Page 15 of Love, Laugh, Lich

Oh. I stare at Randall for a long moment as I realize his meaning. Wow, what a bad moment to ask. I glance around the empty office. Maybe because we’re alone, and he can’t see the aura of disappointment and self-pity haunting my head, it seems like a good time to him.

“Sure,” I shrug, because why the fuck not. Maybe I’ve never really found anything particularly romantic about Randall, but he’s nice.

Coffee with him is harmless. It’s not recklessly throwing my heart to someone who won’t take it. At worst, I’ll probably dump my feelings from the past week on him and cry my heart out to a sort of friend, maybe at best I’ll find a kernel of the affection I’ve been so starved for.

“Alright, it’s a date,” he says, giving me a sweet smile.

And then the room starts to rumble. Cracks form in the floor, dark clouds begin to swirl.

I jump back from a crack in the ground, where a pit is opening up. I can see the HR department on the floor beneath us, the cracks forming there too. I look up and my eyes fall on the only one who could be doing this.

Soven gestures to Randall, who falls into the pit, pushed by some invisible force. He and the sound of his yells quickly disappear as he plummets through the building’s floors faster than the elevator could take him.

The ground seals back up again, clearly damaged but walkable, as Soven passes over it and heads towards his office, meeting apparently canceled.

Coffee with Randall is not so harmless, it seems.

8

This is the last straw. I’m spitting mad, but at the same time, it’s tearing me apart inside thinking that this is the last straw. I am standing at the edge of a precipice here, metaphorical, literal or whatever.

I march into Soven’s office and all but shove the heavy doors behind me closed. They pivot slowly on their hinges and don’t slam quite as much as I want for dramatic effect. I bristle and cross my arms at the Lich in front of me.

“What the hell was that about?” I snap at Soven. I’ve never raised my voice so angrily at him before, and yet this does not seem to shock him.

“Downsizing,” Soven growls, throwing off his cloak of shadows, revealing the beast underneath.

I gawk for a moment, and all I can seem to gather up to return is, “It’s wrongful dismissal, and you know it!”

Soven avoids looking at me as he stalks around the darkened Sanctum. He makes a noise like a wrongful dismissal suit isn’t a problem. And under the Evil Regime, it probably isn’t.

But that’s not the point. Or maybe it is. All I know is all my barely contained emotions break through to the surface, and suddenly it’s about us.

“No, you can’t do this to me!”

“Do what,” he growls, less of a question and more bait.

“This, all of this, you can’t disregard my personal agency and throw Randall down a pit! It’s insane and I don’t want any of it!” I snap, looking wildly at Soven, stomping my way over to him.

He draws himself up to his full, ridiculous height at my, quite frankly, comparatively tiny fit. Soven holds me in his gaze for many long moments, during all of which I’m fuming.

“You enjoyed the flowers, I assume?” he says at last, thumbing the fur at the end of his jowls.

I nearly roll my eyes. “That’s beside the point, everyone likes flowers—”

“But not the intern,” he interrupts, “Who you refuse to delegate assignments to.”

“No—”

“And you accepted the five-year-gift.”

“I did, but—”

“But not the office. Even though you’ve wanted a real office of your own for years,” he says, like this is some kind of gift. I’m surprised he knew, but that doesn’t get him out of trouble for going ahead and changing things around without my knowledge. He could have at least asked!

“You can’t – push the intern onto me, or move my desk where I can’t see people, or banish someone for asking me out!” I nearly shout in response, because clearly he isn’t getting it. I don’t know what the norms are for hooking up with a Lich, but I did not sign up for unprovoked territorialism.

“If I cannot share my pleasures, my power, my privileges with you—” Soven starts, and I cut him off instantly.

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