Page 26 of Hold my Reins

“Fusion cuisine. A monster vibe with human ingredients.”

“Exactly.” Lynck smiled.

“It smells amazing and better than anything I could cook in the monster realm. I wouldn’t even know what’s safe to eat.” That didn’t stop him from being curious about what it was like over there.

“Or what will eat you.”

Rox glanced at him, not sure if he was joking or not. From the look on Lynck’s face, Rox was one hundred percent sure that he wasn’t. “Which monsters eat people?”

“Some monsters eat anything that isn’t their own kind.” He paused, head tilted. “That’s a lie. Some will also eat their own kind. The monsters here are the ones who are most human-like, who want similar experiences. The military will not allow carnivorous predators through.”

“Yay.” He didn’t need those nightmares. The possibility of hungry monsters coming through for tasty human snacks hadn’toccurred to him, and there he was, living on the portal’s doorstep.

“I didn’t mean to scare you.” Lynck picked up the bowls and carried them to the table, and Rox followed with the glasses.

“I’m not scared. But I hadn’t considered what might be on the other side.”

“Did you think there was a town with a shopping mall?”

“No. Some kind of village?” He wasn’t sure what the monster world was like. Were there cities and malls?

“Please, eat,” Lynck said.

Rox looked at the food and then at Lynck. “Thank you for inviting me over and going to all this trouble.”

Lynck smiled as if that was the best thing Rox could’ve said. “I am glad you appreciate my efforts and that you wanted to be here with me. Please, you are the guest.”

“There is no one else I want to be having dinner with.” He picked up his fork, broke off some salmon, and ate it. It was sweet and salty and not at all what he was expecting.

He chewed, and Lynck watched as if waiting for a reaction.

“It’s different but really tasty.” He stabbed some of the green sauce-drenched pasta and popped it in his mouth. That had some unexpected heat, and the combination of seasonings was different from anything he’d ever eaten. Because he’d never eaten monster-fusion food. “Do you cook like this often?”

Lynck shook his head. “Thursten doesn’t really like it—too spicy for him. Sometimes, I’ll make up a batch of sauce and cook fresh fish each day.”

Rox grinned. “Is this the one thing you can cook?”

“No. Just my favorite and the one you were most likely to eat. Jellied fish and salted flatbreads don’t seem to feature on human menus.”

“Uh, no. Do you only eat fish?”

“I have tried chicken. But I try to eat similar foods to what I had at home because I don’t know if eating a more human diet will make me ill from the lack of nutrients. Thursten says I have my food saltier than him, and I assume most humans. I used less today, as I can add more to my food.”

Rox’s eyebrows pulled together. “I hadn’t considered nutrition.”

“Neither did I when I first arrived.” Lynck started eating.

Rox smiled. He was having dinner…that he’d helped cook…with someone. Something he wouldn’t have believed possible even a few months ago. That it was a monster sitting opposite him didn’t bother him at all. Lynck was possibly the nicest man he’d ever met, and he wasn’t putting on an act or trying to prove himself.

It all felt too easy, too right.

Which meant he expected the other shoe to drop and for something to go wrong. The thought cast a shadow over his delight, as though he wasn’t allowed to be happy. Maybe he ruined everything. After all, he was the common element.

Lynck talked a bit about farming and cooking with his herd. And even though he’d been snatched away during a battle, he looked back fondly as though he didn’t blame his herd for not coming to rescue him. Had they tried and failed? How would Lynck know if they had?

“Do you want to tell me about some of your childhood, or are the memories too raw?”

Rox frowned and finished his glass of wine. “I can talk about it. I don’t think about it much because everything else took over. While you had fields and rivers to play in, I had asphalt basketball courts—I was never good at it, as I was always one of the shortest in my class.”

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