Page 64 of Of Monsters Of Kings

“You do not wish for me to see you?” he asked. “Are you shy, then, Perantiqua?”

Purrantiquaaah. His unusual pronunciation of my name always convinced me of his dire thirst.

He thirsted for me.

I’d grown up with the realities of the breeding pens and the ever-present threat of extinction. While I’d been kept busy surviving and caring for Mother when my peers started to explore their sexuality, and while I might not know many exact details of how physical intimacy worked, that wasn’t what worried me tonight. “I am not shy, no.”

“Then what unsettles you about revealing your body to me?”

I flushed at his words. “I’d rather not say, King See. It’s a hard matter for me, and for whatever reason, I’d prefer you not to know.”

“I would know of your hardships.”

“This is not one I would share just now.”

“If not now, then soon I hope.”

I lifted a shoulder. “Maybe.”

He stood, and I felt the press of his power. I’d be here all night, and so I slid down the wall to sit as his power forced my gaze to my knees. I curled my legs against my chest and rested my head there.

“I see you now,” he hushed. “You are curled in on yourself at the top of my stairs. Your head is turned, and your eyes squeezed shut. Your breath comes fast. Mistress, if you do not wish me to see your body, then I am content with seeing you as you are. When I asked to look upon you for a night, I did not mean that you must be naked. Wear what you will, and I shall marvel in your dusk beauty all the same.”

Tears stung my eyes. “If only my suitcase had known, sir. She has dressed me in the most ridiculous thing.”

“I need not see it unless you wish, ancient one.”

My voice wavered. “Thank you.”

There was a crunch and shattering of bone. “I turn my throne to better see you. Now, mistress, there will be silence so that I might study you at my leisure. Speak no more.”

I took to staring at my hands on my knees.

Was he thinking of how mismatched they were? How the shapes of my nails were all different, some oval and some round and some square?

“But how could one mere skin contain such exquisiteness,” See murmured. “The sense is perfect.”

I’d heard a similar comment, and how odd that someone should see me that way. The unevenness of my skin abhorred and repulsed, and yet others saw it as a natural consequence. They had no trouble accepting that one skin couldn’t have contained my uniquities.

The stone was hard, and I extended my legs to cross them at the ankle for a time. Thankfully, the woolen coat covered most of me from neck to knee, but as I moved, the coat slid off the gossamer robe beneath, revealing one of my legs to midthigh.

Did See notice? He was so quiet.

“Your long blonde hair is monstrous, if you don’t mind me saying so,” he said, voice pitched low.

I wondered on his words. I’d thought the same of the chiseled abdomens of his princes—how the convention of their abs had been such a delightful, horrible contrast to their more monstrous features. My blonde hair hadn’t changed from how it had been as a human. He was right. Monstrous indeed.

My behind was going numb. I drew my legs into a cross-legged position. The king inhaled sharply, and I peered down to see that shifting had exposed some of my stomach. Through the coat and gossamer robe. I made to close my wool coat again.

“Consider staying as such, mistress,” the king hushed.

My hand stilled at his awed request. He’d already seen the jagged stitch up my middle. “Okay,” I said, finding it hard to vocalize the single word. He sounded so amazed, and there was something heady about inspiring such.

I was painfully aware of the wool, long coat as the silence settled in, thicker and more cloying than before. The coat kept slipping off the robe beneath, and the stress of holding the coat edges together as the minutes ticked by made my breath stutter and my skin warm. I was fidgeting, half numb and half nervous. King See hadn’t spoken, but he must see how flustered I was becoming. And what for? All I had to do was sit here and hold my coat together. I shouldn’t feel warmer and more agitated by the second.

Him seeing me flustered was now a worse fate than him seeing more of my patches and stitches. Had an hour passed? Two?

“I need to take this coat off, King See.”

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