Darkest Knight Read Online Free PDF Page B

anyway.
    “I also know about the newly made gargoyle who used to be your friend.”
    “Aydin is still my friend.” The flutter in my belly reminded me how my feelings ran deeper than mere friendship. “He may look different on the outside, but he’s the same man on the inside.”
    My grandmother made a huffing noise. “Don’t be so sure.”
    Her too? I plopped a glob of dough onto the pan. “You sound like Rafe.”
    She looked at me and arched both her eyebrows. “Oh yes, you gave Raphael a nickname.” She chuckled. “Rafe. It suits him.”
    I dug the spoon into the bowl. “I don’t get how he can be so judgy,” I said, then clamped my mouth shut before I could accuse her of being the same. We were just getting to know each other and I wanted her to like me. “I thought angels were supposed to be open-minded.”
    “He worries about you, Chalice.”
    I frowned, unused to anyone worrying about me unless they had an ulterior motive. It made me wonder if Rafe had one, too. “He’s a bit late, don’t you think?”
    “Don’t be so hard on him. Your enslavement by the Vyantara wasn’t his fault.” Her voice sounded soft, but I heard the steel underneath.
    “I’ve been on my own for a long time, Aurora. I know what’s best for me.”
    She shrugged. “Maybe you do, but you have us now. Isn’t it time to let those who care about you into your life?”
    I looked at her. “I’ve done that. Aydin cares about me. He saved my life.”
    Aurora’s chest heaved with a sigh. “Okay, I’ll give you that. We would have lost you if not for him.”
    Nodding, I said, “Exactly my point. Aydin’s a good man.”
    “But he’s not a man anymore. And that’s my point.”
    “Rafe isn’t a man, either.”
    “Touché.” She scooped a glob of peanut butter out of a jar and dropped it in the bowl she was stirring. “But he could be. It’s what he wants.”
    I blinked. “The only way that can happen is if…”
    My grandmother gave me a hard look. “Your grandfather and I have been happy together for over fifty years. He was a wonderful guardian angel, and he’s an equally wonderful man.”
    My skin heated at the thought of Rafe and I doing the wild thing. I didn’t think of him that way and it wouldn’t be right. It was hard enough being friends with the guy. He was more like an overprotective big brother than anything else.
    I rapidly dropped more dollops of dough onto the pan. “He and I don’t really know each other.”
    “That will change with time.”
    “He’s not my type.”
    “You two are more alike than you think.”
    This conversation was making me more uncomfortable by the second. “Don’t get your hopes up. I have other plans.”
    She folded her arms across her chest and waited for me to go on.
    “Aydin won’t be a gargoyle much longer.”
    Her expression softened when she said, “Honey, I know it’s hard to accept, but once humans have transformed—”
    “They can become human again by eating the heart of their bonded gargoyle.”
    Her eyes squinted in thought. “That old myth? Chalice, you’d have to kill a gargoyle to take its heart. The creature would turn to stone so fast you’d never get hold of it in time.”
    I glanced behind and around me to make sure we were alone. I peeled back the shield on my senses and heard murmurs from both men in the other room as well as three distinct heartbeats somewhere else in the house. I knew my grandparents had other knights living with them and the three I sensed were far enough away they couldn’t see us.
    I reached inside my inner jacket pocket and touched the warm chunk of polished stone that was Shojin’s heart. It seemed to pulse in my hand, though I knew my imagination got the best of me. The heart was just as dead as the gargoyle it came from.
    Treating it like a fragile piece of glass, I held it out for my grandmother to see.
    She looked puzzled before recognition brightened her eyes. “Oh, my.”
    I smiled, feeling warm affection