Page 5 of Monster Married
Yeah, having sex with my boyfriend was a thing that was happening for me now. It made me feel ridiculously accomplished. So much so that when Nokim led the way into one of the rooms and through it, I was grinning stupidly and wondering when I was going to have sex with my boyfriend again.
With an effort, I managed to focus on my surroundings. The hotel layout immediately confused me, what with the sliding walls that functioned as doors and their tall lintels that accommodated horns.
The whole place was a maze of interconnecting rooms, and those colorful sliding walls were distracting. I didn’t think I’d be able to find my way back to the room I’d shared with Inkiri on my own.
At last, Nokim slid another wall aside, and instead of another room, there was a long hallway.
The hallway didn’t have windows of its own since it was nestled within the building, but it was still bright. I looked up, half expecting to see lights, but no. Above our heads, I could just barely make out windows in the ceiling, a solid two stories high, if not more.
To guide the light down, the bagua had used mirrors on the wall so that the entire length of the hallway was illuminated. The mirrors were set up at different angles, probably allowing for light to hit them at different times of day. It was ingenious.
“Wow.”
Nokim turned to me and tilted his head. “Our ceilings are usually higher than those on Earth,” he said, misunderstanding my awe.
I stopped and pointed. “No, the mirrors. That’s impressive.”
Inkiri chuckled. “Good to see you impressed. I should’ve remembered you like bright things, Sadir.”
I pouted up at him. “It’s not that. It’s smartly designed, and I can appreciate that. I’ve never seen anything like this place.” I gestured all around me, at the wall screens painted with sprawling nature scenes. “Or anything as pretty.” I pointed at an animal I’d spotted in one of the drawings, hiding behind a tree. It looked adorable, with fluffy white ears on top of a round white body. “And cute.”
Inkiri seemed to brighten at that. “Cute? You find ligua cute?”
“That’s what this is? Lick war?”
“Ligua. They’re omnivores.” Inkiri tapped the painted creature with a finger. “Easy to keep for their wool, because they don’t mind food scraps and leftovers. Some people like to eat them.”
Nokim shivered. “The raw and iced brain is supposedly a delicacy. I think mashed potatoes are much better.”
I made a face at the thought of iced brains. “Agreed.”
Inkiri clicked and gently pushed me forward. Up ahead, the hallway turned to the right, but the room nearest the corner had been opened, and inside, Fellisse, Lissir, and Vergis were lounging on the floor around a large low table. Fellisse and Lissir were wearing the purple hotel clothes. Vergis, unsurprisingly, had stuck with his cargo pants and hoodie.
I assumed that was a private dining room. Its walls had fruit trees painted on them, all stylized and each sticking to one color scheme—green, blue, white, red, or yellow—and the colors were repeated in the floor cushions and the glassware on the table. Whoever ran this hotel paid a lot of attention to detail.
Lissir beamed at us and put his cup down to jump to his feet. He was in front of me in moments, taking both my hands in his and squeezing them.
“You are well, Rory?”
I shrugged. “I am, actually. Never felt better.”
Fellisse made a happy rumbling sound. “He speaks again. Good.”
Vergis snorted. “I beg to differ. I liked him just fine when he wasn’t talking.”
Lissir turned and hissed something at Vergis in their language, and I was pretty sure at least some of it was cussing. Not that Vergis cared. He just grabbed a morsel of food straight off a plate and stuffed it into his mouth while casting a level look at me.
“We are very happy you’re better, Rory,” Lissir said. “All of us are happy about that. And for whatever you did at the Stone, we are grateful. You saved us. Thank you.”
I looked up at Lissir. His orange eyes were bright, and his silver-gray skin appeared healthy to me. He was fine. I’d seen Fellisse carry him, seen him bleeding. There had been a lot of blood everywhere, but there was no sign of anyone being hurt now, and that was the greatest relief ever.
I touched Lissir’s shoulder to make sure he was real, was really okay. “You got shot, right? You got hurt back at the lake as well? An arrow?”
He nodded. “But I’m hurt no more. I was healed.” He tilted his head and lifted his hand to his left horn. “Apart from this.”
I craned my neck until I saw the mark in his horn, a single, straight line; the kind you only noticed when you were looking for it.
I ran my finger over it. It was rough, but faint. “Oh, sorry. Does that hurt?”
