Page 5 of Mated to the Monster Under my Bed
“Can I help you?” he asked again, frowning a little.
“I’d like a hot chocolate,” I blurted, hoping it didn’t cost more than five dollars. I only had that in my pocket because it was change from a delivery I’d ordered a few days back.
“Coming right up!” The handsome devil smiled at me. “You must be new here—I don’t think I’ve seen you around before.”
“Yes, I am. Very new.” I nodded and then tried to think of how I could ask where the town was without sounding crazy. Nothing immediately came to mind so I just stood there mutely, watching as he poured out a thick, creamy-looking hot chocolate.
“Whipped cream?” he asked. “Most of our human customers love it.”
Human customers? He really was taking his Halloween costume seriously!
“Er, sure.” I nodded. “Whipped cream sounds great.”
“All right.” He sprayed a mountain of whipped cream onto the top of the cup and then stepped to the cash register. “That’s one silver please.”
As he spoke, he worked the register with his hands. But as he did, a perfectly formed, forked tail wrapped around the hot chocolate cup and raised it towards me.
I stared in surprise. How had he gotten a fake tail to act so realistic? I followed it to see if it was really attached to him and it really did seem to be sticking out of the backside of his trousers, just above his muscular buttocks. What the hell?
“That’s one silver, please,” the devil guy repeated.
“Uh…” I was still mesmerized by his tail as I pulled out the crumpled five and held it out to him.
“I’m sorry—we don’t take human money at The Lost Lamb anymore.” The tail sat the cup of hot chocolate down on the counter.
“Human money?” I shook my head. “What are you talking about?”
The devil guy sighed and shook his head. Then he turned and yelled towards the back of the shop,
“Celia, sweetheart? I think we have another one. Can you come help?”
A woman wearing an apron covered in flour came bustling out from the back. She looked to be around my age and she had bright blue eyes and golden-brown hair tied up in a neat bun at the back of her neck.
“What did you say?” she asked the devil guy, but then she caught a look at me. “Oh dear—are you new here, hon?” she asked.
“Um, yes.” I nodded. “I’m sorry I look like this,” I added. “I know this sounds crazy but I was in my house alone a minute ago.”
The woman raised an eyebrow.
“Let me guess—a magical door appeared, and you walked through it and found yourself here?”
“Yes!” I stared at her in surprise. “How did you know?”
“Because it’s been happening more and more frequently around here.” She dusted the flour off her hands and reached across the counter to shake with me. “Hi, I’m Celia—the owner of The Lost Lamb. And this is my Heartmate, Malik.”
“Oh, um, nice to meet you.” I shook her hand, feeling bewildered. “Uh, can you tell me where I am?”
“This is Hidden Hollow,” Celia told me. “It’s a magical town set in the foothills of the Berkshire Mountains and?—”
But just then the door jingled again and two of the strangest looking people I’d ever seen came in.
One of them was a centaur—an honest-to-God centaur. I couldn’t fool myself into thinking it was a costume. The lower half of her—because yes, it was a woman—was a real horse. Her tail swished back and forth as she clomped into the bakery. She had long, chestnut hair, the same color as her horse half’s flanks and she was wearing a loose-fitting top that barely covered her large breasts.
Flying right beside the lady centaur was a tiny woman no bigger than my hand. She had iridescent wings on her back that were fluttering so rapidly they looked like a rainbow blur. She and the centaur were having a discussion just as if they were old friends or possibly work colleagues…which I guessed they probably were. If this really was a magical town, why shouldn’t centaurs and fairies work together?
“So I think the speaker made some valid points,” the flying fairy woman said in a high, piping voice. “The variants in the spell are doubtless going to have a huge effect on the magical outcome.”
“I don’t know,” the centaur lady said, frowning. “I think magical intent is more important in these instances.”
