“Does it?” I scoffed, letting a laugh decorate my tone like polka-dot pockets of hysteria. “I’ve hooked up with Orbs before and it's never been an issue.”
Shaking his head, Ripp wore a smirk of indifference. “Not all Orbs are the same.” He said, as if that perfectly explained it. When I didn't shake the look of confusion, Ripp added, “We all want the same things humans do, Krueger. We want to be free. To live, to love. But never forget that we aren't humans. Our customs are not yours to understand.”
Wisdom from Ripp was like hearing a hyper fifth grader deliver a perfectly crafted piece from Robert Frost without allowing their nerves to shake their voice. I was dumbfounded that Ripp, the same tail-wagging Ripp I'd been around since I'd started working here, was offering me this insight into Orbkind.
“Okay...so, you're saying that Arze's kind has something against fraternizing with humans?”
Ripp scoffed, tilting his head. “To put it mildly.”
“What is it that they have against humans?”
“I should let him explain,” he nodded, and I thought he wasn't going to tell me anything else. “But seeing as he isn't speaking, I guess it's up to me.” He giggled lightly, the only semblance that the usual Ripp was still harbored in theresomewhere. “For more specifics, you'll have to see if he'll tell you. But I do know that it's considered the biggest taboo for a tythwig to be involved romantically or sexually with a human.”
“Biggest taboo?” That was ominous as hell, and it still didn't answer my questions. “How big? What are the consequences for a tythwig getting involved with a human?”
A sour glaze fell over Ripp's inhuman and void black face, but somehow I could see a ripple of discomfort among his features as he spoke. “It's punishable by death.”
Chapter 16
Flaresof desire bubbled beneath my skin as Arze kissed me, pressing me more firmly against the side of the RV. I didn't care if people saw us. All that existed was his body, his hands, his kiss, all begging me to give in.
My hands tried to retain the dips and divots of his purple skin, delighted by the heat melting into my palm. The ridges in his skin that gave off the wooded look felt like lines of textured pleasure woven in tandem with his flesh and I couldn't get enough of them.
Chests rising, bodies melding together, I could feel how hard Arze was through the fabric of his khakis, making my own erection drip with arrant want.
All too abruptly, Arze ended our hot and heavy exchange, his orange eyes mimicking the fire roaring between us. He looked off, like the lust had suddenly been turned off inside him, like an unsupervised water hose was dousing the flames of libido that had just been there seconds before.
“What's wrong?” I asked him, my heart pounding for a different reason now.
“We can't do this.” Arze's voice shook with determination. “We can't, Krueger. It's forbidden.”
When he said that damned word again, it echoed. And suddenly my surroundings weren't as stable as I'd thought. The RV park faded away, leaving Arze and I in a warped black void of nothing. Panic etched into my bones as I saw the scene shift, looking back at Arze and halting my breathing.
In the blink of an eye, he was in his shifted form, the same one I'd seen him use on my first day during the haunts. He was dripping with bark, branches forming a messy crown amongst the nest of his hair.
My fear leveled up when I watched as his orange eyes were now bleeding a black substance, thick and wrong and serving as a warning of bad things to come.
“Forbidden.” Arze said again, but it wasn't his voice. It was distorted, a deeper more sinister version of his voice that echoed and groaned to match the bleakness that enveloped us.
I started screaming, fear overtaking me fully until I jostled in my bed, waking from the wet dream turned physical nightmare.
I'd already planned on talking to Arze directly about needing to understand the details that Ripp had initiated, but now I sure as fuck was. I wasn't going to let my sleep go by affected.
I sat up in bed, trying to rectify my surroundings coming back to my senses as familiar and not the void I'd just been thrust into.
Events from work played across my recollection as I attempted to wake myself fully. Ripp's declaration had caused a ringing in my ears as I worked the maze for the first time. Everything went off without a hitch, and I was becoming a little too attached to my Freddy getup, but everything went smooth for my initial time experiencing the maze.
The same couldn't be said for my thoughts throughout the night. I wasn't even safe in my own bed anymore.
Arze could bekilledfor engaging in anything with me?Icould be killed? I wasn't sure of the specifics, and I was a littletoo afraid to get clarification from Ripp. After our talk, we'd only had a couple minutes before guests would start walking through the maze, so all conversation halted. My thoughts tossed and turned like restless limbs, wondering why it was that serious for Arze and I to evenkissone another.
After work, I had decided to spend the night in bed and writing more in my novel by typing in my Notes app. My only other option of distracting myself would have been telling Myers about what I'd learned, but she hadn't been home when I'd arrived. She was spending more and more time at the movie theater lately, and it was becoming more and more apparent that I wasn't the only one with a crush on someone in Phoebe. I'd fallen asleep before I'd heard Myers come in, unable to get the full debrief on her whereabouts.
Prying the sleep from the corners of my eyes, the lingering effects of my dream haunted me. The fact that I'd been making out with Arze, that I'd kissed him and suddenly I was feeling his hands roam my body, his tongue exploring my mouth, and his deep moans filling my ears, was agonizing. Just replaying it in my mind made me look down toward my crotch and, yep, confirmed, I was hard as fuck and irritated that my mind was playing tricks on me.
What disturbed me was the nightmare part of the dream. I wasn't easily spooked but seeing Arze dripping some sort of tar-like substance while his voice was distorted beyond recognition was the winning combo of making me truly afraid.
One part of the dream rang true in my head. I needed to confront Arze. Ripp's explanation was great to have, but I needed to hear it from the Orb himself in greater detail before I went through the suffering of moving on.
