At least my little Omega has the good sense to know when a conversation has run its natural course. Sometimes. “Then let’s go.”
* * *
Renee
If that wasn’t the most infuriating dang conversation anybody ever had… and then we got interrupted right when it was getting interesting. I’m so distracted, and not just by the plug in my ass—unsettling though it may be. There’s a restlessness in me, a deep need to find out about every aspect of Krav’s life. To learn everything about him. But for now, I’ll settle for getting to see his mysterious pet.
Trudging along the hallways behind him, I keep stealing glimpses at Krav’s broad back. His gleaming wings are magnificent even when they’re tucked away, like now.
So demonsdon’t dolove, huh? I’ve heard some paltry excuses from commitment-phobes before but this is a new one. Still, it would explain a lot. Like the fact that he just won’t be affectionate with me. He never cuddles me for long, not even after sex. If I’m cold, he’ll haul me up against him until I stop shivering, then he’s quick to move away.
Nor did I understand the whole separate bedroom arrangement until now. The first time I fell asleep beside him after sex, I woke up in a different bed. Alone. In what is now my room.
Sometimes, I wake up and sense him pacing around my bed. But he never climbs in, and I always fall back asleep.
It would be nice to be held while I sleep, but on the other hand, I’m grateful for the reprieve—it’s a relief to get the occasional break from being horny, and I’m always horny around him. Also, having lived alone for several years now, I don’t think I would deal real well with being around someone else 24/7. Especially a stranger. Analienstranger. Who, as it turns out, has the emotional intelligence of a twenty-something fuckboi.
We reach a huge, heavy door, which opens as if by magic. Maybe it is. “I don’t see a handle,” I say, hoping Krav will tell me how it works. I get anxious in places I can’t exit easily.
“There’s a tile,” he says, indicating it with his foot. “Just step on the tile and the door opens. There’s one on the other side too, of course.”
“Ah. Thank you.” The door doesn’t need to be held but Krav gallantly waits until I’ve gone through it before following me out.
I once had a job where my slightly older, male supervisor held a door for me, then informed me that guys only do that so they can check out your ass as you pass by them. Weird how little memories like that resurface occasionally. Especially now, when I can’t even remember the name of my street back home.
A cold breeze nips my face as soon as I’m outside, and I shiver in the ridiculous cobweb Krav calls a dress. The newly discovered submissive part of me doesn’t mind wearing what he wants—I’d go so far as to admit I enjoy it—but now we’re outside, I’m rapidly changing my stance.
I inch closer to Krav. His skin burns hotter than a human’s. He may not be a huge fan of cuddling or intimacy, but too bad. I need him to be my seven-foot-tall heater.
“You’re cold,” he says. “Wait.” He does that blurry thing with his hands, making it rain silver sparks, then gives me a fur-lined cloak which I tug gratefully around my shoulders.
“Thanks,” I tell him. At least I don’t have to worry about animal cruelty, what with it being man-made. Well. Demon-made. I suppress a grin at my own silly joke.
The air carries a hint of frost, completely at odds with the expanse of boiling, bubbling lava which surrounds the castle. The volcano looks dormant, and the three suns are low in the sky. If they’re giving off any warmth at all, I can’t feel it. What are the seasons like here? Not that long ago, I was tied to a tree and freaking out about getting sunburn. Now it smells like winter.
“Does it snow here?” I ask Krav, who’s peering across the lake like he’s searching for something.
“Snow?”
“Cold, white stuff falling from the sky. Big feature of Christmas cards, and the Winter Olympics.” Of course, he wouldn’t know what Christmas is. I should tell him sometime.
“We—” His voice is drowned out by an eldritch shriek which raises every last tiny hair on my body. I instinctively press myself up against Krav who, after a second, puts his arm around me. His scent is like hot cocoa by a bonfire on a cold evening. With marshmallows. And whisky.
Together, we watch the sky.
“Don’t make eye contact with him until I tell you to,” Krav murmurs. “Otherwise he’ll take it as a sign of aggression.”
“And then what would happen?” I squeak. It didn’t occur to me to be afraid of Plutus… until now.
“Then he’d—here, Plutus, come to me!” There’s another ear-splitting screech, like from a barn owl the size of a T-rex, and I’m so anxious about accidentally making eye-contact that I bury my face in Krav’s chest as Plutus approaches.
A great gust of wind and a frantic rustling of wings later, Krav turns around, moving me with him. “I’m just shutting him in,” he tells me. “You can open your eyes but don’t look directly at Plutus’s face until I say.”
I keep my gaze trained firmly on the ground as we approach. The obsidian rock beneath our feet is soon interrupted by an industrial metal frame—the door to the cage.
“Stop here,” Krav orders. His arm slides off my shoulders, the weight lifting, leaving me oddly bereft—and colder. There are grating noises, like bolts being driven home, then he tugs me back against him. Weird how his arm around me feels so right. “Plutus, meet Renee,” Krav announces. “Myotherpet.” I roll my eyes. “Sweetheart, now you can look all you like.”
“Holy shit,” I breathe. Plutus is magnificent. Around ten feet tall, he stands on huge green talons tipped with razor-sharp claws. He has the feet, head and wings of a predatory bird, and the body and tail of a great cat. “A real, live griffin!”
