Page 3 of Wishing Upon a Monster
“What did she wish for then, shadow man?”
“’For once in my godsdamned life, I wish the gods would take pity on me and save my ass.’ There just happened to be a god close by, and she had payment.”
“Oh, for fucksake, Aurora!” Cece hissed, her snakes flat against her head, “You wished to save your life!”
“I didn’t know that was taboo!” I whisper-yelled back.
He gently took my chin between his thumb and forefinger and turned my face upwards towards his ruby gaze, “As a god of wishes, if you have payment, I am bound to grant that wish. I took all the gold you had on you: your necklaces, the earrings, even some of your hair.”
I pulled my chin away from his grip, my hands going to my scalp, then to my bun. My hair was barely wrapped in my elastic, and with a pull and a shake, I gasped at my now shoulder-length golden hair. “Your wrist,” I grabbed his massive hand with both of mine to get a better look. What I had mistaken for rope earlier was my hair, woven into a bracelet; the bits of gold flattened into little tubes along the band.
“Your wrist as well,min guldklump.Though I have all of the gold you possess, your wish was priceless, so you became the rest of the payment.”
Rocio’s form shimmered with golden light before she solidified in her human form, golden-skinned, with a dusting of shimmery violet scales around her golden eyes, cheekbones, and down the sides of her neck. Her navy-blue pajamas, so out of place among the camo combat uniforms, reminded me we had woken her up to save our asses. “You’ve made her your bride,” she sighed, kneading her temples.
I stared at the onyx bracelet with gold beads that wrapped around my previously unadorned wrist. “I’m his––WHAT?!” I screeched.
2
Aurora
It took some convincing to get my––husbandto take me back to our headquarters. He refused to allow me to ride in the car with the other enforcers, opting to instead carry me at unnatural speeds through the forest. I clung to him as we glided, the only adjective I could summon that felt remotely close to whatever this was, and I tried and failed to figure out how to annul this marriage I found myself in. Unfortunately, our handbooks didn’t coveraccidental weddings during battle.
Which is why we now sat around the conference table, a ring of forest camo combat suits interrupted by a very nude obsidian god, sitting opposite our council representative and her husband, both dressed in poolside attire. I felt a twinge of guilt knowing that my actions had interrupted one of their rare days of freedom; instead of the pool, they now got to sit in the back of the base debating the validity of a wish made to a god underwater.
“So, y'all are telling me this is legal,” Gatlin Duvall asked, his blue eyes wide with disbelief.
I owed my job to Gatlin and his cooperative vision. Overthe past thirteen years, he’d learned a lot about the magical world, but things like being wedded to an ancient deity mid-battle still threw him for a loop. Hell, it threwmefor a loop, and I was born into this shit.
“Legal is not the term; binding is the most accurate,” Palmer murmured, her vermilion skin almost glowing in the fluorescent lights as she searched through a book that looked like it might have seen the birth of the United States. “I see here that one of my brothers did, in fact, have ten acres sectioned off to ‘the Brøndmand.’ Though in our current records, the only thing denoting a Brønd, or well, is Weller’s Pond, and the name ‘Olan’ is written here underneath, which until now I assumed, incorrectly, was the person who named the body of water.”
I shifted stiffly in said Weller’s lap. He had not released me, but to be fair, I hadn’t asked, because how the fuck do you ask a god for bodily autonomy? He certainly didn’t look like the ‘love thy neighbor’ type. Nevertheless, when I wiggled, he obliged, loosening his arm from around my waist and resting his hand on my leg. His hand, I should mention, took up my entire thigh. Not that that made me nervous or anything.
Cool as a yeti.
The horror whose lap I sat on chuckled, the rusty sound making those around us wince. “I haven’t heard my name spoken in a long time. Your brother, Thomas, I believe, bought the land without checking to see if anyone else lived there first. It was of no consequence to me, I had my well, but I didn’t like neighbors, so we settled on ten acres for my exclusive use. I admit, I have been asleep for centuries. I assume the water table rose, or something to that effect, and my well slowly became a pond.”
“Why does it matter if he owns the land?” Nash Thistledown,my day shift supervisor, asked, his perfect fae features twisted in anger.
“Because his ownership supersedes our claim on the area; he was there first. He never signed the Eastwood River Treaty. He did not agree to be under my family’s protection,” Palmer explained solemnly, closing the books she had been examining. “We trespassed on his land because his pond is not a part of the preserve, even though it resides within the current borders.”
My throat went dry at her explanation.Motherfucker.
“It is not my fault that you built your haven on my doorstep, madame,” Olan said lazily, “But even if I were a part of your treaty, which I will consider signing, once I look over the particulars, my wife made a wish. It cannot be broken.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t read the fine print, I was a little busy at the time,” I huffed sarcastically.
“I doubt you would have been able to read it, being it was ten or so feet under water,” He replied, squeezing my thigh gently and making me squirm.
I stilled. “Are you serious? There wereinstructions!” I turned in his lap, looking up at his smirking face.
“That’s not fair,” Kenny slammed his hand down on the table, “as a man––”
“Do not,” Olan said, his voice clashing like steel colliding with iron, the resonation causing all the hair on my arms to stand on end, the shadows in the room seeming to grow from every corner, crack, and seam with menacing intensity, “mistake me for such asimplething as a man. I amnota son of Adam.”
I turned in his lap sideways, placing my hand on his chest, instinctively wanting to soothe away his anger. Olan’s hand cupped my hip, drawing me closer. I looked up into his ruby gaze, hoping he had a good nature I could appeal to.
“Please don’t kill Kenny, his mother loves him very much.”I thought towards him, stroking the cool skin of his chest.
