Page 9 of Love & Monsters
“Can you tell me what happened?” Vadric asked. This conversation was strange, but it was honestly helping me calm down despite how cold I was.
“Sure, um.” I shivered again and hugged myself.
Before I could continue, Vadric interrupted. “Are you cold?”
“Freezing,” I admitted. Though I guess it was obvious.
“It gets frightfully cold down here at night. It doesn’t bother me, but I have something that could keep you warm if you come with me.” Nothing but a steady dripping in the distance echoed between us after his offer. As cold as I was, I didn’t think I could refuse.
“Okay.” Then my stomach rumbled, followed by a painful pang in the pit of my gut. I didn’t know how long it’d been since I ate anything.
“I have something to eat as well if you need it.” Vadric rose to his feet. One of his long ears twitched and his tail swished slowly. His height once again took my breath away as he towered over me like a big blue mountain.
“You have food in a dungeon?” His hand came out to help me up, but I stayed against the wall as I rose to my feet.
“The people of the manor love me, and Rykan never comes down here.” Vadric dropped his hand and turned to walk back to the other side of the dungeon. I hesitated before following.
We walked through the thin columns toward the back left of the dungeon, where I saw Vadric’s eyes in the shadows for the first time. There wasn’t much light down here, but my eyes adjusted quickly enough. This demon had a better setup than I expected to find down here.
In the back corner, there was a short bed inches above the ground, but thanks to his size, it was massive. There was a simple, low to the ground wooden table and a stool large enough for an eight-foot-tall demon. But it was the thick fur blanket on the bed and loaf of what I assumed was bread on the table that stole my attention.
“Here, sit. Like I said, I don’t mind the cold, so make yourself comfortable. Get warm.” He waved a hand at the bed, then dropped into a squat at the short table to tear the bread apart.
I warily lowered myself onto the edge. Once I felt how soft the fur was under my hand, I didn’t pause as I quickly pulled it over my shoulders. Grey and silver fur covered me, and I was so grateful for the warmth that followed. It eased some of the tension in my muscles and my little cold shivers subsided.
When Vadric handed me half the brown bread, I didn’t stop to think what might be in it. It looked like bread, it smelled like bread, and when I bit into it, it tasted like bread. Albeit slightly cold, it didn’t matter.
“So,” he sat on the stool across from me, “you were telling me how you got here? There hasn’t been a human in this world in over two hundred years, so anything you remember, I’d like to hear it.”
There was something like an inquiring business tone in his voice. It reminded me of my father when he was on a work call pressing for information but trying to sound casual about it. I suppose it made sense one monster here would be curious.
After all, I was curious about how I got here. Maybe someone would know how I could get back someday.
“Yes, I was back on Earth going for a jog at night. Next thing I know there’s a rabid dog chasing me, and I fell into a pond. At first, I thought I was drowning, but it was more like the water was sucking me down. When it finally let me go, I swam to the surface and instead of a pond, I was in a black sea surrounded by black sand and a dark forest. And the sky was red.” I slowed down at the end, picking at the loaf of bread in my lap.
“You must have fallen through a portal. They don’t open very often, it’s incredibly rare,” Vadric mused. I saw him stroking his chin with his brows pinched in deep thought. “Our worlds are close together, yet separated by a veil. It appears you were in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
“I guess so. What do you know about portals?” He said our worlds like he knew more.
“Not much, I’m afraid. Occurrences such as this are incredibly rare. Sometimes portals randomly open and little bits of our worlds slip through to the other. One of my kind to your side and one of yours to mine.” When he said that, my first thought was back to all the creatures I had seen up to this point, and how some of them bared a resemblance to monsters and cryptids that humans argued were real or not.
“So, there really is some truth in the myths,” I muttered to myself. Shaking my head, I looked up to meet Vadric’s gaze again. “Is there any way to get back?”
His face fell. Sorrow and pity for the little human, and I didn’t need to hear him say it. I was well and truly trapped here.
“No. I’ve never heard of anyone crossing back over. We can’t find the portals, and we never know when they’ll happen.” He ran his hand over the back of his neck, visibly exhaling. “I’m sorry.”
“Yeah, thanks.” I didn’t know what else to say as I absorbed that agonizing information, so I nibbled on the bread instead of talking.
Even after I ate the bread, a cramp lingered in my abdomen. It was barely enough. I was upset beyond belief, and my life was falling apart. My lower back ached too, and I wondered how many bruises and injuries I had hidden right now.
Vadric sat with me in that silence, but it didn’t feel uncomfortable. He might look like a demon, but there was something about him I didn’t hate to look at it. If I was being honest with myself, there was an unusual beauty to him.
The lines of his face were sharp and intensely angular. His jaw line alone could cut glass, and his nose was strong, and his lips were full in a sensual way. Even though there was still something undoubtably predatory about him, there were human models that would kill to have features like his.
And I knew he studied me in return. In the low lights and the eerie silence of the dungeon we were stuck in together, we noted one another. As the time stretched, and I didn’t feel any malicious intent from him, I relaxed further.
It might have just been my exhausted mind, but I wondered what his midnight blue skin would feel like under my fingers, or his horns against my palm. Every time his tail twitched behind the stool, I glanced at it, thinking about stroking it.
