Page 8 of Monster Married
Vergis tilted his head. “Way to bury the lede. How d’you know the magic did that?”
“My question also.” Fellisse leaned forward on the table, tilting his head and narrowing his striking blue eyes on me.
I crossed my arms. “That was the weird thing. When I touched the Stone, I heard a voice, and then the Stone said it would make sure you all were okay. And when you got us out of there, Vergis, I just…knew stuff. Can’t explain how.” I looked up at Inkiri. “It’s how I know that you’re mine, and I’m yours. That you guys are my guys. It was the magic that hurt me, and I needed to heal from that. That’s why I was like that.”
“You just…knew?” For the first time ever, Vergis didn’t sound cocky or mean. It was a nice change of pace.
“Well, at least you both feel the mate call now, which is good.” Lissir looked excited. “Very good.”
“Something to be celebrated!” Nokim chimed in.
“I’ve never heard of magic hurting a mage.” Fellisse tilted his head this way and that. He didn’t seem as excited as Nokim and Lissir.
Next to me, Inkiri leaned in until his warm breath washed over my cheek and I turned to look into his indigo eyes. “Sweet thing. My Rory.” He kissed me on the mouth. “You cannot begin to understand how happy you make me.”
“Saccharine,” Vergis mumbled.
Inkiri put an arm around me and turned to Vergis. “I thank you for saving my mate’s life, Vergis. I’ll never forget that.”
Which made Vergis look…self-conscious? Did he do self-consciousness? “Couldn’t let humanity’s greatest twink get eaten by a monster, could I?”
Fellisse put a hand flat on the table. “I would still like to understand about how magic hurt him. It’s not supposed to do that to koa.”
I frowned at Vergis. “I’m not anyone’s greatest twink.”
“How he does magic, if he even actually does anything, is what I want to know,” Vergis said to Fellisse. “He sure is a special twink.”
Lissir clicked his tongue like a human would. “Those are not questions we need answered while we are here. We’re healed. We’re healthy. We can enjoy food and breath and friendship, and we must savor these things.”
Inkiri clicked. “Agreed. While we are here where it’s safe, we can enjoy the fact that we are all together.” He looked at Nokim. “And unhurt.” He used his hand to tilt up my chin for another kiss, then paused. “What did you mean when you said the huddling was bad?” he asked, and Vergis, the complete and utter jerk, giggled again while he stuffed one of those disgusting massacre buns into his mouth.
Here I was, the human among monsters, back to being embarrassed by my own handiwork and loose lips and possibly forced to have to explain huddling to my monster boyfriend. So much for leaving my baggage behind when I left the planet.
Chapter 3
As it turned out, everyone was somewhere between eager and very eager to head into the city for that honk roar week thing. Well, everyone but Vergis, maybe. The hotel functioned as a bank as well, and since I was more interested in tasting my way through the strange food still sitting on the table, everyone left me there with Vergis to get some money from this world’s equivalent of an ATM.
“What’s this called?” I asked Vergis, who’d gone back to lounging on his side and looking both bored and annoyed at the same time.
“Disset.”
I spooned some up. “It’s sweet. Like candy.”
Vergis rolled his eyes. “That’s because you’re supposed to put it on the vinné. It’s like jelly.”
“Well, how am I supposed to know that? It’s my first time eating all this stuff.”
Vergis looked mostly annoyed now. “You said you just knew that the magic hurt you, and you’re not supposed to know that either. Sounds to me like you’re some cross between a Magic 8 Ball and a faulty fortune cookie.”
“Well, you’re…mean.” I reached for one of the vinné crackers and put a heaping sporkful of the dissent jelly onto it. When I tasted it, the flavors exploded on my tongue. I groaned around a mouthful of food. “Mmm, so good.”
Vergis giggled, because of course he giggled. “You sound like you’ve never had good food.”
“Not in the last two years I haven’t! Not like this, anyway. But there used to be this bakery we’d sometimes go to.”
“Nearly starved twink en route to returning to being spoiled and privileged, are you?”
I pointed my two-pronged spork at Vergis. “I am not a twink, I’m just in touch with my emotional side. And I’m not spoiled.” I looked away. “I might be privileged, but you can’t blame me for that.”
