Monster Married (Monster Apocalypse #2)

Chapter 1

The sun had risen, and the room in the hotel was no longer all charcoal and ash, but honeyed wood and pillows of red and blue fabric.

I was wrapped in big blue monster. Literally.

Inkiri, the big blue monster in question, was all over me.

Also still in me, but really, a barbed cock in my ass no longer felt as weird as it had the first time around.

I wouldn’t have thought I’d get used to it this fast.

We weren’t in a bed. They didn’t seem to have them here. Instead, a pile of thick, fluffy blankets on the floor served that purpose, and it explained why Inkiri had had a pile of pillows and blankets in his room in that unfinished house.

Inkiri was devotedly licking my neck, and with him being so much bigger than me, that meant his ibex horns had gotten pretty close to my face. They were a little bit intimidating up close.

“How do you even sleep with those horns?” I asked.

Inkiri looked up. It was bright enough in the room now that I could see him clearly—the light blue skin, the ink-dark hair and indigo eyes.

His hair was still unbraided. I knew we’d only gotten here yesterday after all that stuff back at the Stone.

I also knew that he’d taken care of me, had barely left my side.

Doing his braids had probably been pretty low on his list of priorities.

“Pillows.” He fluffed one above my head. Among all the soft ones on the bed I’d noticed, the one he was showing me was harder than any pillow I would find comfortable, but that made sense. More support so he wouldn’t lie on those horns, I guessed.

“How are you feeling, sweet thing?”

I smiled when I heard him call me “sweet thing” in that sexy British accent. I’d read fics about monster types falling for human types, but there hadn’t been any that sounded as sexy as Inkiri. He was so much better than any fictional character.

He looked down at me with his pretty cat eyes. They were full of love in a way I wasn’t sure real cats’ eyes were when they looked at their human can openers.

A warm shiver ran over my skin. His adoration was a bit much, to be honest. Or, almost a bit much. Well, combined with not being on Earth anymore, it was a bit much.

“I’m fine.” I looked around the room.

The light that filtered into the room had grown brighter.

It had to be a sunny day out there. I wasn’t sure I was back to a hundred percent yet, but I was feeling a lot better.

I was perfectly happy to stay in bed for another ten minutes, but from the comfort of Inkiri’s arms, I could look at the room with fresh interest.

I doubted you’d find a place like this on Earth, not with that high ceiling to accommodate horned people. From what I could see, the house seemed to be made entirely of well-polished wood, which was visible everywhere, both in the ceiling and the floor except for where we were lying.

The bedding sat on thickly woven carpets that were piled and looked surprisingly soft considering we were pretty much sleeping on the floor, futon style. The layout of this sleeping area matched what Inkiri had created back on Earth, so it was probably the standard here.

Inkiri’s swords were on the floor next to the bedding, which was not where I would’ve put them, but okay. Maybe sleeping next to your swords was a thing here.

The only other thing I could see in the room was a low table with several floor cushions around it and a pot of tea or water on it next to some cups.

My stomach immediately reacted to the visual cue of food-related items and growled noisily.

Inkiri chuckled. “Fine but hungry?” He kissed the corner of my mouth, human-style. “Come. Let’s clean you up and feed you, sweet thing.”

“I guess I could eat.”

I definitely could. I hadn’t even realized how hungry I was. I wasn’t sure when my last meal had been, but probably before I had puked all over the corpse of that big orange spider back at the monster place, and that had been a while ago.

Inkiri clicked as he pulled out of me. His barb had gone down, thankfully, though he was still slick with his own lubricant.

I looked between us at his massive dark blue cock.

The top part, with its more bulbous and pointy tip still amazed me, as did the fact that it had been inside me, barbs and all.

It was funny how you could look at it and wouldn’t suspect the barbs at all, sort of like a jack-in-the-box in the penis department.

I had the weird urge to grab it and squeeze it a bit to see if I could feel the barbs.

“You look interested, sweet thing, but you really should eat before more pillow play.”

“Huh?”

Inkiri pointed. “You’re looking at my cock. I’ll please you again if you want, but I think you should have some food first.”

“I—well—I didn’t—” My face was heating. “I wasn’t looking!”

Inkiri tilted his head. “Hmmm.”

“Really!”

“You don’t enjoy looking at me?”

I’d woken up, what, an hour ago? How had I stepped in it already?

“I do, but—let’s go find food, okay?”

He nodded. “Yes. After we clean you up.”

In one smooth movement that shouldn’t have been so easy for someone so tall and broad, Inkiri was on his feet quick, and just as quick, he gathered me in his arms.

“I think you’re a bit too light. I’d like to plump you up.” He walked to the wall on the opposite side of the bed area.

I snorted. “Hard no. If I’m all juicy and plump, I’ll have trouble running from monsters, and they’ll think I’m…you know, juicy and plump.”

He put me on my feet, and to my surprise, slid the wall aside.

It wasn’t a wall at all, but a sliding wooden screen that functioned as the door to an en suite bathroom.

That was neat. I knew we were at an inn or hotel-like place, and since the small glimpses I’d seen of bagu culture were close to the Middle Ages in terms of technology, I’d been afraid there’d be an outhouse like in the wayhouse.

Oh, the sweet relief of indoor plumbing.

The bathroom was more luxurious than I could have hoped for, with a bathtub set into the floor, about half the size of a regular tub and no deeper than the middle of my calves, and a pretty normal-looking sink with a round bowl on the other wall.

A shelf on the left held plenty of towels and some small containers of what I assumed were cleaning products. They had neat writing on them.

I pointed. “That’s your language, right? LaGuardia.”

Inkiri clicked as I went over there and picked up one of the containers.

“Lugarra, that’s right.”

“Lugarra—ah!”

He picked me up again and set me down in the mini tub. He held my left wrist up to take off the friendship bracelet, working it open carefully.

“Hey, wait. That needs to be cleaned with soap. Is this soap?” I shook the container. I’d been wearing the bracelet back on the monster world, and now everything needed a good clean at a minimum, though I wouldn’t have minded burning whatever that goo had touched.

Inkiri hummed. “I’ll do it later. Let’s take care of you first, Sadir.”

He turned on a faucet with a wide rectangular spout and used a soft sponge to soak and wipe me down. It was embarrassing, but Inkiri didn’t seem to mind. Maybe this was something you did, just like the communal bathing and showering I’d already experienced.

Once he was done with my private area, he took the container I was still holding and sprinkled some of the powder it contained over my skin, then massaged it in with the sponge—thankfully not the same one he’d used before.

It foamed a little bit and smelled amazing.

Like cotton candy and roasted nuts. The scent made me feel nostalgic.

“I can wash myself, you know.” I felt like I had to at least mention that.

Hopefully he didn’t think my personal hygiene was lacking.

If it was, it was only because we’d been traveling.

And because of the orange spider, of course, but no one in their right mind would expect a monster spider to bleed out on top of them.

“It’s all right. You can relax and let me do it, at least today.”

Should I argue? Maybe. “Okay, that works.”

I heard him exhale, almost a sigh.

“About what I said… You are light, and you shouldn’t have to worry about being plump. I disappointed you. I intend to keep you safe from now on, to make sure you never again have to fear a monster. Or anything else. I don’t want you to have to worry anymore.” His brow was furrowed.

“I didn’t mean it like that about becoming too juicy. I was trying to be funny. I don’t expect you to, I don’t know, kill off all monsters in order to keep me safe. That’s not very realistic.”

“Rory—” He stopped himself with an aborted kind of sigh. “Let me at least take care of you after making love from now on. Making love is what you call pleasure play, yes?”

I giggled. “Yeah. You say pleasure play here?”

“Yes.”

“Sort of more accurate, I guess.”

He hummed and diligently worked the sponge over my skin in small circles.

For my hair, he used powder from a different container, although the scent was the same.

With careful fingers, he gave me a scalp massage before rinsing everything off with a cross between a pitcher and a watering can that he kept refilling from the faucet.

After Inkiri wrapped me in a towel, he showed me the toilet, which was next to the shower area and also separated from the main room with a screen.

It was one of those European-style double designs with a bidet.

I’d basically expected a hole in the ground, which was what it had been at the wayhouse.

This was really fancy, and I was extra impressed considering this culture seemed to be several decades behind Earth technology.

Or at least pre-apocalyptic Earth technology.

Then again, I’d lived a very privileged life before the apocalypse. Who was I to judge a whole different world by what little I’d seen of it and by what was normal for me? The descendant of colonizers, that was who. Although…Ireland had been colonized by Britain, if I remembered correctly.

Either way, I had privilege and absolutely no business judging anyone, least of all Inkiri’s people. Likely as not, I was underestimating bagu culture with how little I knew about them.

When I came back into the main room, Inkiri was done washing too and standing with a towel around his waist. He had a nice chest, even if he didn’t have nipples. I ached to snap a picture of that chest and post it, which made me remember my stuff with a small jolt of panic.

“Hey, do you know where my backpack went?”

He sighed and dropped his head. “I saved it after the Koa Esher attacked and you and Vergis left. We took it to the Hill of Tara with us, but then the humans attacked.”

I gaped. “Wait, what? Hold on. Did you just say—I thought the Koa Esher caught up to us back at the Hill?”

He clicked at me. “No. Those were humans, shooting guns. When we arrived there, we checked for signs of anyone lingering or living in the area, of course, and there were none. That means they likely went there with a purpose. It’s possible they had a scout watching from a distance.”

“Oh. I had no idea. I’m sorry.”

He tilted his head. “Why are you sorry? Is it because you are human also? That doesn’t make all humans your responsibility.”

He walked over to me, took my left wrist, brought it to his mouth, and licked it affectionately, then he put the friendship bracelet back around it.

His own bracelet had a lot of dark blue stones, but also an emerald one, just like most of my bracelet.

Leave it to Lissir to color coordinate such small trinkets.

“Thanks.”

I ran my fingers over the stones of my bracelet.

The strange knowledge in my head had given me the impression that I was connected to the guys, and not just through the power of a few friendship bracelets.

These were simply real and tangible, unlike whatever had happened—whatever I had done—at the Stone.

“My pleasure, Sadir.” He pointed to a bundle of clothes that sat in a basket on the floor.

“The rikori washed these for us, but I also asked them for a set of clothes for you. Aer clothes. I thought maybe you’d like to wear them here.

” He lifted one item off the top; my cute cat socks. “There’s still one pair of these left.”

He was holding them out somewhat bashfully.

He probably thought he had disappointed me by leaving my apocalypse backpack behind, but I was just glad he and the others were okay.

I’d mourn my backpack and phone, sure, but that was a lot better than…

Well, they were all okay, and that was what mattered.

“I’ll try the Aer clothes. Put my socks on me?”

Inkiri smiled at me like a cat faced with a whole dish full of cream.