Chapter 11
CHAPTER
ELEVEN
The next morning, Seymour woke up alone but with a smile.
The sheets were still warm beside him, so he figured Sariel hadn’t been gone too long.
Seymour thought about last night and savored the lingering throb in his body, wondering if Sariel would come back to bed soon so they could share some more sexual relations.
He thought he heard movement outside of the bedroom, and it didn’t seem like Sariel would be returning anytime soon.
And now Seymour really had to piss.
He got up to use the bathroom and clean up, and he found his clothes neatly folded on the counter. They smelled fresh, as if they’d been washed, and everything from his pockets was lined up beside them.
Wallet? Check.
Keys? Check.
Phone? Check.
Magical Inro kitty girl box? Check.
The very thought of Day made Seymour smile, and he wondered if she’d slept all right. It may have been strange for her in a new place, and…
Oh.
Shit.
Hopefully all those relations between him and Sariel hadn’t kept her up.
How heavy did little cat girls sleep?
Did they have bad dreams?
With a faint grimace, he quickly headed out of the bedroom.
Sariel was in the kitchen with Day on his shoulder, and he had an apron on. There was a bit of flour everywhere, including Day’s nose, and Sariel was smiling as he stirred up a thick, chunky batter in a bowl.
“But there can be more,” Day whispered urgently.
“There cannot be, as there are no more left,” Sariel whispered back.
“Then we can get more.”
“Little one, I am confident this is more than enough—”
“No,” she hissed.
“Good mornin’, y’all.” Seymour chuckled. “I, uh, come at a bad time?”
“Seymour!” Day squealed excitedly, leaping from Sariel’s shoulder and launching herself right at Seymour.
“Whoa!” Seymour barely caught her. “Oof! Hey, kitty girl.” He kissed the top of her head and cuddled her close. “How are ya’? Sleep okay?”
“Very well, thank you.” Day beamed up at him, purring away.
Seymour smiled at Sariel as he came toward him, and his heart skipped over itself a few times. “Hey, good morning to you too.”
Did they kiss?
Shake hands?
What were they now? Did one soul-shattering night of pleasure mean they were an item now or what? Seymour was surprised by how much he wanted a positive answer to that particular query, but he couldn’t bring himself to ask.
But he hoped.
Sariel looped his arm around Seymour’s waist and placed a shy kiss on his cheek. “Morning.”
Seymour’s heart did some more fluttering, and he laughed while his brain tried to catch up. This was fine. It was totally normal to get this flustered. “Hi. Hello. Did you, uh, you sleep… comfortably?”
“Very. I trust you did.” Sariel’s smile was downright smug as he went back to stirring whatever was in the bowl.
“Yup. Yeah. Definitely.”
Day looked at Seymour. She looked at Sariel. She gasped, clasping her paws to her face. “You two made kittens!”
“What?” Seymour croaked.
“I don’t know how humans say it. Or angels.” Day hummed thoughtfully. “Made the Great Cat with two backs?”
“Oh, my sweet fuckin’ Jesus.”
“Did the flat dance and yowled in one voice?”
“How, how do you even—”
“Sex!” Day looked pleased with herself. “You had sex!”
Sariel’s smug smile had vanished, and he stared down at his bowl as if he wanted to dive inside of it as his cheeks turned bright red.
“Yes. Yes, we did that.” Seymour groaned lightly, certain his own face was just as flushed. At least they knew they hadn’t kept Day up. “When two people, you know, care about each other, they are intimate and—”
“Have sex!” Day chimed in cheerfully.
“Oh, fuckin’ balls.” Seymour laughed and tried to think of any possible way to change the subject. “So! What’s for breakfast?”
Day frowned. “Is it shameful?”
“What? Breakfast?”
“Sex.”
“No, no, no! Not at all.” Seymour swallowed hard. “It was all consensual! And safe! And, uh, just, uh, well, you, you sort of seem, like, well…” He had no idea how to say this without potentially angering a magical creature who could easily eat his face. “Young?”
Day narrowed her eyes. “I am centuries older than you.”
“Right! Yes! I just, uh…” Seymour stared helplessly at Sariel.
“We did not think it appropriate to discuss in front of a lady,” Sariel said with a polite bow of his head. “Our apologies for being sexist and obtuse.”
Day relaxed once more and smiled. “Aw, it is all right. As long as you’re both happy! That is all that matters to me.”
“We’re happy. So very happy.” Seymour meant it, and he tucked Day against his shoulder with one arm so he could reach out to rub Sariel’s back.
Sariel remained red and returned his focus to whatever he was making, but his halo flickered a few times. Maybe it was Morse code for please kill me now for the love of all that is holy.
“So! Breakfast!” Seymour grinned. “What are we havin’?”
“Chocolate chip pancakes!” Day shouted, her tails lashing wildly.
“Yes.” Sariel set the bowl down, now turning his attention to the counter, where a large griddle was plugged in. “I fear they may be a bit chunky because Day insisted on a very large helping of chocolate chips.”
“The right helping,” Day clarified.
“It is nearly four times the recommended amount.”
“I’m sure they’re gonna be great.” Seymour laughed. “It’s kinda like garlic, ya’ know? You measure it with your heart.”
Sariel appeared alarmed. “No, you would use a proper measuring cup or spoon—”
“I don’t literally mean with my heart—”
“Good. The human heart does not hold much, as it is a pump meant to move blood and not hold it as some kind of reservoir.”
“Great. Wonderful. Happy to hear that.” Seymour tried not to laugh again. “So, we, uh—”
“Really doesn’t it depend on the heart?” an annoyingly familiar voice drawled.
“Yes!” said another, just as annoying. “Why, a dragon’s heart can hold five liters!”
“That’s as much as a mortal’s body can hold at one time, isn’t it?”
“Isn’t it?”
Seymour didn’t even need to turn around to see the fae twins, Absolis and Vilanos. He sighed heavily and refused to look at them, mumbling, “Good morning to y’all too.”
“It is time,” Abolis said curtly.
“Yes,” Vilanos agreed. “It is time to go.”
Sariel pouted at the pancake batter he hadn’t gotten to make. “We are ready.”
“Are we though?” Seymour did turn then, sneering a bit as he hugged Day close. “You guys can’t wait, like, possibly five more fuckin’ minutes to—”
The kitchen vanished.
He, Day, and Sariel were now standing in a long concrete tunnel with large display cases built into the walls. Each case had an elaborate door and inside was a different head.
Great.
Super fuckin’ duper.
Some of the heads were human, many were not, and Seymour didn’t have the faintest idea of what he was looking at. There was light ahead of them, maybe daylight, though he turned around to look behind them in hopes of finding a way out.
Only more cases, including a giant one at the end that could have easily held his truck.
It was empty.
Fabulous.
A tunnel full of heads—totally fine.
Everything was fuckin’ fine as frog’s hair.
If any of those heads started opening their eyes and screaming like the ones in that freaky Oz movie, Seymour was going to set everything on fire.
Day whimpered softly. “Seymour?”
Seymour gulped, but he held her tight and took a deep breath. “Yeah, yeah, kitty girl. We’re okay.”
Sariel hugged them close, opening his wings to curl around him and Day both as he gently urged them forward. “I am right here.”
“Are we in Faerie again?” Seymour squinted.
There weren’t any signs of a weird circus, but he couldn’t help but feel that the very air around them was somehow wrong.
Sariel nodded. “Yes.”
“Woo.”
Day shivered, whispering, “It’s creepy.”
“Very,” Seymour agreed.
They walked forward toward the light, and the tunnel opened up into a vast open space.
It was the courtyard of a large industrial building, its concrete columns and cracked walls overgrown with wild flowering vines. There was every color of the rainbow here, blooming in big bunches that Seymour found oddly beautiful against the hard contrast of the clearly manmade structures.
The area appeared to have been abandoned for decades, and nature had been busy reclaiming every inch of it. The ground was covered in soft green grass, there was a tall tree full of pink blossoms overlooking a lush bed, and a giant floating wall of glass rectangles hovered above it all.
Overhead, the vines had created a dense canopy, blocking out any possible natural source of light.
It was hard to tell where the current illumination came from, but it was as bright as a summer day, though a tad hazy if Seymour turned his head too fast. He’d had dreams with more clarity, and a soft breeze blew by out of nowhere, stirring up a cloud of odd fuzzy bits like a bokeh filter on its highest setting.
Although there was no audible music, there were at least a dozen people dancing around the tree in fantastic costumes—some of them looked to be from hundreds of years ago, with powdered wigs and white makeup; a few from perhaps the Wild West, right down to the spurs on their cowboy boots; a man whose silk gown rivaled Day’s own in terms of pattern and design; and still more from other time periods and places all across the globe.
There were so many Seymour wished he recognized but didn’t dare try to identify, lest he feel any more ignorant than he already did.
India? China? Japan?
He had no idea.
But they were all beautiful.
White skin and brown skin and Black skin with countless shades in between, bright eyes and dark ones—every last person was stunning.
But human, Seymour realized, as he kept looking.
They were all human.
Ah, except for the pair of giant naked men in the middle of the writhing crowd who were clearly in charge of this insane rave.
And of course, one of them didn’t have a head.