Page 29 of Of Monsters Of Kings

My instincts had warned me not to come, but panic had overridden them. “Thank you, Kingsie. I appreciate you clearing things up for me.”

I was unsure what to do about my monsterdom. The trickiest thing seemed to be believing this all existed. If I could figure that out, maybe the rest would be easy.

“Incredible,” he muttered. “I find myself curious again. Mistress, would you mind if I looked upon your new form?”

Looked upon me. “You’d like to see my stitches and skin, sir?” I wrung my hands.

“Yes, mistress. It is not every day that another monster is made, and there is never a day when I am blind to a monster just made or otherwise.”

Kingsie didn’t move, awaiting my answer. My instinct was to refuse, yet perhaps he could glean something from looking at me. Didn’t Is say his liege would want to look? If there was a way to undo this damage and monsterdom, then Kingsie would know.

“You can look,” I whispered.

He stood slower this time. My gaze lowered to the stone floor as he turned toward me, and the balloon of his power extended between us.

I swallowed when time extended overlong, then wrung my hands again. “What can you tell from the sight of me, Kingsie?”

He didn’t answer, and I heard his sharp intake of breath.

A second swallow didn’t rid me of the lump in my throat. I blinked several times to contain the fat tears easing from my eyes, and yet a few escaped to trek down my cheeks. More fell when the first of them gathered on stitches near my jawline, reminding me what an atrocity I’d become. “I have not looked. I-I fear I’m horrendous.”

I closed my eyes against the awfulness of the encounter.

“You are far, far more beautiful than yesterday, mistress,” Kingsie hushed. “What an exquisite creature. An impossibly exquisite creature.”

I would’ve looked up if I could. Instead, I gazed at the stone and felt stumped. Exquisite creature. “I don’t see how I could be so, mismatched and mended as I am.” I gestured down my body, and recalled the skull on my T-shirt.

My cheeks flushed, and Kingsie sucked in another sharp breath.

“You blush midnight black, mistress. What a sight to behold, and I having thought myself to have seen all the world had to offer.”

I pulled at the skull T-shirt. “It’s just that I don’t wish you to think I dressed in this T-shirt because I’m infatuated or obsessed. I was not concerned about picking clothes in my rush to get here, and?—”

“Why would I believe you obsessed?”

“Because you’re a skull and there’s a skull on my shirt.”

“Ah, I recall what I am considered.” The king lingered a moment more, then the balloon-like force of his power pressing against my body eased. My head could lift as he took his throne once more.

I rubbed my forehead, and a stitch on my right temple caught at a stitch on my wrist. I quickly lowered my arm. “Could I trouble you for another answer, sir?”

“I wonder if some blindness might be refreshing on occasion,” he said to himself. “You may ask.”

“Are there many monsters like us?”

“You are not a monster like me. But yes, there are some monsters. Not many at all. Very few, in fact, and none you would wish to know better.”

He sounded angry about the last part. To only have some others like me, and none worth knowing sounded lonely. But no different to life before monsterdom. “I’ll leave you to your possibilities now. Thank you for helping, Kingsie.”

My heart ached after our conversation and also didn’t. Maybe if he hadn’t seen much in my monster form to abhor, then I didn’t look as bad as feared.

“You have a delightful way of speaking, mistress, I will admit. I’ve not heard my name uttered so.”

Bother, I’d messed up again. “You aren’t called Kingsie?”

“I am, but most speak my title as two words. King See.”

I stared at his blur on the throne. “King See. A real king?” I could see where I’d gone wrong with the name.

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