Page 24 of Monster Married
“Let go of my cock before I answer, hmm? I don’t want you to accidentally squeeze too tightly.”
I licked my lips and let my head sag back against the tree, then pulled my hand out of his pants.
“Fine.” My fingers were wet with his juices, so I decided to lick them clean. He tasted like he was part of me, a strangely familiar thing I would hold on to now that I had found it.
“It’s said that sharing one’s lives was how matings worked before bagua lost so much of their magic. How did you hear about it? Did Lissir?—”
“Nah.” I reveled in the happy cocktail my brain was providing post orgasm. “I had this…thing just now? Like back at the Stone. Where I knew you were my mate. And I thought, you’ll get to blow me until we’re both dead, and we’ll die together, but it sounded more profound and more romantic in my head. Now I just sound horny.” I stared at him through the darkness. “I am horny. I want that barb again.”
Inkiri had stilled, but now his hands were running up and down my body, soothing, holding me upright.
“You’re such a gift to me, with your magic or without it, whatever it is exactly. You should know, Sadir, that we are those beings that became fae or elves in human myths, and we live longer than you.”
“How long?” I asked to be polite. I didn’t really care. The longer, the better.
“Vergis mentioned five hundred years once. Which was Earth years, I think, but I often confuse them. Our years are longer.”
I pushed off the tree and found myself instead leaning against his chest. “That’s perfect! I want to spend the next five hundred years with you. Means we should definitely stay here and not go near any stones at all, but especially no magical stones. No magical stones. Can you promise?”
He rubbed my back. My shirt was tied back there, and I wished he’d just untie it, spin me around, and give me that yummy cock.
“Sweet thing, you either had more fennie than I thought, or it’s magic that’s getting to you.”
I craned my neck without lifting my head off his chest. “Don’t I get to be happy my monster boyfriend just sucked me off in a public park? Oh, no, wait. Monster husband! I need to get used to calling you that. Okay, I hear it. I just slurred a little. I think it may be both the fanny and the magic, which sucks. Do you call bottles of that drink fanny packs, by the way? Like a collective noun?” I blinked. “Yeah, I definitely hear it now.”
Inkiri chuckled. “Come on, Sadir. Let’s head back across the river to the rikori, let’s get some water into you and rest a little.”
“Hmmmm.” I let him take my wrist and lead me through the darkness. I knew he wouldn’t let me stumble or fall.
Rest was fine, but before that, I was determined to get my husband’s barb.
Chapter 8
A stone bridge connected both shores at the opposite end of the park, although the greenery with the hidden lanterns continued across the river. By the time we reached the other side, any traces of my magical awareness had left me, but I realized that Inkiri was right; magic made me giddy.
“Does it?” Inkiri said when I told him. “I was joking. I never heard of magic working like that for a mage. We’ll need to talk to Vergis about it.”
“He wants to drag me to the Raikenga library to see if he can figure out what makes me magical. I’ve gone through life for nearly twenty-four years, and the most magical thing in my life is you, you know. I don’t think there’s anything better in some library.”
“Ah. You mean the Raiken library. Raikengana are the bagua of the Raiken, and a Raikenga is the singular form. I like Vergis’s idea. I think it’s good to research.”
The path we were on was a winding one, and it had brought us close to the river, so I stopped to look out over the water, where three moons rippled across its surface.
“Whoa.” I pointed at the reflections, then looked up to confirm. “There’s three moons!”
“We call them Uma, Tuma, and Ledis. They’re only this close to each other and share the night sky during the first harvest season of the year. After that, it’s only ever two of them.”
“That’s so cool.”
It hit me then, really sank in. Aër was not Earth. It was a different world, and it could be my home, this place, with its new smells, friendly people, and triplet moons in the sky. I could leave Earth’s lonely moon to watch over the tides and build something new here. I’d always be that strange pink guy who had no horns, but I could be happy here.
No one was asking or demanding of me that I leave Earth behind to make it so, but in a way, Earth had abandoned itself, those two years ago at the Stone, when so much of what made us human had just vanished. It was no longer the home I knew.
Cat and Jacob had turned to ash in front of my eyes, all their possible futures obliterated. In epic stories, their deaths would make me a hero out for vengeance, but this wasn’t that. It was just my story. I wasn’t a hero. Maybe Vergis would want to be the hero and avenge all of humanity instead. I could see him doing that, or maybe becoming the antihero who avenged humanity by accident. I wasn’t made for stuff like that.
The only good thing that had ever happened at the magical Stone of Destiny was that it had saved my guys. I was grateful for that, but beyond them being okay, I wanted nothing to do with magic.
I leaned against Inkiri, wanting to be close to him. “Maybe Vergis can figure out how to make me not magic. Or how to suck the magic back out of me with his knife.” I stared at the river. The surface rippled, and something surfaced in the dark water, maybe a fish who thought the moon was food. “You know, maybe what really happened was that the Stone put magic into me. I just want it gone. I don’t need it.”
