Chapter 13
THIRTEEN
HANNAH
I’m surprised when he actually leaves me alone in the bathroom this time to clean up.
It’s becoming clear that every intimate encounter with this magnificent creature is going to require... extensive cleanup afterward. There’s just so much—
My face heats despite the cold room, and I sink lower into the steaming water.
I have to do an initial rinse to wash away the glowing evidence of our passion before I can even begin to fill the tub properly.
Only then, once most of it swirls down the drain in faintly luminescent spirals, can I plug the tub and take a proper bath.
Good lord. I bring a shaky hand to my forehead and look around the medieval bathroom where modern fixtures seem charmingly out of place among the ancient stone.
They’re obviously human-sized, not built for someone of his... impressive proportions.
This is the first time he’s left me completely alone.
I don’t entirely trust it.
I’m sure he’s waiting just outside, ready to sweep me up again if I try anything foolish like attempting escape.
I sink deeper into the blessed warmth.
God, when did I last have a proper soak like this? Before this morning, obviously. I’m talking about the before times—before my life took this impossible turn into... whatever this is.
Life certainly wasn’t all mind-blowing intimacy and luxurious bath times.
Ha. Not even close.
I had a job, like everyone else. Sure, I painted whenever I could manage it on weekends, but weekdays meant the nine-to-five grind in a cubicle. Customer service for a paper goods company—solving everyone’s Post-it emergencies and shipping disasters.
And there I was, stuck in St. Paul before Drew entered the picture. Trapped in that tiny house with my mother, who refused to let me move out, and fixing everyone else’s problems while ignoring the mounting ones in my own life.
Oh, your shipment arrived damaged? I’m absolutely the cheerful customer service rep to solve that for you!
I’ve always been relentlessly optimistic, even when being cursed out for hours straight. Nothing could dim my determined brightness.
Then I’d come home to find Mom in a state about the messy house, and I’d just keep that practiced smile plastered on. After all, she’s sacrificed so much for me. Something she’d remind me about whenever she was tired.
“You know, I’m on my feet all day,” she’d complain, shooting that familiar dismissive glance my way.
“Not that you’d understand. So, can you please just handle the dishes?
For once?” Then came the dramatic sigh and ceiling-ward gaze.
“I always thought I’d be able to retire by now.
But I guess we don’t always get what we want. ”
I was never sure how to respond to that thinly veiled accusation. Obviously, I wasn’t what she’d wanted; I was the reason she couldn’t live out her dreams of leisurely retirement. All those surgeries and medical bills had added up, even with insurance.
Nearly every paycheck went straight to her for rent, groceries, and everything else. I kept maybe two hundred for myself, trying to build some pathetic little savings.
It always felt like walking on eggshells around her. So I thought she’d be thrilled when I came home and announced that I’d met someone at work and we were dating.
Boy, was I wrong.
She completely lost it.
She was convinced Drew was just using me.
“For what?” I’d asked, genuinely bewildered.
Her face had scrunched up while she rolled her eyes. “What do you think? S-e-x.”
I’d laughed in her face. We weren’t even close to that yet—just a few innocent kisses.
He’d been nothing but gentlemanly. Honestly, I’d started thinking of him as my knight in shining armor, imagining him rescuing me from that suffocating house where I felt increasingly like an old maid surrounded by Mom’s multiplying cats.
Five now, plus Mittens, who was pregnant when I left.
Looking up at the cold stone ceiling, I wonder about them now. Mittens probably had her kittens by now.
Mittens and her kittens. I laugh, slightly hysterical.
That world feels impossibly distant, like it exists in another dimension entirely.
But I suppose I’m the one who got whisked away through some kind of fairy gate. Except that unlike children’s stories, there are no fey princes here.
Just monsters with even more impressive... anatomy—
I reach for the soap, trying to redirect my thoughts.
This line of thinking feels disloyal to Drew somehow. I’ve had fleeting moments of guilt since arriving here, but I haven’t been alone long enough to really process it all. There’s definitely no going back now, and I’m finally feeling the weight of that reality.
He was supposed to be my knight in shining armor... right?
So why don’t I miss him more?
Okay, he wasn’t perfect. Initially, moving into his place instead of staying with Mom felt amazing. He represented newness in a life of crushing sameness.
And he didn’t seem bothered by my condition like others in my limited dating history had been.
I was shy; he was outgoing. No awkward silences because he’d fill every gap with chatter.
Drew loved to talk.
And I loved listening to him, watching him. The sharp line of his jaw. How his brown eyes lit up when we sat on his balcony during that first summer, before Minnesota winters drove us inside.
He wasn’t like Mom, either.
Sometimes he actually asked me questions—real ones, not just about my medical situation. Once it was clear my disability wouldn’t interfere with our physical relationship, he stopped being overly curious about it.
He was genuinely excited to hear about my college experience at the U of M.
He hadn’t been able to finish his degree and was always anxious that it would be held against him. About a month into our relationship, he was up for a promotion.
I was up for the same position, having worked in that division for five years to his six months.
He got it.
He told me how relieved he was that his lack of a degree hadn’t hurt his chances. Or apparently, the fact that he was so new compared to my tenure.
But like he explained, if I’d gotten it, people might have assumed it was just a diversity promotion. You know, because of my disability.
When he got promoted, everyone would know it was purely merit-based, without any questions or jealousy from coworkers, he said. He liked phrasing things as “we” decisions without ever actually asking what I thought.
But secretly...
Secretly, I knew I was already the best candidate. And not just because of my college degree.
Drew didn’t handle it well, though, when it was even suggested that I—or anyone, really—might be better at something than him.
Everything was fine between us as long as we agreed.
Well, as long as I agreed with him.
But if I dared to think something wasn’t the right move, or if I voiced a different opinion—
I close my eyes and sink deeper into the steaming water.
None of it matters anymore.
Drew is back in Minneapolis in his slightly bigger cubicle, with everyone thinking what a saint he was to date that crazy, disabled girlfriend who just up and abandoned him after he’d been generous enough to propose.
I doubt the office gossip has died down, even though I left two months ago.
But maybe I should accept that fairy tales can be real.
Whatever these overwhelming feelings are that flood through me when my beast claims me—
I cut that thought short.
This isn’t making love, no matter how much my naive heart wants to romanticize it.
This is raw, primal claiming.
I’m being possessed by a monster who’s happiest when I’m surrendering to him.
I’m being used.
Just like always.
There aren’t happy endings. Not in real life.
I rise from the bath and lift my leg over the tub’s edge, marveling at the strength in my muscles as I step onto the frigid stone floor.
The shocking cold after the bath’s heat is actually welcome, as is the powerful flex of my calf as I shift my weight.
Maybe it’s only the romantic happy endings that are impossible, because I just received this miracle I’d all but given up hoping for. I stand straight, completely pain-free, feeling my shoulders square with newfound confidence.
When I breathe deeply, there’s no obstruction. No pain.
A tear slides down my cheek. I still can’t quite believe it. To be healed after a lifetime of limitations. Too many emotions battle in my chest simultaneously.
The tears are indistinguishable from bathwater dripping from my wet hair.
I stand there until goosebumps prick my skin, feeling whole and powerful in my own body for maybe the first time ever.
I feel like I could conquer the world.
I hurry to grab towels from the shelf, twisting one around my hair and wrapping another around my body before heading to the bedroom’s gaping window.
Frigid wind blasts through the opening, but I find it slightly more bearable than this morning. Still, I can’t wander around naked indefinitely. I search for last night’s discarded clothes. Maybe I can clean and mend them?
But looking around the floor, I only see snow drifts and scattered black feathers. I return to the window, gripping the wall and leaning out slightly to breathe the sharp, crystalline air.
Did he leave this way? He’d simply closed the bathroom door, saying he’d be gone awhile. “Don’t leave the bedroom,” was his final growled instruction.
The window opens at knee height and spans almost the entire wall. There are glass panes that might close via some cranking mechanism, but I can’t figure out how they work. Plus, if he left through here, he probably won’t appreciate returning to find glass blocking his entrance.
I’m sure he’d just crash right through, eliminating any hope of a warm night’s sleep.
Though honestly, last night was surprisingly cozy with those massive wings enveloping us like a living blanket.
I shake my head, deciding not to analyze that too deeply. I’ll ask about closing the window tonight.
I’m about to retreat before I freeze solid when a glint on the distant horizon catches my attention.
I pause and squint into the distance.
Is that just more ice and snow?
I squint harder, gripping the window frame and leaning further out.
There—that glint again. I blink and strain my eyes, wishing desperately for a telescope.
Wait, is that a—
I slip, momentum yanking me forward. I shriek and barely manage to scrabble for a better grip before tumbling out completely.
But the towel around my hair flutters away into the wind, caught and whipping violently before falling toward the dark lake below.
“Dammit!” I gasp, heart hammering.
Instead of retreating like any sane person would, I rush back to the bathroom.
I grab the thick glass tumbler from our meal that he’d let me bring up for drinking water.
I need to hurry back before the light fades completely. Here in winter, days are frustratingly brief. I navigate carefully through the blown snow and feathers to the window, holding up the glass and angling it until it provides slight magnification.
Holy shit!
My eyes aren’t deceiving me.
There, in the furthest distance—maybe even across the lake—is definitely artificial light.
My heart soars with possibility.
We’re not completely isolated after all.
What if escape back to civilization is actually possible?
But even as excitement floods through me, another thought creeps in unbidden: Do I actually want to escape anymore?