Page 25 of Monster Married
Inkiri was so quiet next to me that I might have thought he’d left if it weren’t for his body heat. He put his arm around me.
“Sadir, you don’t mean that. You didn’t just save Nokim that day. Fellisse says Lissir would have bled out, and I was shot. There were too many of them there, and we were unprepared. You saved us all, Rory. All of us are alive because of you. Because of your magic.”
I tore my gaze away from the twinkling river and looked up at Inkiri. “I never wanted magic. I just wanted cat socks. No bullets. No monsters. And before all of this started, I just wanted someone like you. Someone who loves me, because…because I’m me.” I looked away. “Not because of magic.”
“I do love you because you are yourself, Rory. These are not happy tears, are they?”
I shook my head and wiped my eyes, then let him wrap me in his arms.
A traitorous voice inside of me insisted that he was probably right, that whatever magic I’d been able to use had saved the day, but I didn’t want that to be true. I wanted a stupid, silly, suburban life in which finding the cutest socks ever really was the most exciting thing that happened on any given day.
It wasn’t too much for an apocalyptic twink to ask, was it?
We returned to the hotel after a nice walk that helped me let go of a good chunk of my self-pity. The entrance to the hotel was through a sliding door. Beyond that, a desk sat on a raised platform, and two staff members sat on the floor behind it, writing in ledgers and sipping either tea or something stronger.
They stood to greet us, smiled a lot, and talked with Inkiri. I didn’t even feel left out, not with the way he kept holding on to my wrist and gesturing to me, making them smile and bow at me.
When his conversation with the staff seemed to have come to its end, Inkiri said, “Let’s soak first.”
That was mildly disappointing, but I couldn’t really argue with washing up before sex. That would’ve been rude.
I managed to tell the staff “lesh,” my new word.
Inkiri clicked and turned to me. “They’re not offended, but it’s better to say ‘al-lesh’ here. It’s more polite.”
“Oh. Al-lesh. Al-lesh.” I did my best to get the stress right.
The reception staff happily accepted that, and one of them walked us through the labyrinthine corridors of the hotel.
“Why do you need different words for ‘thanks’?” I asked as we followed.
We were in a long hallway, decorated with a painting of a landscape dominated by a river. It was really warm here, and pretty humid.
“Why do you need ‘thanks,’ ‘thank you,’ and ‘thank you so much’ in English, Sadir?”
“Okay, got it. The same, but different.”
The reception bagu stopped at what looked like a wall to me and gestured, then stepped away and made to walk back the way he’d come.
“Al-lesh,” I told him once more.
He beamed and clicked at me. The clicks were never the same, and by now, I was sure I’d be able to pick out Ink’s even in a din.
Inkiri opened the wall that was really a sliding door. “This is the bath.”
I had been unconscious when they’d first brought me here, but I remembered this room in the hazy way of dreams. In reality, it was a lot neater, warmer, and cozier. It gave off very expensive hotel vibes, but then, I had married a prince.
To the left were individual sinks with shower nozzles and buckets—a similar setup to how the guys had used the bathroom in the unfinished house back in Ireland.
Behind that, farther into the room and only faintly illuminated by a single lantern, there was a pool. It wasn’t big enough for swimming, not really, but several people of Inkiri’s size would easily fit in there comfortably.
Behind the pool, the wooden walls were painted in blues and greens with a lot of wave motifs, and higher on the walls were glass windows that would let in the sun. I could just about see one of the moons from where I stood.
Right now, the entire bath was empty. I glanced up at Inkiri.
He tilted his head. “I asked them to close it for the night before we left. I didn’t want to be interrupted, and I wanted to make you feel comfortable.”
My grin broke out of me instantly. Not only was this a sweet thing to do, it also made me feel…so grown up. Like, I had a…a husband. Who’d booked a bath for me. A husband. I’d never even considered what that would be like, but the more I thought it, the more right it sounded.
