Max tore his gaze away from her mouth. “No doubt you want to get started,” he said, a little more brusquely than he’d intended. “These,” he waved a hand over the pile of colored folders, “are just the tip of the iceberg. It will probably take a few days for you to catch up.”
“May I bring my chair closer?”
“Of course.” She drew nearer and he had to concentrate on the task at hand to stop his nostrils seeking out her scent. “The colored sticky notes in each book relate to chapters I’m working on. Each chapter has a corresponding colored file. I’d like youto enter the citation and the book title onto your computer, then put a copy into the respective folder.”
“So the red file relates to the defeat of the monster army. Blue for the rise of Athelrose Motham to leadership.” She sorted through them. “Yellow for the building of Old Motham, green for the capture of Orc Island. This book really is going to beverycomprehensive, isn’t it?”
“That is the intention, yes. Can I ask you to start collating info for the red file first? That relates to chapter one.”
“No problem.” Charlie smiled, already laying the files out in front of her neatly. “Everything is very organized. You are not at all the absent-minded professor,” she bantered gently. Max tried not to register the heat riding his cheekbones at her tone, at once teasing and admiring, quite a lethal combination, stroking his ego and his…
Don’t fucking go there…
But oh boy, he had to admit, he could get used to those chocolate eyes, and her long dark eyelashes batting at him with admiration.
As the morning progressed, Charlie sat quietly entering data on her computer while Max kept reading and adding reference notes. He couldn’t help thinking that there was a kind of easy camaraderie developing between them. She compiled the data much faster than he’d expected. At this rate he’d be able to get onto writing the first draft sooner than he’d hoped.
It wasn’t until Charlie said, “Oh, pardon me,” and patted her tummy, which he assumed meant it had delicately rumbled, that Max glanced at the clock on the mantelpiece and realized it was way past lunch time. He didn’t usually bother taking a break.
He heard his own stomach rumble. Loudly. How embarrassing. Hunger was not something he experienced during the day. Only at night did he remember his body needed sustenance.
But now he had Charlie to think of. She clearly needed to eat. He should organize some food. But what? Making coffee had been disastrous enough. Before he could work out what to do, she said, “Shall I go and buy us some lunch?”
“Better still, why don’t we go out and grab something to eat?” he said, to his own surprise. “We’re close to the Right Bite café, it’s a pleasant place I’ve been to once or twice already.”
Charlie beamed. “I love that café, me and my friends used to go there all the time after lectures.”
Soon they were out in the fall sunshine, the leaves from the large sycamores that lined the street scrunching under their feet as they walked down the hill toward the cafe precinct.
“Tell me more about your master’s dissertation,” Max asked. The title and her grades had clinched it for him when he’d read her application. “A rather controversial subject to take on, if I may so.”
“Early human/monster romantic relations.” She glanced at him with a slight challenge in her smile.
“Yes, and the fact you got a high distinction must mean you did a great job.”
“I worked hard on it, I admit. I wrote about Athelrose and Amelia, of course, but then there were other less famous relationships, many of them concealed and hushed up by humans. There was Eliza Dryden and the infamous vampire connection, though nobody ever quite established if she truly was undead or just pretended to be to keep angry humans from running a stake through her lover’s heart. I found out there were a significant number of human/monster love stories before the great war. A human apothecary ran off with an orc over a century earlier. Hushed up by the Tween Council of Towns. Another young woman, the town baker, took off with an ogre, and a fae who was a known felon ran off with the daughter of one of the human army colonels. There’s talk of a minotaur matingwith a high-breed woman during the war and the baby looking so human that they removed his horns and brought him up in early Tween society. Goodness knows where his descendants are now. It’s fascinating when you follow the leads. There are no records of these liaisons at all in Tween, of course. Only monsters recorded these pairings.”
Max remained silent, wondering if she’d found much out about werewolf/human bondings.
Almost as if she’d read his mind, Charlie added, “And of course, you must be aware that werewolves and humans have a complicated history. With the ceremonial ruttings and all.”
Max strode on, fists tight in his pockets. “They are not an admirable part of our past. Little was written about them, and what was has been mostly destroyed. It is not something I am proud of, the taking of human females against their will.”
After a moment’s silence, Charlie said, “I would have to refute that. Evidence suggests most of the young women involved were not coerced. Once again, that is human anti-monster propaganda. Many were, in fact, willing participants in the ruts.”
“I wish I could agree with you. But there are too many eyewitness accounts of wolves invading human towns and snatching the women at night.”
“And just as many accounts, in diaries and the like, that suggest they gave their consent before they entered into a rut. I would hazard that there were plenty of human women, gagged by a patriarchal society, for whom being chased by a werewolf and…” Her voice trailed off and Max was certain he could hear her panting slightly as she hurried to keep up with his huge strides, “—gaining sexual pleasure was… liberating. Not coercive, but mutually satisfying, in fact.”
“I remain unconvinced,” he grunted.
“But think about it, Professor. In Tween society, to take a daughter back after such a supposed misdemeanor, they would have to blame wolves, would they not?”
Max cast a glance at her animated face. She was passionate about the subject, and he didn’t want to dash her enthusiasm. “I accept there are a few records that would point to that. I assume you are referring to Deborah Willowten’s diaries?” She assented, and he continued. “However, my species were not known for their morals. And unfortunately, they were very well known for behaving in wild and debauched ways, particularly in rutting season. You need to be wary of whitewashing the past, Charlie.”
“I don’t think I’m that easily swayed,” she said stoutly, and he liked that she didn’t back down. But nor did he feel comfortable continuing the conversation. “We’ll have to agree to disagree,” he said stiffly.
They walked for a while in awkward silence after that, along the thoroughfare that soon morphed into the commercial precinct of The Hole In The Wall, with its shops and high-rise buildings. Max occupied himself noting the increased number of humans in this part of Motham compared to his last visit. The monsters looked well to do and affluent, wearing suits and carrying cell phones. He heard bursts of laughter and mixed dialects floating out of stores and cafés.