Page 41 of Monster's Delight

It took a moment for his words to make sense, and then I blushed. I’d been ready to strip both of us down to nothing in the middle of the library!

“In case you misunderstood me, I knew who you were last night the instant you walked into the ballroom.” He took my face between his large hands and met my eyes with his. The brown of his irises flared red. “My soul bonded to yours when I first saw you. Sorry about that, by the way.”

“Sorry about your soul bonding?” My mind was still spinning from the kiss and my body felt as on fire as his eyes. To my surprise, he blushed.

“I’m sorry about dumping pudding on your head,” Aiden said, his eyes returning to their human state.

My jaw dropped open. “That wasyou?” I asked, astonished. “I can’t believe you did that!”

“Neither can I,” he admitted, petting my hair. “I was so stunned to feel my bond snap into place that I froze in place. My roommate gave me hell for that for weeks, I swear.”

My annoyance at the situation had faded over a month ago, and was quite funny to me now. I considered making him sweat a bit, mostly for not apologizing when we’d met properly at the pub in Wellspring, but I understood why he hadn’t wanted to bring it up.

“It’s okay,” I told him. I tucked my hands in his back pockets, pulled him tight against me, and continued, “I can think of a couple ways you can make it up to me.”

Aiden’s surprise melted into a cocky half-smirk as he ground his hips. “I can think of a few more.” He was about to join our mouths again when a discreet cough stopped him.

I peeked around his arm to see Mr. Brecken, the ancient librarian. “Oops. Sorry, were we making too much noise?”

Aiden huffed a laugh and backed away, helping me down off the table.

I immediately missed his warmth.

“Tables weren’t meant to be sat on,” Mr. Brecken said, squinting down at the books he held in his arms. “It’s nice to see you two getting along so well, given your families’ history.”

“What do you mean?” I asked. “I don’t know Aiden’s family.”

But Aiden had lost all color in his face. “What’s your last name?” he asked, his voice higher than usual.

“Doyle, but what does that have to do with anything? Aiden, are you okay?” I asked, alarmed as he swayed in place and steam started rising from his body.

“Of fuckingcourse!” he snarled to nobody in particular. He clenched his hands in his hair, breathing hard. “I’ve got to go.” He nearly ran out of the library, turning right, in the direction of the pool.

“What?” I exclaimed, perplexed.

“I’m sorry, dear, I thought it was common knowledge,” Mr. Brecken said. “And I thought you’d talked it all out.”

“Talkedwhatall out?” I shouted. Then I remembered I was in the library. “Sorry,” I whispered. “What is going on?”

Mr. Brecken looked nervously around. “It’s probably old news.”

“Obviously not, since Aiden just ran out of here as if his shoes were on fire.” Not a particularly apt metaphor, I realized after saying it, since he could literally turn into a flaming beast.

“Well...” He cleared his throat. “Perhaps we’d better sit down for this conversation.”

I retook my seat and Mr. Brecken sat down where I had intended my date to sit. Aiden hadn’t had the chance to sit down, though, and my throat was tight with anxiety over what the librarian might divulge.

“This was a long time ago, when your grandfather and his grandmother were attending this school,” Mr. Brecken began. “I had only recently been hired here, and I wasn’t much older than the students, so I was often included at their hangouts and parties. Bridget, Aiden’s grandmother, was part of one of the groups that invited me the most often. I remember the first time she saw Declan, your grandfather.” He smiled slightly. “She almost fell down the stairs because she wasn’t paying attention to anything around her but him.

“After that, the two of them were inseparable. Ah, young love.” Mr. Brecken cleared his throat. “The rumors ran rampant, naturally. A witch and a monster in love? It was unheard of back then. Obviously, the witch had cast some sort of spell over the monster to make her beholden to him.”

I frowned. “What?”

“It was just one of the rumors surrounding them,” he said with a shrug. “After graduation, they each returned home, Declan to Ireland, Bridget to England, and their families married them off to appropriate spouses.”

“My grandmother, Nessa, was a witch,” I said.

He nodded. “I remember her. She was younger by a few years, I think. They got married right after she graduated. But Bridget was married earlier, to a young man named Hayden. They had a child, a boy, less than a year after their wedding, but her pregnancy wasn’t a happy one. She was the academic advisor here, so I saw her daily. She was wasting away, getting thinner even as her belly grew, as if the baby was taking all of her nutrients. We all hoped that she’d recover after giving birth, but she got even weaker, until finally, she died.”

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