Page 153 of Monsters in Love: Lost in the Underworld

Nygohl gives me a wry smile and nods to the wall, his gaze roving over the images. “I have spent weeks roaming along these halls—committing them to memory. His image appears repeatedly along with the words Haskan, the unnamable, the primordial dark king who rules all the kings of the underworld. There are other images further in, images of the Lamentari and the creatures of the gloom, and the monstrous nature of parts of the living forest that sheds and gathers the weeping essence of the dead to slake their own hunger.”

I swallow nervously as I wrack my brain. There is a hint of something familiar about this but my education in the lore and history of the underworld was more of a crash course as part of my basic training.

“The high king,” I whisper to myself and glance uncertainly toward Nygohl. “Is this… is this moment that the high king carved out the lands of the dead?”

The wraith tips his head in acknowledgement. “That is how they tell it—as if he is a great vanquisher who, by his power, createda place of peace and safety beneath his authority and the great kings and judges of the great court. But you will see—” his rasps, his voice growling hollower as he slowly fades behind the light of his spirit fire until his invisible hand closes, snuffing out his flame and helping him to vanish right before our eyes. “Come,” he calls, his voice echoing in a long sigh. “There is more that you must see. Decisions to make if you truly wish to put your hands on me.”

A wicked chuckle follows his words, the double entendre hitting deep as the heat rushes up into my cheeks once more and eliciting a sharp snarl of rebuke from the Giwung beside me.

“Shameless male. He wishes that I remove his head with one bite,” Jugong growls, his teeth snapping together loudly for emphasis. He crowds closer to me, his wings practically trembling as they fan uneasily around us. It is as if they are straining against his desire to snap them closed around us once more but are restrained solely by his desire to protect us. “He thinks he is clever with his tricks, but he stinks of his interest. He will see. I will rip his cock from his body and see if his shadows can replace it with a new one if he gets too close to what’s mine.”

I pat Jugong’s arm soothingly. His words don’t surprise me. Giwung are often protective of those they bond with—it is one of their finer characteristics, especially among the large Gigungs. The vehemence in which he speaks them does catch me a little off guard but I decide after a moment of consideration that it is acceptable. It actually gives me a bit of the warm fuzzies because for a while there was a very real fear that at some point, he would break the bond to go hunt out a mate since I had lured in a male in his prime rather than a juvenile.

It has been pretty destressing actually in recent years and given me plenty of sleepless nights rather properly energy cycling and refreshing as all things in the underworld—even the dead—need to do. This level of possessiveness and protection could very well mean that he has bonded completely to me, to the point of negating his urge to mate hunt. I haven’t heard it happening with Giwungs but a little flicker of hope ignites within my heart and it is all I can do to keep myself from grabbing onto him with excitement. Instead, I allow my eyes to drift back to the carving of the Haskan. I nod toward it, drawing Jugong’s attention to the image.

“Do you know anything about this story?”

The male’s wings flutter slightly but he grunts softly, his large body tucking closer to mine. For once I don’t mind the fact that I’m getting jabbed yet again with the log between his legs. I know that Giwung are a very social species among their family groups, so he instinctively seeks out closeness. It is natural that he does so now. Hell, even I’m savoring the contact and the heat of his massive body against mine.

His wings stir in a tiny motion that he does when he wants me to keep moving. I get the feeling that it is making him uneasy to just stand there in the hall, and I can’t say that I blame him. The walls devolve to more chaotic paintings for a time, interspersed with more processional scenes of skeletons in the flickering candlelight. The gods in the foreground change position, the things in their hands changing and their placement arranged differently among themselves except for the Haskan at the fore. Some of them appear to grasp various monsters in some scenes, mauling them or being brutally attacked by them. The skeletons suffer more. There are those that are broken and torn apart or carried off by monsters. It is one such scene that Jugong stops infront of, a frown pulling at the corner of his mouth as he stares at it for a time.

“The Giwung caverns saw light for the first time when the gods descended and joined the primordial dark mother. She walked among the great expanse of the blessed lands, giving succor and care for all of her children—until they came, and their ruler entered her bridal chamber. The blessed lands were often dangerous, but it was a balance that allowed all to thrive. When the gods came, they plunged their fire into the pits to illuminate them and the Giwung were blinded and in pain and surfaced from the pits for the first time. We adapted and saw that this was good to not always be constrained within the pit and darkness of the underworld nights, and many came into the service of the gods. Many nests relocated to pits within the domain established by the gods, and so you have seen it for yourself,” he adds, his mouth quirking at the shared memory between us.

I smile in turn, but it fades quickly as my gaze catches once again on the violent scene. Clearly the relationship between the Giwung and the infernal gods was not quite so neatly established. Nor was the arrival of the gods a simple matter of romance. My gaze falls on a veiled queenly figure standing behind the Haskan, nearly lost among the images of the other familiar underworld gods crowded around her. He holds her by the wrist, leading her forward but her head almost seems to be bowed. She holds one hand upraised, clutching a single flower. There is something that strikes me as so sorrowful about her appearance but if I had to put it into words, I wouldn’t know where to start to describe it.

“Come,” Jugong rumbles, his wings fanning me lightly so that I look away from the wall and over to him instead. His earsare twitching which tells me that he released another sonic vocalization, but the tension eases a little in his face as his mouth curls with relief. “Come Marie, there is a safe place here we can rest.”

That is good news if I ever heard it, and I give him a grateful smile as I allow him to herd me further down the hall and into a narrow entrance that opens into a room that is barely large enough for us to lay side by side. Jugong seems to get a sense of the situation quickly and solves the problem by dropping to the ground and opening his arms and wings for me. Although this isn’t the first time that we have slept together in such a way, for some reason I feel oddly shy as I lower myself onto him. The awkwardness persists as his arms and wings fold around me but as I lay there, enjoying the rhythm of his breath and heartbeat, a deep calm rolls through me. I blink groggily and swear that I see the wraith’s fiery eyes staring from outside the entrance, but I do not feel the least bit threatened—I feel lulled with a sense of peace and protection. Despite my surroundings I feel entirely safe, and I sleep with Jugong’s purr rumbling in my ear.

The wraith is closerwhen we wake. He still doesn’t dare to come too close, but he is closer than before, his gaze flicking between us and often lingering on me in a speculative manner lighting their depths though his face reveals nothing of his inner thoughts. I study him whenever I have the chance as we walk through the ruined temple. He is flickering less into his shadow form than previously, so his silhouette is easy to see between the candlelight of the inner temple that always seems to be lit and the dim sunlight filtering down through the cracks and missing sections of the temple’s roof.

In the temple courtyard where the sunlight more freely shines down through the iron grating that extends as a protective barrier from one high wall to the other, his pale sculpted features are more defined even within the fog that slowly trickles into the courtyard, and the darkness of his silhouette even sharper and starker. He seems to suck up the light, leaving the blackness of his garb and hair like a black hole. He is like a dark angel of the abyss or ancient, night born celestial standing before me.

I would like to say that I am merely sizing up my prey in the manner that I frequently catch Jugong doing but that would be further from the truth than I would be comfortable admitting to. There is an otherworldly quality that seems to define him and sets him apart even here where the average human is merely a civilian ghost among numerous other beings who inhabit this world. Considering that I’ve been on the job for a few years now since my death, you would think that I would’ve become accustomed to seeing males so alien to me—especially since his appearance is not that odd. Aside the small black horns on his brow, he looks like any other attractive man, or perhaps some sort of pop idol, that girls my age had lusted over.

But that otherness that stems from him being a primordial race of beings born of the first energies of death and destruction is uncontainable and impossible to ignore. Even when his flames are tamped down, I can see still the subtle cold flicker of them in his gaze. Ice and shadows. Cold beauty with an icy touch so different to the warmth I cleave to when I am with Jugong. And yet, when Nygohl looks at me, those flames come alive and in the depths of the blue fire I swear that there is a scorching heat that seers into me that I can’t help reacting to.

Regardless, I have to admit that he’s definitely what I would have called my type. In fact, if this had been before I would have privately claimed “I lick him he’s mine” dibs in my inner thoughts the moment I laid eyes on him.

“He is prey, not a prospective mate,” Jugong unexpectedly grumbles as I lean forward and drink my fill from a natural spring that the temple courtyard seems to have been constructed around. “You look at the wraith too much.”

My lips twitch with amusement as I straighten and wipe my mouth with the back of my hand. “Choosing a mate is not exactly in my immediate plans. Don’t tell me you’re jealous,” I tease.

I wait for the strange growly coughing sound of the Giwung’s laugh but Jugong doesn’t even crack a smile. If anything, his expression grows more severe, his nostrils flaring. His wings and long tail twitch simultaneously, letting me know that he is a little more than just annoyed.

“You say that, but I know what I can smell and hear,” he huffs.

Now I’m also frowning and feeling a little defensive. He can’t possibly be able to determine anything from scent or smell, especially when I am having conflicting feelings here regarding his strange appeal. And most definitely, absolutely do not want a mate. I have enough on my plate without trying to navigate the feelings and needs of a male in addition to those I agreed to be saddled with when I decided to lure in Jugong. I would have to be insane.

I blame this forest and most especially being stuck in this temple with the haunting allure of the wraith rather than just being able to do my job and get it done with. I’ve never beenforced into prolonged proximity with my prey before—it’s not my department. I bag them and call for the pickup. But Nygohl’s trick has turned such a simple methodology entirely on its head. I dry my hands on my pant’s leg and squint over at the wraith in question.

“So what’s the deal here?” I ask, gesturing to the grating above me. “What’s with the birdcage? Just what sort of temple is this, anyway? You said that there was more to see but aren’t explaining anything.”

Nygohl turns toward me and his lips curve wickedly. “You are right,” he agrees with shocking ease. Spreading his arms wide, he slowly circles in place, gesturing to the entirety of the space around us. “Although many of the carvings and décor came later before the temple was abandoned altogether by its keepers, this place was built to very specific specifications designed for the Haskan’s purpose. Everything within this temple is designed towards those ends. As for that,” he says as he points at the grating, his smile widening devilishly, “do you want to see?”

I squint at him suspiciously but then shrug. It is grating and pretty damn solid from all appearances. What exactly could he even do with it to be worried about? All the same, I ease my hand onto my blaster and take a step back closer to a snarling Jugong as I coolly return his smile.

“Go for it, Houdini.”

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