Page 21 of The Monster of Darkspell Comics
Is... is he flirting with me? Oh man.
“No,” Pashar snaps before I can unglue my tongue from the top of my mouth. He holds the key up between his fingers. “This is all we need. We will take a quick look around and be out of here as quickly as possible.”
Jasper inclines his head, and I don’t miss the fact that Pashar’s corethi are twining aggressively, their sharp points pointed directly at the ghoul. While I’m not sure what exactly has set Pashar off, the ghoul is clearly not oblivious to the danger being directed at him, even if he’s playing it cool.
“Second floor. The room will be the third on the right,” he rasps.
Pashar dips his head in acknowledgement as he takes my hand in his and leads me away from the desk. Neither of us comments on the way the ghoul’s eyes are following us, but it’s a free country and Pashar has mentioned before that what he is permitted to do in this world is incredibly limited and fraught with all kinds of regulations. I do kind of wonder, though, how a ghoul might hold up in a fight with a demon. Jasper, despite how thin he is, has a wicked strength to him. I doubt he would be easy to take down.
Like the ghoul, the inn is definitely far more than it appears. As we pass the rooms, my skin prickles as strange sounds and sensations—whether hot, cold, or damp—seemed to escape from behind the closed doors. It’s wilder than any horror movie I’ve ever seen. The bulbs in the wall sconces flicker, sending deep shadows over the aged wallpaper as we reach the stairs and climb to the second floor.
Arriving at room twelve, Pashar unlocks the door, and I follow him inside and flip on the light. It is shockingly normal. A double-sized bed sits against the far wall with a lamp on either side. Its amber bedding matches the curtains in a very uniform earth-tone color palette that complements the sandstone-colored walls, calling to the theme of the deserts depicted in the framed paintings hanging on the wall. I drift toward one painting while Pashar rifles through the drawers of the nightstands.
“Very prosaic,” I comment aloud as I peer at it.
It’s actually a very nice view of the canyon, and it looks like something that could easily have been painted from just about any location outside of town. While the colors are restful to the eye, there is something eerie about it that I can’t quite put my finger on. The bedroom light suddenly momentarily flickers, and within the painting, the glowing eyes of hunting creatures come to life from where they prowl, hidden among the rocks andsparse plant life. Gasping, I stumble back from it, drawing the demon’s gaze to me.
“What is it?” he demands, rushing to my side.
“N... nothing,” I stutter, my fist clenched and pressed tightly against my heart, willing it to remain locked behind my ribcage. I shake my head and give him an apologetic smile as he squints at the painting. “Here I was thinking that the room was so normal, and it took the first opportunity to prove me wrong.” I tip my head toward the painting. “When the lights flickered, there was something prowling in the painting.”
“Ah,” Pashar murmurs. “Jasper does have a taste for collecting the oddest things. Oddities seem to find their way out into the desert, as well, not just people. Things that are filled with power and cannot be destroyed but would be better forgotten. This painting must be one of them. A portal of some kind, inactive but serving as a window, nonetheless.”
I shiver. I love spooky stuff, but... “How the hell would anyone even be able to sleep in here?”
He grins in response but walks away, returning to his task. I reluctantly join him, but I don’t feel comfortable completely giving my back to the painting as I help him search the room. To my disappointment, there aren’t much in the way of clues. I was hoping for a journal or something in which he logged his daily frustration and detailed his plans. Something that would have been found if real life resembled an old monster movie or thrilling mystery. Instead, all I can come up with is a scrap of paper that I find caught under the foot of the bed. Bending, I pick it up and hold it close to scrutinize the unholy penmanship scrawled across it.
Thursday, 10 am. No address, no name or phone number. Just an appointment time. Sighing, I show it to Pashar before sticking it in my pocket. Where would he have had anappointment early that morning? Whatever it was, it explained why he had checked out later, just as Jasper said.
“Come on,” Pashar sighs with a last glance around the room. It took us a few minutes to put it back together again, though I can’t say it is quite as tidy as it was before. Neither of us appears to have ever mastered tucking blankets around a bed in the neat, tight ways hotels and hospitals do. “We aren’t going to find anything more here.”
I look up at him as we leave the room. “What do we do now?” I whisper.
“There’s nothing we can do but wait and watch,” he grumbles.
And with Halloween festivities starting soon in town, that makes my stomach drop. That would be a perfect opportunity to try something nefarious if he has the capability. He obviously can’t get whoever it is he wants to get out here, but that doesn’t mean that he might not try something crazy himself.
Chapter 17
Fanny
Despite not knowing what kind of surprises would have been in store for me at Deadman’s Inn, I almost wish that I had taken Jasper up on his offer so that I could have enjoyed sleeping in a real bed again for a change. True, I couldn’t trust anything in the inn, much less its owner, but damned if this couch isn’t killing me. Not that Pashar is the least bit sympathetic since he is sleeping soundly and obliviously in his own bed while I work to find a comfortable spot on the couch.
Punching the pillow, I roll over and groan. I’m really starting to hate this couch. It was a dream to sleep on for the first several nights, but then that is easy to believe when one is accustomed to sleeping in terrible conditions and always waking sore and tired in the morning. The discomforts are minor comparatively. I also hadn’t believed that the couch would be for more than a night or two before he figured out an actual bed for me, but it seems like the demon is planning on keeping me on it for the long term. Even then, it hadn’t entirely bothered me until I caught a glimpse of Pashar’s bedroom on my way to the bathroom and saw exactly what sort of comfort he enjoys.
Lush black and dark ruby bedding, fluffy pillows and a mattress that looks like the sort of thing that would come from a high-end hotel. It is like the personification of sinful lust in the epitome of the best sleep one would ever have. The sort of sleep that comes after really good sex, where you wake up feeling like a million bucks. I want that, and I’ve coveted it ever since.
Shit. If he could do all of that for himself, how hard would it be to set up something comfortable for me? I don’t even need anything that fancy, just a reasonably comfortable guest room to sleep in. One that doesn’t make me shiver when the temperature in the living room suddenly cools before I can even get into bed and warm the blankets.
I don’t even need much, so it’s not like it would lessen my punishment in any meaningful way. It just hardly seems fair to deny me an actual bed when his entire bedroom is the epitome of a den of luxury. Granted, it looks like Dracula was his interior decorator, but I like it—so long as the drapes are firmly closed against the horrors of the mist outside. Hell, he could keep the guestroom to his home’s color scheme, austere spaces, and touches of overdone elegance, and it wouldn’t bother me in the least.
But as I have nothing but a couch, his bedroom just begs me to enter, and I have poor discipline when it comes to resisting what I want. I want to explore the entire expanse of the bed and find the coziest spot on it. There is a forbidden, naughty part of me that really wants to do it while he is stretched out naked on the bed. It’s a mental image that makes me both blush furiously and grow wet.
I’m not a virgin. That was the first of my mother’s warnings of my shameful future that I practically ran headlong into. But as most men I’ve encountered while roving were complete pricks that I wouldn’t let anywhere near my pussy, my experience hasn’t exactly been copious or widely varied. In fact, until just recently, I’ve been pretty sure I could take or leave having a sex life of any kind. Pashar may be a complete dick and a monstrous demon of nightmares, but he’s one that makes me squirm with desire the moment he drops his human disguise... and I genuinely like being with him.
Funny. It should be the hot human look that makes me want to jump him. He certainly picked an attractive model to emulate. I discovered that quite by accident when I happened to glance at a magazine and was forced to take a second look in surprise. The model’s hair was short and well-groomed, and his face lacked the scruff that Pashar’s human look had, but all it took was for me to squint a little and I saw it. And yet, that doesn’t make me all hot and bothered. He’s nice to look at, but the real him has me curious and wanting to take a look and see what he hides in his pants. It’s the true body attached to the male that I’ve found myself growing closer to that I want to know.
My mouth goes dry as I picture his dark purple body and long wings stretched out over the black sheet, his long hair pooled behind him as his corethi twist around him. And that tail. A soft pant leaves me as I imagine that long coil of his tail and the way it loops and twitches provocatively. Having all that between my legs, and a bed with the thickest mattress I’ve ever seen to curl up on afterward, is my most immediate and torturous fantasy.
