to the roof. Once there, he drew her close, so gently she realized how easy it would be for him to injure her through carelessness. A surge of dangerous warmth swept over her. It was foolish to be drawn to things that could harm her, but she trusted the gargoyle. Trusted him far more than she trusted the New York City nights that she ran through every evening. Any man could be dangerous the way Alban was: strong, certain of himself, sensual. And the city where she jogged nightly had none of the gargoyle’s gentle side, no need or desire to protect without possessing.
Possessing. The word lingered in her mind, bringing color to her cheeks as Margrit curled herself against him. More than one person had treated her as a trinket in the past day, but Alban, who might have seemed the most possessive of them all, had nothing of that in his touch. His heartbeat was steady and slow beneath her cheek, making her own seem absurdly quick in counterpoint, but there was nothing inhuman about the arm he slipped around her waist. Solid, but not like stone. Simply like a man, warm muscle and sinew holding her safe.
Margrit closed her eyes, tightening her grip around Alban’s neck. “I’ve never done this.”
He chuckled, his breath stirring her hair. “I would think not.”
She looked up to find a teasing smile turned down at her, and felt laughter well in response. “I meant at all.” She bumped her hip against his in admonition, smiling even as the action made him draw her against him a little more solidly. “I’ve never flown.”
Alban ducked his head toward hers. “Then this will spoil you for your people’s methods of flight.” He crouched, then sprang straight upward, unhindered by Margrit’s weight.
Space imploded around her as he shifted forms within the circle of her arms. Blood tingled beneath her skin, pinpricks shivering over every inch of her until she was achingly aware of Alban’s body pressed against hers. There was no human softness left to him, his muscles stronger and ropier than they had been moments before. His face changed, centimeters from her own, with rougher lines replacing the more familiar human form, and warm white hair washed over her forearms like heated stone. His wings spread, so close and broad they blocked out what few stars shone through city lights, though the crescent moon made a spot of brightness through the thin membrane. Not human, but his body heat and the way he cradled her told her he was still far from stone.
A thrill bordering on panic fluttered in Margrit’s stomach, pulling laughter from her. Her body stung with need, a runner’s high pushed to the point of ecstasy and desire. She tilted her head back, making a vulnerable line of her throat, and pressed her breasts against Alban’s chest as she arched in his arms. Her breath was torn away, tears streaming from her eyes as the wind straightened her hair and slapped strands of it against her cheeks. Buildings sailed by beneath them, their familiar forms utterly changed from this new vantage. Margrit heard herself laughing and pulled herself up against Alban again, burying her face in his shoulder. “This is fantastic.”
Given the rush of wind in her own ears, she was uncertain he could hear her, but he laughed, a deep sound of delight that seemed to shiver through Margrit’s body. “I thought it would suit you.”
“It does.” The impulse to curl her leg over his hip to hold herself closer to him sent a deep jolt of desire through her groin. The impulse was as alarming as it was appealing, and Margrit shoved it away, stretching into the wind.
As if it was less dangerous to trust the gargoyle with her life than to find him desirable. Margrit let go her hold around Alban’s neck with first one arm, then the other. She curved back, making a rainbow arch, until only the gargoyle’s grip around her waist kept her from falling hundreds of feet through the air. Delight and fear shivered through her like a drug, heightening her awareness of tactile sensations. The wind against her face cut like ice shards, tasting clean and cold so far above the city. Exquisite counterpoint came from Alban’s warmth where her hips pressed into his. Heat surged through her again, this time mingled with laughter that she didn’t dare release. Arching into the wind had not been the way to escape her growing awareness of the intimacy offered by sharing the sky with a gargoyle. Another blush and shiver seized her, sheer curiosity making her wonder if a winged creature could make love to an unwinged one in the air.
“Margrit?” Alban’s voice, always low, seemed to carry more question in it than usual. Perhaps she wasn’t the only one becoming ever more aware of the familiarity of their pose. Margrit caught her lower lip between her teeth, deliberately twisting to look down on the city beneath them.
The lights were bright and stationary despite the wind that flattened her hair into her eyes. Flight, to her modern mind, was a method of rapid travel, leaving things behind in an instant, but with Alban it was different. For him it was a thing of nature, not languid, but not mechanically quick. Wholly natural, yet completely unnatural to human expectations.
“Aren’t you afraid you’ll be seen?” Even as she asked the question a pang of regret slipped through the heat building in her core. It wasn’t the response the gargoyle had looked for when he’d spoken her name. For an instant she wished she could take it back.
“I do not do this…often,” Alban rumbled after a moment, the deep granite of his voice cutting easily through the wind. “When I do, I try to stay above the towers, so no one simply looks out and notices me. It helps that I can only come out at night. City lights help block curious eyes looking up, and the sheer improbability of my existence helps people doubt what they see, if they do catch a glimpse of me. And,” he added prosaically, “I’m usually very, very careful.”
“Usually.” Margrit tilted her head back again, looking down at the streets gliding below. “This isn’t being careful.”
“No,” Alban agreed, “but I thought you might enjoy the scenic route. Hold on,” he advised. He cupped his hand behind her head, pulling her out of her arch and against his body again. Margrit slid an arm around his neck, closing her eyes and inhaling his scent in the instant before the wind ripped it away. He smelled like raw broken stone, newly shattered, an outdoors smell that Margrit was surprised she recognized, having been raised in the city. Alban banked, slowing, then rolled her in his arms, making her yelp as her eyes popped open with surprise.
The city was right side up. Alban still held her firmly around her waist, but instead of being pressed chest to chest with him, her hip fitted against his, her ribs stretched along his side and her arm wrapped securely behind his shoulder. The intimacy was gone. “You’ve done this before,” Margrit said into the wind.
“Not recently. What would you like to see?”
“The Chrysler Building,” Margrit said. Alban flashed a smile, no distress evident in his expression. Maybe the surge of want had been only on her part, she thought, but shook her head even as Alban banked again, climbing higher into the sky. Human or not, the gargoyle was male, and Margrit had felt evidence of his attraction when their hips had been pressed together. He might have been as uncertain as she of the right steps to take to address that interest.
Powerful muscle worked beneath her arm, Alban’s wings gathering air and pushing them higher as they angled through the city toward the glittering steel-peaked building. Triangular windows in the massive arches glowed yellow, blazing with friendly light. As they neared the skyscraper, Alban caught an updraft and soared on it, his great wings suddenly all but still. Margrit laughed breathlessly, reaching out as if she could touch the building.
“I must’ve seen this in a hundred movies,” she said. “I’ve been looking at this building from the ground my whole life. It didn’t seem so big.” She found herself counting the steel-framed stories that narrowed toward the spire, even though she knew there were seven of them. “Did you know they put that up in an hour and a half?”
“The spire?” Alban asked. A heavy shifting of muscle brought spread wings back into play, and he climbed the updraft to circle lazily around the top. The red light at its tip spilled down over them, a faint discoloration.
Margrit nodded. “So it could be the tallest structure in the world. They built the spire in the elevator shaft and mounted it without telling anybody they were going to. But the Chrysler Building only got to be the tallest for four months, before they finished the other one.” She nodded toward the distant Empire State Building, an embarrassed smile playing at her mouth. “I always felt a little sorry for it because of that. I like it more than the Empire State Building.”
“People seem to. Do you want to look at the eagles?”
“Yes!” Margrit laughed, then shrieked with panicked delight as Alban tucked his wings and went into a dive, plunging thirty stories. Wind ripped through her hair and she hid her face against his shoulder, trying to protect herself from the speed. His arms tightened around her reassuringly, and then with a jolt his wings flared again, catching the air and reversing the downward rush. An instant later he landed on the outstretched head of an
