Chapter 7
I had the time it took Lissir to lead me back to the rest of the group to consider my next steps. My brain was, of course, still mostly occupied with processing the fact that I was potentially not responsible for the apocalypse. Or not directly responsible, whatever that meant.
“How does Vergis know how magic works?” I asked Lissir as we stopped by the kitchen so he could drop my empty plate there.
The kitchen was large, and unlike the living room or the staircase, it was completely finished.
There wasn’t a lot of clutter around, although there was a large crate of potatoes on the floor in one corner.
I heard the fridge humming along, so they had power.
A cutting board sat out on a counter with a serrated knife neatly lined up next to it and a wooden breadbox within easy reach.
That was where my sandwich had come from.
Lissir tilted his head. “He can do magic. One of the few bagua who still can. He used it to go back and forth between here and Aer, even before. His father can do the same. He even traveled to Earth to have Vergis, then raised him here.” He put the plate in the sink. “He’s the only Earth-born bagu I know.”
“What? Are you saying he has a human mother?”
Lissir looked confused. “I wouldn’t know anything about that.
Vergis doesn’t talk much about anything.
All I can tell you is his father was pregnant with him when he left, only came back years later to show Vergis around, and since Vergis was above the age of the Raikenga call and technically outside of the call’s reach…
well, he is what you saw.” He followed that up with a quick head tilt.
I still wasn’t sure what Raikenga was, but Vergis knew magic. And his father had been pregnant? That sounded wrong, but I couldn’t even. It was probably just a translation thing.
The important revelation was that I hadn’t committed mass murder. That was a weight off my shoulders, at least, and I wanted to focus on that. There were so few good things to focus on these days.
When we walked back into the carpeted living room, the others stared as Lissir pulled me back over to the mattresses with him.
There, a bright-eyed Inkiri was waiting, tracking my every movement.
I’d never had a cat, but I knew they could charm you with their eyes.
And Inkiri didn’t just have beautiful indigo cat eyes, he also had horns, and those held a charm all their own.
The question was the same one every heroine in every monster romance story had to ask herself: Could I succumb to that charm without losing myself?
I was thinking about some of those romances—the one with the talking candleholder and the little teacup that had disappointed me at the very end when the heroine hadn’t gotten her monster—when I realized it wasn’t just Inkiri’s cat eyes that were fixed on me.
All of them were staring. Fellisse was smelling the air. Or me on the air? Maybe I just needed a bath. It was somewhat likely that I needed a bath or at least a shower.
“Nokim won’t touch you again,” Inkiri said, and he sounded serious. So wrist smelling was bad, then. I filed that away in case I ever wanted to offend anyone around here.
I nodded graciously. “Okay.”
Nokim said something in the other language.
“I meant all I said about you not having to be scared anymore now that you are with us,” Inkiri went on.
The way he spoke, the way he rested his palms lightly on his knees even though his shoulders were tight made me want to…
apologize? I felt bad for him for some reason, even though I had yet to see definitive proof that they were one hundred percent agreed that human wasn’t on the menu.
I blamed my Pollyannaish trust on the lack of social interaction I’d had over the past two years, maybe even before then.
I swallowed. “Yeah, you all seem super competent. And interesting sandwich toppings, by the way.”
“Oh, you liked that? Good. Good! Are you still hungry? I have been experimenting with mashed potato pudding.” Nokim jumped to his feet.
He was too excitable, the type of person who would plan a party from scratch and make it awesome even before anyone had really decided they wanted a party.
He reminded me of Cat. She had once planned my birthday party on the day of, when my parents had just left a present for me with a note saying they probably wouldn’t be home until very late, and to not wait for them.
While I should’ve gone for the offer of more food, the knowledge that Cat wasn’t here anymore after everything she’d done for me that day made me feel nauseous.
“No, thank you, I’m good for now. But, uhm. It’s been a long day. Almost dying in a changing room really takes it out of you, you know? Do you think I could crash somewhere?”
“Crash?” Inkiri asked, tilting his head back and forth.
“Oh. Sleep, I mean. I’m kind of beat.”
“Ah, beat also means tired!” Lissir picked up his manga. “Now chapter three makes sense. You should take your human to bed, Inkiri.” He reached for my hand and squeezed it, then whispered, “He’s very good for bed.”
Well, fuck. The shipping around here was intense.
“Yes, come.” Inkiri picked up my backpack from the floor next to the mattresses.
We were halfway up the metal stairs when I realized this might be what the monsters downstairs thought was going to be a wedding night.
I wasn’t sure whether I should be worried about that or not.
Inkiri had been nothing but nice, and he was carrying my backpack for me.
He’d also fed me, and he sounded so charming with the accent.
The light was waning fast outside, and I really was tired after everything that had happened. Plus, the way Inkiri’s hips moved was mildly hypnotic and made me even more sleepy. Wait. When had I started noticing his hips and how they moved?
My mom had called me naive more than once, and she hadn’t meant it as a compliment. I could see where she’d been coming from now.
Once we were on the second floor, I followed Inkiri into the first room on the left off the stairs. He held the door for me with a smile on his face and, if I was reading it right, hope in his eyes. I walked in, and he closed the door behind me.
I tore my gaze away from him and looked around instead.
Like the room Lissir had dragged me to downstairs, this one had carpets on the floor, except these were more varied in both color and texture.
One was excessively furry and had pink unicorns on it.
Most were of the thicker, softer variety, the kind that swallowed up your toes if you walked on them barefoot, and the varied colors made it look as if the floor were a colorful quilt.
There were two mattresses here, one on top of the other, and the top one was hidden under bedding—several blankets and comforters, and fluffy, plump pillows. Curtains hung in front of the windows, softening the evening light.
All in all, this was a comfortable room, nice and cozy, and the desire to throw myself on the mattresses and then not move for the foreseeable future was almost overwhelming.
“Do you like it, Rory?” Inkiri put my backpack down, then he pulled it open and glanced at me.
“It’s nice?” It sounded a lot like a question, but I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to say. Would he ravish me now to really tie the knot on this monster marriage? Would he be gentle when he did? Was ravishing ever done gently?
I was aware that I had no business whatsoever, finding any of this appealing, but not one of the people—the human people—I’d encountered after the monsters had come had ever fed me. Or carried my backpack for me. Stolen it, yes. More than once. Carried it, not so much.
I looked at Inkiri’s broad shoulders and the lines of his horns, the way they curled back and caught the light, all those ridges I wanted to touch so I’d know what they felt like.
Would it be fun to feel him touch my bare skin in turn?
I hadn’t been touched much, even pre-apocalypse.
Maybe letting a monster touch me wouldn’t be so bad?
Before I could form an opinion on the matter, I realized my blood had decided to flow south. Huh.
Inkiri stood.
“Do you want me to put these on you?” Inkiri held up a pair of the cat socks he’d gotten me.
That just frigging did it. Tears stung my eyes, and my throat constricted.
Inkiri tilted his head to one side, then the other and stepped close. Touching close. Kissing close. He clicked at me.
“You don’t want these?” he asked. “You want something else? Sadir, tell me what you want, hmm?”
I wiped at my own face. “No, it’s… No one has ever gotten me the socks I wanted.
Or, you know, something as nice. Never before.
I mean, maybe before before, you know? People bought me socks—it’s not like I was never given socks, but that’s really not the point.
The last people I met, they wanted me to work in the fields for them all day and spend half the night praying, you know?
It was one of those end-of-days cults that have been popping up, which I guess is sort of fair, given, you know.
Everything. But they stole my stuff and chased me when I ran off, and you got me the socks I wanted. ” I sniffled. “You guys aren’t a cult.”
Inkiri went still. He looked almost frozen, but I saw his nose twitch. He grabbed me around the middle, and—ever so gently—put me on the mattress pile, just sat me down. It was his mattress pile, I had to assume.
“We’re not a cult. We are family. You are not working in the fields, and I can get Vergis to retaliate if anyone should steal from you.” Inkiri was still clicking at me.
“Th-that’s good.” My throat felt raw, but this was nice. I was starting to feel safe.