” Peony said.

  “Okay.”

  We ate our breakfast in silence, both of us aware of the direness of the situation we were in the middle of. I looked up a couple of times when she wasn’t paying attention to get a better look at her.

  Her red hair was in a messy bun on the top of her head. Well, mostly on top. It was starting to slip a little, letting a few ringlets fall down to cup her cheek. Her hazel eyes glinted with hints of gold and were rimmed with long, reddish-brown eyelashes.

  A faint dusting of freckles went from one side of her face across the bridge of her nose and to the other side. She was lovely.

  The most beautiful woman I had come across in a very long time.

  I cleared the table at the end of our meal and rinsed the dishes before setting them in the sink.

  “Are all gargoyles this polite?” she asked as she got up from the table.

  “The good ones are.”

  “Good to know.” She paused for a second. “My studio is downstairs. The room you . . . woke up in yesterday. We can go ahead and go down there now if you’re ready to get started.”

  “No time like the present.”

  As we started to the basement, Peony got about halfway down the stairs and looked back at me.

  “I did realize one thing while I was cleaning,” she said. She chewed on the side of her cheek for a second. “Since I’m not proficient enough in stonework, I will have to make the replica in clay and probably bake it in pieces that I will have to figure out how to put together. It won’t fool him forever—and he probably won’t be happy when he realizes that he’s been tricked.”

  “You’re not suggesting sending me back to him, right?”

  “Of course not!” She smacked at the air between us. “My point is that this is a temporary stopgap. It will only keep us safe for so long. I want you to be aware of the possibilities, Thiebaut.”

  “Then I will protect you until I can deal with him properly. I didn’t bring you into this, but I will keep you safe from the consequences of Rolant’s actions.”

  “Thank you.”

  A soft blush lit up her cheeks, or so I thought, at least. She turned her head quickly, so I couldn’t get a better look.

  “How long do you think this will take?”

  “I can't be sure, but it shouldn't be super difficult. I've made plenty of intricate, detailed pieces. I've just ever made anything this big before.”

  “I’m sure you will do fine.”

  Chapter Seven

  PEONY

  I felt like a jerk making Thiebaut go back into his stone form, but I couldn’t sculpt an exact replica from memory. It needed to be as precise as I could make it to buy us even a little bit of time to escape the danger we were facing.

  After some brainstorming, I decided to start with his face. It would be the most detailed part of the sculpt, and I would be able to give him more breaks to stretch his legs after I got that much out of the way.

  Once I had the main features blocked out, I got up from my chair and walked over to Thiebaut. I needed to look at his face up close, so I could make sure I knew what the next steps in the process should be.

  I ran my finger along the sharp angles of his jaw, wanting a more tactile approach to memorizing the shapes.

  While I was touching his face, Thibaut scared the wits out of me by transforming only his head back into his humanoid form.

  “Holy shit!” I screamed as I jumped back, nearly falling on my butt on the concrete floor of my workshop. “What in the heck are you doing right now? Trying to give me a heart attack? That’s one way to solve the problem, I guess.”

  “How am I supposed to stay still when you were touching my face like that?” he asked, his voice lower and raspier than it was earlier.

  “I have to touch you if you want me to get this thing right. I don’t know how well Rolant knows the statue he sent me, so I have to be as thorough as I can be, Thibaut. Let me do my job, okay?”

  “I will do my best but know that you are not making this easy for me.”

  “Back to stone, Mister. The sooner you cooperate, the sooner I can let you take a break. I want to get as much as I can on the face today.”

  “Oui, Mademoiselle.”

  I rolled my eyes at him as I watched his face turn back into the stone gargoyle. I touched his face a few more times. This time, painfully aware that he was conscious enough in this state to feel my hands brushing against him.

  I had to force myself to let it go and get back to work.

  I was so lost in the work that I was doing that I started to lose track of time. All that was important to me at that time was progressing on the statue. My eyes were locked on the clay in front of me, and I didn’t notice Thiebaut turn back into his human form.

  “The way you stare at me is so intense. Dedicated. It makes me want to get up, sweep you into my arms, and kiss you so hard that you lose your focus for a moment,” he said, breaking my concentration and catching me off guard.

  The tool in my hands slipped and clattered to the ground at my feet.

  “Maybe you should stay stone while I’m working, then.”

  “Oh, I’m hard enough right now.”

  My jaw nearly dropped.

  “Thiebaut!” I gasped in shock.

  His eyes rolled back in his head for a second, and he groaned. Or maybe it was a moan, either way, it surprised me yet again.

  “I love the way you say my name.”

  “What are you doing?” I asked as I got up from my chair and walked over to him.

  Thiebaut

  “Struggling to keep my wits about myself when you are looking at me like that,” I admitted to her.

  This time, I was certain she blushed at my words.

  “Why are you doing this right now? Your life is in danger. My life is in danger. Do we really have time for this?” she asked.

  “I can’t help it, Peony. The way you’ve been looking at me, it’s driving me crazy. I can barely hold my stone form because I can’t stop thinking about scooping you up in my arms and carrying you upstairs for a while. I know I’ve been stressing how urgent this is, but I’m struggling to keep my focus now.”

  “Thiebaut . . .”

  I stepped closer to her but didn’t touch her.

  “Tell me you don’t feel something between us. I’ve seen you checking me out more than a couple of times since you woke me up.”

  “So, that’s just physical. You look good, yes, especially in those damn sweatpants. It’s impossible for me not to be attracted to you.”

  “Isn’t that how things start? You see someone you want to get to know, so you do it, right?”

  “Yes, but . . .”

  “But what?”

  “But they’re not usually in a life-or-death situation.”

  “That seems like the best time to me. If we don’t know how much time we have left before we need to run, why not take advantage of it just a little?”

  “Why are you doing this right now?”

  “Because now is what we have.”

  Peony cocked an eyebrow at me, but she didn’t say a word as she waited for me to explain myself further.

  “I have been stuck in my stone form for decades. I thought there was no chance of me ever getting to escape that prison and be in this form ever again. I used to wish for someone to finally destroy me enough to release my spirit from the stone, so I could have some relief. Instead, the universe sent you. At the hands of my arch-nemesis. That doesn’t matter.

  You brought me back to life, all the way back to life in ways I was not expecting. In all of my years walking this Earth, I have never felt so drawn to another. When I first came to, I thought I was imagining it. The way the saved falls in love with the savior. But it’s more than that. And I don’t think we have the time for me to wait to tell you. We are about to have to run for our lives, and I want you to know where my head is at before we get to that point. I want you to know how I’m feeling now before you blame it on the thrill of being chased across the globe.”

  “This is a lot. It's insane. And sudden. And very unexpected. I’m supposed to be sculpting a gargoyle right now, not . . . this.”

  “What if I promise to back off—until we’re safe?”

  “What does safe mean? Does that mean safely hidden from your enemy or does it mean when this whole thing is over and you’ve won?”

  “The second one. Your safety comes first. We can figure out us once we’re sure there will actually be an us one day. When we can stop running and see if there is something real here.”

  Peony was quiet for several seconds, making my heart beat a little faster in my chest in anticipation.

  “When my life is not on the line . . . yeah. I would like to grab some coffee together or go to the movies or something like that to see if there could be something between us. As long as we can get back to work soon. We won’t stand a chance if I don’t get the replica made in time.”

  “Deal.”

  Chapter Eight

  PEONY

  It took a few days longer than I thought it would to get the whole thing sculpted, dried, fired, and assembled, especially with the sexual tension hanging in the air between us, but we still managed to get it finished under the deadline that I had set with Rolant.

  Together, we packaged it up and got it ready for pickup. Then, we packed up all of my things to put in storage aside from a couple of suitcases worth of clothes, accessories, and other things I thought I couldn't live without.

  We grabbed some bus tickets under a fake name and made our way out of Texas. Once we were at least one state over, we'd figure out a more permanent destination. If we could figure out how to get him on a plane without ID, we would fly. Otherwise, we would be stuck with buses for a little while.

  The fake statue was set to be picked up two days after we disappeared, hopefully giving us a head start on everything. We didn’t know how swift he would come after us, but I didn’t expect the fake to fool him for very long at all.

  I still wasn't sure exactly what I got myself into when I accepted that restoration job. I had never been in this position before. All I know is that I restored a gargoyle in Galveston, and now we were on the run.

  And maybe we would have a future someday down the road.

  You can keep up with Brigitte Ann Thomas Here:

  https://www.brigitteannthomas.com/

  The Speeding Ticket

  BY: PHOEBE ALEXANDER

  Chapter One

  JACOB

  I hate it when the teacher across the hall makes me late to pick up my son. She stands in my classroom like we’re getting paid overtime to shoot the shit about how our kids behaved today—only we don’t. Hell, we don’t get paid for any of the extra shit we do.

  Now I’m late to pick up Dylan. Not that my mom will mind, but she does get a little crabby if I’m late on Fridays because she and my dad take my grandad to bingo on Friday nights. He likes to get there by five o’clock. The whole thing is over by eight.

  I’m cruising down the highway, eight miles to my parents’ exit. When I moved back to the area in the fall, there weren’t any openings at the elementary in Ennis, Texas, where I’d gone to school. Only in Palmer, the next town over. Now my brain is wandering somewhere between the conversation I had with the teacher across the hall about her sister, who is single, and how badly my ex-wife fucked me over when she ran way with her boss and abandoned our son.

  The car in front of me slows down and cruises over toward the shoulder. In my rearview mirror, I see flashing red, white and blue lights. “Oh, fuck, better get over too.” My foot automatically slams on the brakes, and I roll along the shoulder, not thinking much of it.

  Until I realize the police cruiser has parked right behind me. Are you fucking serious? Shit. Was I speeding?

  It feels like an eternity before the black and white SUV’s door opens and a tiny uniformed officer slides out. She looks no bigger than one of my fourth-grade students compared to her ride. The colorful lights are still spinning as she makes her approach, and my heart starts to pound against my ribcage. It’s been a long time since I’ve gotten a ticket. Maybe I’m due. This little lady is gonna give me hell, isn’t she?

  Her hat is pulled down low, so I can’t see her face, only the generous swell of her hips and the way her thighs fill out her uniform pants. With the bulky vest under her uniform shirt, it’s hard to say if she’s curvy on top. She’s a short, thick girl, and I have a feeling her attitude is going to be right in line with her figure.

  I roll down my window, anticipating the usual question: “Do you know why I pulled you over today?” My carefully crafted plan involves playing dumb.

  Instead, her lips go from being pinched together in a straight line to popping wide open as she stares at me. As soon as she lifts her chin, I realize why. My eyes land on her metal nameplate as recognition swells inside me: Morales.

  “Jake?” She’s just standing there beside my car, peering into my window, seemingly frozen.

  Fuck. It can’t be.

  “Allie?”