Page 38 of Love & Monsters
“That’s why we had to get you out when we did. My imprisonment was a suitable cover to sneak you out of the city, and I’m glad it worked as well as it did.” Vadric sighed, briefly squeezing my shoulder. At that moment, a young demon walked around a hallway and into the foyer.
“Yes, I agree, but, the human,” Ilya muttered, side eyeing me.
“Right.” Vadric snapped his fingers at the passing demon, and I realized they were wearing a black servant’s dress. “You there. Can you take her to the bathing chamber?”
The peach skinned monster lifted their head at hearing their Lord’s question. From under their striking rose red hair, I noticed they had two fully black eyes. Without speaking, they nodded and changed course to head in our direction near the stairs.
My body stiffened and Vadric felt me tense up. “Go on, Mina. I’ll join you shortly. I need to talk to my sister, and I’ll come find you.”
“Okay.” With all the tall monsters around me, I felt like a bug on the wall. I paused before following, giving Vadric and Ilya one last glance. The family resemblance seemed obvious now, and I felt ridiculous for my immediate thoughts.
Of course, they were siblings. I shook my head at myself. I kept my head down, mulling over what I learned as I followed the servant through endless dark halls where red light streamed in through the glass windows like shafts of bloodstained light.
Vadric was the rightful Lord of Nadirn. Rykan stole his seat. Ilya was his sister that he and Knox snuck out of the city. Knox was the father of Ilya’s child.
I don’t know why that last thought made me feel better to linger on. Something about my knee-jerk reaction at thinking Vadric and Ilya were together during their greeting, maybe… I wanted to slap myself in the face.
Why would it have mattered, anyway? Vadric and I weren’t… together. We fooled around and fucked once, but that didn’t correlate to meaning anything. It might mean nothing to the monsters. I didn’t know enough about the rules of their world to make assumptions.
If Vadric had someone somewhere waiting for him, I would have felt terrible about the things we’d done. For a moment there, I did. I’d regretted my actions. Now there was a terribly powerful sense of relief flooding my body at knowing my first assumption was wrong.
The servant led me through the maze of the fortress until stopping at a massive door at the end of a hallway. After opening the door, they ushered me inside, and then shut it behind me, leaving me alone once again.
Being alone didn’t stop me from taking in the impressive architecture of the bathing chamber. I craned my neck back, taking in the vaulted, domed ceiling far overhead and the little tiles making a geometric pattern pointing at the circular window at the peak, letting in red light from outside. In the middle of the floor, a massive pool sized bath had been carved into the floor. Under the stream of light from above, the steaming water resembled blood. More light came from wall sconces lining the walls of the cavern sized circular room.
After standing awe-struck for a long time, I eagerly stripped off my clothes, leaving them unceremoniously in a pile in my rush to wash the filth of travel from my skin. Once the boots thumped against the smooth tile flooring, I was already slipping a foot into the heated water.
That water was nearly scalding, it was insanely hot. Like getting into a hot tub for the first time. Despite the heat, I quickly sank into the water, finding that the edges had a ledge to sit on around the entire length of the bath.
“What am I doing here?” I asked myself out loud. Flicking water in front of my face, I tried not to let the world of monsters sneak back into my head. It didn’t work, since someone interrupted my peace and silence.
The heavy door creaked open, and my arms wrapped over my chest on instinct to hide from whoever intruded on me. Even when relief flooded me to see Vadric shutting the door behind him, I kept my arms up, guarding myself.
“Sorry, that took me a moment. Ilya needed to bring me up to date on the people and supplies of the fortress. Then I had to ensure we had enough for the feast Anakis promised tonight.” Vadric began removing articles of clothing as he spoke, dropping his boots near mine.
I sank deeper into the water until it was at my chin. “That’s fine.”
As much as I wanted to be alone, I couldn’t stop my roaming eyes from taking in every inch of Vadric’s midnight blue skin as he joined me in the bath. Then it occurred to me that joint baths were becoming a recurring theme for us.
“You say it’s fine, but you don’t sound convincing, little one.” His body moved effortlessly through the water as he approached. My heart jumped when Vadric closed the distance and lowered into the water until we were face to face.
“What do you want me to say, Vadric?” I closed my eyes, feeling the water moving against my skin from his body moving so close to mine under the surface. “This is a lot for me to take in. With everything I just heard, I wish you had told me instead of leaving me to find out like that.”
“I’m sorry. I wanted to be the one to tell you everything,” he admitted. I felt his hand slide up my cheek and my breath hitched. “Sometimes I didn’t really think about it, to be honest. Everyone here in my world knows who and what I am, and they know everything that’s recently happened.”
Opening my eyes again, the intensity with which Vadric stared at me now struck me. For a second, I forget what I was going to say.
“I understand, Vadric, I really do. I’m the outsider and everyone else already knows everything. But still, you didn’t even tell me you had a sister, and I told you about my family.” His hand fell as I leaned out of his touch and straightened on the ledge I sat on.
He pursed his lips, and it didn’t go unnoticed that his eyes were on my breasts just under the water. “And I said I would tell you everything when we got here. So, I will.”
Crossing my arms over my chest, I nodded as a sign to continue and kept my expression blank. That was hard to do when he looked at me the way he did, and we were naked and so close to each other.
Picking up on my body language at covering myself, Vadric tore his eyes from my skin and moved to sit on the ledge at my side. A few seconds passed as he gathered his thoughts and took a steadying breath.
“Yes, I am the rightful Lord of Nadirn. Rykan overthrew my seat a few weeks before you fell through the portal. Knox helped me get Ilya out of the city, since she’s my sister and his mate.”
“So, is a mate like a life partner?” It made me think of how animals mated. Sometimes for life, but sometimes only for the season. How was it for the monsters of this world?
