Page 1 of My Ogre Husband
ChapterOne
“All I’m asking for is a chair!” Tears are building behind my eyes, making them sting, as I try to get across once again what my basic needs are. “I just want a chair, Shisek. The table isn’t any good to me without a chair.”
“Humans,” he says, flexing his long shadowy claws as he frowns. “First it was a bed. Then a couch. Now a chair?” He lets out that disapproving hiss I’ve come to despise.
“Yes! Those are all things we need!” I’m trying so hard not to cry, not to give Shisek the gratification of letting him know how much he hurts me, but it’s biting at my cheeks with a painful intensity. “I can’t eat on the couch every day.”
I don’t think I’ve been comfortable for even a moment since I moved in to do a trial marriage with Shisek. I knew he was a shadow demon, and shadow demons don’t need much in the way of furniture given how they can shift without a physical form through the world. His home is somewhere between dimensions, so it’s not easy to get furniture delivered, either.
I knew all this, but I had hoped he would try harder to accommodate me, to make his house a home for me as the trial marriage rules stipulated. But the only thing he’d had ready for me when I moved in was a bed, as if that’s all a human needs to be happy.
Now I’m starting to believe Shisek didn’t want me at all, and he’s just afraid of being lonely. He should be, given how grouchy and rude he’s been since I came here. Sometimes I think he applied for a human companion because even his own kind won’t tolerate him.
Shisek’s glowing red eyes narrow. “I can’t afford to buy so many superfluous things,” he says, his form shifting as he moves across the shadowy room.
“You should have thought of that before you applied for a human companion,” I growl back.
This isn’t the first time we’ve fought over this subject—and many other subjects, too. Probably the most painful time was when I asked if we could have sex, and Shisek told me we had “some things to work out first.”
I should have known that was the end, but I clung onto hope. I wanted this happily ever after so badly, and I wanted the freedom that Shisek gives me out in the world. He can shift into any size and shape he likes, and his great big fangs are enough to scare off any monsters who might want to hurt or eat me. It made him the perfect choice for a partner, or so I thought.
Not that we’ve gone much of anywhere. Shisek is also a homebody, which means I haven’t even been to the grocery store. He simply orders what I want and picks it up on his way home from work. I’m trapped all day in this shadow house, unable to even step out the front door unless Shisek is with me to guide me back to the physical plane.
“Yes,” Shisek finally answers. “I am coming to realize that applying for you was a mistake, Maddie.”
The words are enough to send a shock of pure fury surging through my body. My tears break free at last, and they stream down my face as I shoot up from the couch.
“Then take me back!” I want to just reach out and grab him, shake him by his collar, but he’s carefully dematerialized himself. “Take me home!”
It turns out that was all I needed to say. That night, I pack my bags and Shisek silently leads me to the entrance to the shadow realm. There, his car is waiting for us, and he drives me back to New Eden without a word.
“Good riddance,” I mutter as he pulls away, leaving me alone on the curb with my bags. But I can’t mask all my heartbreak with anger. When the car is gone, I sink down to my knees on the sidewalk and cry until one of the guards hears me. He helps me carry my things inside the high walls of the preserve, back to the place I thought I’d finally left for the last time.
Now here I am, embarrassed by my failure and trapped in a prison once more.
* * *
In the following days, I try not to let on how much it hurts that things fell apart with Shisek. I don’t want people to think I’m fragile, to know how much it aches to be sent home. I hug my parents, smiling, telling them how the breakup was mutual and amicable.
But my best friend, Celeste, must sense that everything isn’t quite as I pretend, because she comes up with all sorts of activities for us to do together. She demands that I help her with the garden during the day, and in the evenings, she invites me over to cook and play cards. I’m usually the one who insists on our little friend group hanging out, but she’s taken up the mantle of urging us all to get together and do distracting activities.
In the last few months, I’ve gotten a few new applications from monsters who are interested in me. I’ve ignored them, but tonight Celeste insisted that we sit down at the table together to shuffle through them, looking for the one who could be my perfect match.
I have very low hopes.
“What about this guy?” she asks, sliding over an application. The picture attached to it features a centaur, big and beefy in the shoulders and chest, with a handsome face and a gorgeous, dapple grey coat on his lower half. He’s beautiful, I have to admit, and is probably hung like a... well, like a horse.
“How does that work?” I ask, cocking my head at the photograph. “Does he mount me?” I try to imagine this, and I wonder if it would even fit.
Celeste furrows her brow. “I don’t know. It does seem like it might be complicated.”
I push the application away and drop my head down on the table. It’s not really about the sex—though that is very important to me. It’s the idea of offering my heart again that haunts me, hoping that some centaur won’t stomp on it the way Shisek did.
I was so thrilled the day I packed up my things, absolutely sure that this was my chance to find my happily ever after. And maybe the problem is that I was too eager, too blinded by my rose-colored glasses to see the truth about Shisek. Because truly, I hate it here in New Eden. There aren’t many humans left in the world, and those that are? We’re trapped behind these high walls to keep us safe from monsters that roam the world outside. It’s a boring existence. There’s so much out there in the world to do and see, and I could never see it unless I left.
So I was willing to overlook the red flags if it meant freedom.
Celeste pats my back. “What’s really wrong?” she asks. “There’s something bothering you.”
