Page 9 of Monster's Reward

“Jeez,” Mikaela said. “He’s lucky I didn’t set the bed on fire when he startled me like that.”

Jasmine chuckled. “No kidding!” She raised her voice. “Okay, Kasi. It’s all clear!”

I froze in the act of sliding from a shadow inside the closet to one outside it.

I sort of hovered there, spread a little thin between the two shadows, and waited.

Jasmine was staring at the closet expectantly.

Now what should I do? This had never happened before.

I glanced down at Shadow, hoping for some advice, but she wasn’t there.

Instead, I found her blinking out at me from the shadows beneath the bed.

Seriously?I demanded.

A soft, purring chuckle was her only response.

Traitor.Restraining the groan I wanted to release, I let go of my monster.

The mist and smoke retreated back into the closet and I slowly settled back into my physical form. I then dragged in a deep breath and slipped from the closet into our room.

Mikaela looked startled, but Jasmine just smiled.

I cleared my throat. “Hey. You knew I was here?”

Jasmine shrugged. “At first, I thoughtyouwere the one under the bed. Once I realized Vip was hanging out under there, I figured you had to be in the closet. You don’t have to hide, you know. You’re perfectly safe here.”

I glanced at Mikaela, who was nodding in agreement. “Yeah. Perfectly safe. And don’t mind Vip. He’s a harmless idiot.”

I nodded, then shrugged. “I like sleeping under the bed.”

“A lot of monsters do,” Jasmine said.

“Have a seat.” Mikaela slid over and patted the bed.

I gingerly perched on the edge and eyed the two of them. “Do you always know when I’m around?”

“Not always,” Jasmine said. “But at night, yeah. I knew you were still coming back to the room to sleep. I just wasn’t sure if you were in the bed or under it or even just hanging out in the closet. I can’t really see you, but I do sense you sometimes.”

“What about you?” I asked Mikaela.

“Not a clue,” she said cheerfully. “When Jasmine said your name, that’s the first time I realized you were here.”

“I hadn’t been here long,” I said, wanting to assure her I hadn’t been listening to their conversation, even though technically, I’d overheard many over the past year. “Just long enough to discoverVipunder the bed.”

“He’s an idiot,” Jasmine repeated.

I nodded, then motioned toward the shadows beneath the bed. “I’m gonna go—”

“Sure,” Jasmine said. “Good to see you.”

“Yeah. You too.”

I held onto my monster as I slid beneath the bed, not letting even a tiny tendril of mist escape until I was deep in the dark and neither one could see me as I relaxed into the shadowed depths beneath my bed.

The moment I was settled, Shadow leapt onto me, stretching out so that her head was just beneath my chin and her paws fell on either side of me.

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