Page 43 of Monsters Within (The Creatures We Crave 1)
Dropping a kiss onto her head before sliding onto the stool next to her, I glanced at Lucien, who was humming to himself. A cheeky grin spread across his face when I narrowed my eyes at him. “Like my shirt on her? It looks sexy as hell, if I do say so myself.”
I wouldn’t rise to the bait he was dangling in front of me. My nostrils flared as I rationalized with myself that technically it was just a brand new shirt he had never worn before. But even if it hadn’t been, I would have just tried to mark her in other ways. We were all happy to accept that Alexandra was all of ours, but that didn’t mean that we didn’t try to one up each other at times.
Well, only Lucien and I did that, but it was all in good fun.
“How do you guys know how to cook?” Alexandra asked, and I felt like there was the unspoken end of that question which she was trying hard to not tack on, ‘because you never cooked in my stories.’
That was another aspect we needed to discuss with her.
As Elwin slid pieces of bacon onto a plate and dumped eggs into the frying pan in their place, he answered. “So we seem to have a ton of knowledge now, ever since coming into this reality with you. Ask me a question that we wouldn’t know the answer to outside of your stories with us. I have a hunch what’s going on.”
“Okayyyy,” she drawled, placing her elbows on the counter and leaning into her hands while pursing her lips. “Who is the current president?”
“Easy,” Elwin chirped while grabbing a spatula. “Joe Biden.”
She dropped her hands from her chin and swiveled in her seat to look at me, firing off another question. “What year is it?”
The answer came to me within a millisecond. “It is August 26th, 2022.”
Turning her head to Lucien, who was leaning against the pantry and stretching, she asked, “What’s a blue waffle?”
An image appeared in my head, and I cringed as Lucien doubled over in laughter. “I don’t think any of us want to talk about that, angel. That’s disgusting.”
Her jaw unhinged as she glanced between all of us. “How do you know all of this?”
As Elwin lifted the pan and dumped the scrambled eggs onto one large platter, he explained, “I have a theory that when we were drawn into this reality with you—because I do think you were right in saying we existed in the same reality as your stories—we absorbed everything you know. Be it slang, facts, or just random information.”
“Wow,” she breathed out. “So where is the world that you three lived in?”
Turning around and dropping the dirty pan into the sink, he cocked a brow at her. “We don’t know anything about the world that we lived in, outside of what you’ve written. Tell me, what house did we live in?”
“Uhm,” she mumbled and bit her lip, deep in thought. “I never figured that out. I’d just given you three separate rooms that I felt matched your personalities.”
We all nodded, the pieces clicking into place fully.
Leaning on the counter top, he asked another question. “And why would you sometimes just disappear in the middle of our memories, instead of saying goodbye like in some of them?”
Tucking her legs up, she leaned her head onto her knees before answering. “That would have been if someone interrupted me in the middle of a story or if I fell asleep while writing.”
So, it was official. We had definitely been living in the world she created, but it had felt so real to us. Maybe because we hadn’t known any better? How could we question things if we didn’t know any other way of life?
“Damn,” Lucien muttered as he pushed off the pantry door and leaned down onto the counter next to Elwin. “That’s fucking insane when I try to wrap my head around it all.”
All four of us nodded in agreement.
A question came to mind, and I voiced it as Elwin turned around and began to section the food onto plates. “And you had no idea it was even remotely real for us, darling? You didn’t know what was happening?”
“No,” she answered, shaking her head and leaning against the back of the bar stool. “I mean, it felt so vivid to me, like I was deep in the recesses of my mind. It felt way more real than dreams ever have, but I chalked it up to being really invested in all of you and the world I had created.”
Elwin set plates in front of Alexandra and me, piled with eggs and bacon and a fork on each. It seemed like we all silently agreed to let that conversation go for now, but at least we were on the same page with what little information we had.
“Where’s mine, Mommy?” Lucien whined, widening his eyes like a puppy dog and turning back to look at Elwin.
Alexandra had been raising a fork full of eggs to her mouth, but as he said that she barked out a laugh and the food dropped off the utensil. “Did you just call him Mommy?”
What started out as silent internal laughter turned into full body shakes for me, until I couldn’t contain the stream of laughter belting from my chest. Tears formed in my eyes, and I couldn’t recall a time I’d ever laughed this hard.
“Lucien, I…” Elwin trailed off as he turned back with another plate and ran a hand through his golden hair. Blinking rapidly, he shook his head and let out a single laugh. “I want to give you food because I care about you, but please never fucking call me Mommy again.”
