Page 14 of Love & Monsters
Was our time together going to be interesting? What did that even mean? I hesitated to bring it up, but perhaps I needed to.
“Well, about what happened last night—” I started.
“Last night?” Vadric started, his eyes wandering around the shadows. “No, that was two days ago. You’ve been asleep for a while. I almost thought you were dying, honestly.”
A strangled choke came from me as I heard that. I’d slept for two days. I guess with something as traumatic as what happened to me; it made sense my body needed to recover. No wonder I felt like I had slept too long when I woke up.
“Oh, shit.” I buried my face in my hands. That means I’ve been missing back home for days now. My family and friends were probably worried sick and there was nothing I could do about it.
“Glad to see you’re not dead, though.” He paused, and while I was blankly staring off at nothing, Vadric was watching me. “Are you alright?”
“My family probably thinks I’m dead by now. I’ll… I’ll never see them again.” I retreated deeper into the fur wrapped around me. However, the cold I was feeling came from inside me.
“Most likely. It’s unfortunate.” Vadric shifted until his legs crossed, and he was leaning forward. I felt a pinch of fear as his yellow and black eyes took me in, as an instinct told me to be afraid of him.
“Yeah,” I muttered, with nothing else to say on the subject. Right now, I didn’t have the tears for those thoughts.
“Did you have a large family?” Vadric’s question pulled me out of my trance. Looking up at him, I saw the interest in his eyes.
“Not really. My parents, no siblings, but aunts and uncles and plenty of cousins I grew up with. Then I had friends, all probably wondering where I was. And my job, and my apartment? I’ve lost everything.”
“You haven’t lost your life,” he added.
“But what do I have to live for here?” I retorted without thinking. It was a slip of the tongue as my darkest thought came out.
Vadric’s head tilted to the side, and his tail swished low to the ground. One of his dark, arched brows twitched up. “You don’t have to live for anything. We live to be alive. That’s it.”
“Maybe it’s that simple for you, but it’s not like that for humans. We have purpose.” I dropped my gaze to the ground.
“The purpose of every living thing is to exist. It doesn’t have to be complicated. Maybe some people are called for something, but that doesn’t mean simply existing isn’t a grand purpose on its own. There is beauty to being alive, whether or not you see that now.”
It was strange to be comforted by a demon. Yet I couldn’t deny there was something in his soft, gravelly voice and lovely words that made me feel a fraction lighter from the weight on my chest.
“You’re right, I don’t see that now. How am I supposed to be grateful for my life when I’m not in my world, my family doesn’t know I’m alive, and I’m essentially a prisoner?” Under the blanket, I drew my knees to my chest and caged myself in the fur blanket.
“That may be the case now, but doesn’t mean it will always be so. Change is inevitable. You might be here now, but next week? Who knows?” Vadric shrugged. I got the sense he knew something, and that thought led me down a path of ideas I had previously.
“Well, if I’m going to be trapped here, can you tell me about this world?” I asked. He’d been nice to me this far, but that meant nothing in my mind. This was still an unpredictable demon that bloodlust had overcome and he’d… tasted me.
Vadric rubbed one clawed finger over his chin, clearly thinking about what to respond. In those brief seconds, I let my eyes wander over the blue skin of his face and hands and wondered if he was blue under his black clothing, too. Until his voice snapped me out of that potentially dangerous line of thought.
“How about an exchange of information, little one?” he implored. “I’d like to know more about the human world, and I can tell you about mine.”
“Why do you want to know about the human world?”
“Curiosity. If you knew my world existed, even if you weren’t here, wouldn’t you still want to know more?” He had a point.
I thought back to all the animals and nature documentaries I watched growing up, learning about different places across the globe even if I’d never go to them. It was almost the same type of interest, although in my case now it was to help me survive.
“Okay. I can agree with that. An exchange of information.” My cheeks flushed when my brain reminded me of something else that we’d exchanged. Vadric’s tongue had been inside me and I’d tasted him in return.
Vadric nodded his head before crossing his arms behind his head to lean back against the stone wall, stretching out his impossibly long legs right next to me. His crossed legs were inches from touching my thigh on my right side.
“What do you want to know first?” he offered.
“Will I really get eaten?” The question tumbled out.
His lips thinned, and I heard the briefest chuckle before he squashed down his laughter. “Sorry, um, you know that’s honestly a tough one to answer.”
