Throughout my life, when the bullying or attacks had been at their worst, I’d had this slight doubling over of my vision. An event I’d hidden from the world, pretending I hadn’t been losing my mind, when in reality I knew it wasn’t normal. Had that been me tapping into Shadow and through him the Shadow Realm all along?
To replicate it, though, I would have to put myself in a position where I genuinely feared for my life or suffered intense abuse. Weirdly enough, despite his asshole tendencies, it hadn’t happened with Shadow yet, and that meant I needed someone else.
No doubt one of the worlds could create moments of terror. What had Shadow said about Faerie…?What they do to Earthlings who stumble into their world makes me look like a fucking saint.
Faerie might be the world for me to try, and knowing Len, he could help me navigate it so I didn’t actually end up dead. He was Shadow’s friend, so surely, if I explained what I needed, he’d help with this mission. But would it truly be enough to bring on my double vision if I was with someone who might protect me? It was so hard to predict what might trigger the double sight, and forcing it felt like an invitation for disaster.
By the time morning arrived, I was no closer to a conclusion about what to do to bring on the double vision, but I had added a bunch of new theories to obsessively mull over for days. Night well spent. But today, I had a bet to win.
With that in mind, I dragged myself out of bed and got dressed in my regular clothes. I wasn’t about to wander around naked to win a bet—not yet anyway—and in all honesty, I was hoping to find a connection before I had sex. It would be nice if I could lose my virginity to someone I was genuinely attracted to, with a personality that didn’t make me want to stab them.
So my task was to talk to as many of the visitors as I could, and see whom I felt a connection with. Then, even if Shadow was watching, he’d see I wasn’t doing anything different than before, and maybe after a week or so, he’d give up caring. So that was how I was rolling today: cool, calm, and casual. The threecs.
Hopefully, followed bycock.
35
The library was quiet when I entered. This in and of itself was not that odd. There were often times that the goblins who ran the place were the only ones around. But today, teamed with the fact that I was trying to win this bet and Shadow had warned me he was going to make it tough, there was a stink of him in the air.
Gaster came into sight after a few minutes, dashing around with an armful of books.
“Hey, Gaster!” I called, waving him over.
Frantic eyes darted in my direction, and outside of a muttered “Too busy, sorry,” he wouldn’t even make eye contact. This happened over and over, no one coming near me, speaking to me, or looking in my direction if they could help it. The few times anyone did accidentally catch my eye, the panic in their faces was hysterical. At least it would have been if I wasn’t completely fuming about this bullshit.
When lunch rolled around, I slammed my way into the table, ordering in short clipped tones to the robot servers. They apparently were not off-limits, because I couldn’t have sex with them.
While I waited, I tried to control my breathing and calm down.
“Shadow got to everyone,” Angel said. “Bastard is unbeatable when you challenge him.”
In my fury I hadn’t actually noticed her there. “You’re allowed to talk to me?” I asked, exasperated.
She shrugged, an apple in her hand today, with a small break in the skin. Maybe the smell was stronger that way. “Shadow can’t control me. I don’t fear him or his particular brand of persuasion. He knows that, and we have reached our truce of sorts.”
I huffed. “Well, looks like I have to lose my virginity to you.”
She turned fully toward me, abandoning her fruit. “What’s a virginity?”
Oh, wow. Well, this was going to be an interesting conversation.
“So, like, humans when they haven’t had sex…” I trailed off as she grinned. “You know, don’t you?”
Her laughter was one of the prettiest sounds I’d ever heard. “Yeah, I’ve actually spent a lot of time monitoring the human world. I’m fairly fluent in your languages and expressions.”
“Why did you monitor Earth?”
She shrugged. “Family business, of sorts. Keeping an eye on certain human families, ensuring their longevity and safety.”
I swallowed hard. “Kind of like a guardian angel?”
Those ancient-as-fuck eyes rested on me, the depths plundered with pain and memories. “Yeah, something like that.”
For some reason, that hit me harder than almost everything else I’d learned in this fantasy library. Guardian angels felt like a god thing, and maybe this was where the scriptures had come from—mythical beings from Honor Meadows, seen around Earth…
She chuckled again. “I’m still the same reticent asshole you met on the first day here. Don’t paint me with a halo just yet.”
My lips twitched and I couldn’t stop laughter from spilling over. “Okay, fair enough.”
