Page 16 of Bearly Yours
Mesmer, the gargoyle, was guffawing over against the wall now. Like, full-on guffawing.
“Mia,” a long-suffering voice said from the doorway.
I turned in surprise, and then had to blink yet again in confusion. Draven, the king of the vampires, stood there. His suit was mussed and crooked, his tie looked like it had been forced through a shredder, his curly brown hair was really messy, and he had huge dirty paw prints on his suit jacket with accompanying shred marks.
Also, he was holding a black tiger in his arms like a baby, and the tiger was purring like an overlarge kitten.
Suddenly, Consort Mia’s explanation made way more sense. I pinched my lips to hide the laugh that wanted to explode out of me, and wished desperately that my best friend were here to see this.
“Yes, love?” Mia said, all innocence.
“Why did you send your assassin to attack me?” His words were laced with exasperation, but his eyes were warm as he focused his very intense gaze on his wife. There was adoration and a deep, deep love in his gaze. It actually made my eyes sting a little. A strong desire for that kind of love overwhelmed me for a moment, drowning me, until I took a deep, subtle breath through my nose, and the feeling softened enough to stop squeezing my heart in a vise.
Mia raised a hand to her chest like an award-winning Southern belle and gazed at him with an expression dripping in feigned shock and hurt. “I wouldnever!”
Draven dropped the tiger and it landed on its feet. I mean it wasn’t far to fall, just a few feet, but the tiger looked woundedly at the king for a moment before coming for congratulatory pets from his mistress.
Mia crooned in his ear what a good boy he was while Draven attempted to straighten his messy clothes and hair as he sat down on the love seat across from Mia and I.
I had to admit, Mia’s tactichadmade me less nervous. Now I felt like I was part of an elaborate prank, and Consort Mia and I were co-conspirators. Never in my life had I immediately respected another person’s supernatural ability as I did in that moment.
Also, empaths were a little scary.
King Draven attempted to straighten the cuffs of his dress-shirt but when attempting to re-button it discovered that the button was dangling at the end of a very long and loose thread. He sighed and ripped the button off, placing it in an inside pocket of his jacket and just rolled up the sleeves.
“What, may I ask, my love, was the purpose of my mauling?” Draven said, rolling up his other sleeve.
Mia smiled a secret smile and shrugged. It seemed she and the king had the ability to communicate with each othermentally, like I did with my Clan, because Mia laughed and nothing aloud had been said.
Draven turned back to me. “I’m sorry for being late. I was detained.”
I had to pause before I responded because I wanted to laugh so badly but didn’t want to be unprofessional.
I cleared my throat. “No problem at all. Consort Mia has been very welcoming.”
Thekitty catcame up to me and started nosing around my clothes. When he’d gotten enough of my scent to decide whether or not we would be friends, he decided to give me a bath by licking my hands. And when that didn’t satisfy him at all, he jumped up on the sofa between Consort Mia and I, and laid half of his body on my lap, purring and chuffing.
I blinked, shocked. Did tigers like bears? Was this a thing I had been unaware of? I scratched him behind his ears and along his broad forehead. This guy must weigh easily three hundred pounds. He didn’t look like he’d reached full maturity yet, so I was sure that he would grow and broaden out more and become more muscular. As it was, he was giving my thigh a charlie horse. I discreetly massaged my outer thigh under his massive head before I went back to petting him.
“Zian,” Mia said as she pulled on his huge black collar. “Get off the poor girl. You’re squishing her.”
Zian sighed and scooched back a little so it was just his massive head on my lap now, and not half of his body weight. I felt like I could breathe again. “I would love to play with you in my bear form kitty. Then we’ll see who’s bigger,” I whispered into one of his furry ears. Zian’s ears twitched but he otherwise pretended not to hear me. The king, however, looked like he wanted to laugh.
Consort Mia stood. “We have a large room that we’re making into a library upstairs. Will you check out the space and discussthe build with us? It’s a really large project, so we understand if you can’t accept it because of other prior commitments.”
“Of course, I’d be happy to take a look,” I said, getting up, too.
King Draven stood up and reached for his consort’s hand. “Mia loves your work. She frequents the Pirate’s Chest often just to see what pieces of yours are up for sale. If you have too many commissions right now, we can talk about a future date that you might be available as well.”
No pressure or anything.
My anxiety started to come back a little as they led me through their gorgeous house to an upstairs room that was literally crying out to be made into a library.
It was a huge circular room with a dome shaped ceiling that had glass inserts to let in natural light. A large, broken fountain stood in the middle and in the back was a staircase that led to a second level which had the same layout as the ground floor. A beautiful ornamental parapet circled the top floor, providing space for plenty of shelving along the walls, and book-seeking patrons to stroll its walkways.
Wow. It wasperfect!
I looked down at the floor, where white tiles interspersed with bronze to create a shield pattern on the floor, and then up at the hanging plants that were scattered throughout the room. I felt like I’d stepped into a fantasy world. I laughed when I remembered I was technicallypart ofa fantasy world. Humans at large speculated but did not know we existed, and it was much better that way.
