Page 46 of Monsters in Love: Lost in the Underworld

“Of course.” He placed another bite of food in my mouth before I could speak. “For the next thousand years, you're mine. All mine. I've no other obligations or demands on my time. I've cleared my schedule.”

“Your schedule...as in people dying?”

“Yes, actually. There is no one else here but the two of us. For the next while, anyone who dies will just be put in the back of the line to be born. I worked it all out with... oh what is her name? The one who is obsessed with keys and sewing? Always sucking up to you about the moon?”

“Frigg?” I couldn't help but giggle at his description.

“Yes, her. She's handling it.” He waved his hand like it didn't matter. “Apparently she's enlisted a couple of the other life and death themed gods. They are all very excited. It will be good for people, I think. I figured they all deserved a chance at life without us.”

“They do.” It was an offhand comment, but it cut me to the core. Theydiddeserve a life without our interference. A chance to grow and learn without me creating wars for them to fight in.

“So!” Orcus jumped off the desk, startling me. “It is time for the next step.” He held out his hand to me, inviting me to place my own within.

Without a thought, I did so, and it occurred to me that it wassonice not to think about such things. For the past several hours, I had considered nothing but my own name. Even if the rest of my captivity was torture, I was grateful for that small moment of peace and focus.

Orcus pulled me to stand and led me to the bed. My fleeting moment of peace fled, replaced with the clanging of anxiety, of uncertainty.

“Next, princess, we'll explore more human emotions. Starting with vulnerability.”

I was admittedly not keen on being vulnerable with Orcus, of all people, but he pressed on.

“From as best I can tell, vulnerability is one of the keys to true human connection. When they open up with one another, when they show the parts of themselves that they don't like, mortalsseem to forge bonds stronger than any I've ever known. Though, of course, I cannot expect vulnerability without giving it first.”

Without further ceremony, Orcus removed the robe he wore and climbed onto the wide bed. The surrounding curtains dimmed the light so that I could scarcely see him. “For many reasons, beds seem to be a place of vulnerability. Will you join me?”

All things considered, perhaps I did not have a choice, but Ifeltas if I did. In the darkness, I could see only his eyes and by the pain there, I could see that somehow, that question—that invitation—had cost him.

I climbed onto the bed, lying on my back next to him. The swags of the fabric surrounding the bedspread from a circular point in the center, and I focused on it to calm my nerves. I didn't look over at Orcus, but I could feel the heat of him next to me. After several minutes of silence, he drew in a deep breath and began speaking.

“I think we have always had a complicated relationship, you and me. You made me, presumably, to be your greatest foe. In doing so, I think, you created the only person who could ever hope to be your equal. What I don't think you intended is that you also made me incredibly eager to please you. After all, you'd made me to be what you wanted, and since the moment I came into existence, I have always done as you wanted.”

I opened my mouth to protest, but he carried on. “Oh, I know it might not seem like it, but you wanted excitement. You wanted a good story... and every good story needs a villain. So, I became what you wanted. I became your ultimate adversary. At first, I didn't consciously realize my desires. I simply wanted to do as you bade. I followed orders and surpassed them where I could. I found new ways to surprise you, to shake up our battles. I didn'trealize how much it mattered to me until I actually tried to win. It was fall, outside Berggeheimnis, you remember?”

I did. Of course. It was the only time I'd ever truly wondered if I would lose. If this was the time that Orcus would best me, once and for all. I remember beingsoafraid of what he, or his forces, might do to my people. I'd had the entire settlement of dwarves holed up in their deepest tunnels and had needed to leverage my dragons to scorch the earth around to break the siege, though it had taken them weeks to arrive.

“In that moment, when it should have been my finest triumph, a thought struck me, shook me through and unseated my beliefs. I remember thinking: Will this be enough? Have I finally completed my task? Am I what she wants yet?”

I still stared up at the fabric. My hand at my side was inches from his, and the pain in his voice made me want to reach out and hold it.

“And then I saw your face. You weren't happy, you weren't proud. Because as much as this had been a game to us both, I could see that it wasn't a game to you any longer. You looked down at your people, your heart in your eyes, tears streaming down your face. And I realized: I would give anything for you to care about me half as much.”

In Which Orcus Practices Restraint

I blinked at the ceiling,stunned. What was I to say? I wasn’t even certain I was fully comprehending what he was saying, so instead I traced the lines of the swagged fabric as it flowed from the center of the bed to the edge of the canopy.

“That’s when I started thinking more critically. About my relationship with my people, about you with yours, and most importantly, mine with you.”

“You—delivered a ten-page essay about my wrongdoings. About how much I’d hurt the world.” I gasped out. I knew the battle he spoke of. It was over four hundred years previous, but it, and the subsequent essay that followed a year later, shook the very foundations of my life. I was not so proud as to refuse to see reason, even when presented by an enemy. Even when it cast me in such a horrible light. The essay, I was loath to admit, is what had truly made me consider how my actions, naïve as they may have been, had done real harm.

“I did, didn’t I?” he chuckled. “I was disappointed. To me, you were the pinnacle of all that was good. The antithesis of the evil I was so constantly surrounded by. I think I was more than a little angry when I realized how much you’d hurt m—my people. Once I started seeing you as fallible, I started seeing you more completely, I think. Whatever fascination you’d previously held for me paled before what grew. Before, you were an untouchable ideal. A shining beacon of light and goodness that would forever outshine anything I could accomplish or hope to be. Once I saw the cracks—in you, in my logic—they were all I could see…and they were beautiful.”

His essay had sent me in a spiral for several years, the most painful period of my life that had induced my entire current plan. It was comforting, somehow, to know that it had been just as disruptive to him as it was to me.

“Did you imagine we’d end up here?” I whispered. Had this all been some plan? Had he purposely made me doubt my entire life’s work to—take control of me?

“Never in my wildest dreams.” The bed shifted beneath me as Orcus rolled over. “At most, I hoped you might listen to me. I believed in you. I saw the cracks, but it made me realize that if you were struggling with things, just like I was, that perhaps youcould change, you could do better, let the world be better. And you are.” I could hear the smile in his voice, and it sent vibrant frissons through my body.

After a millennium of striving to be perfect, of hiding any flaws I found in myself or swiftly eradicating them, Orcus had seen them…and liked them?

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