Page 43 of Monster's Obsession
She laughed, pushing me forward until I climbed into the carriage that might as well have come right out of Bram Stoker’sDracula. Everything screamed gothic--windows trimmed with short lace curtains, two sets of long benches facing each other, covered in a soft, velvety black fabric.
The woman was suddenly in the carriage with me, sitting across from me, her snow-white tentacles spreading outward, taking up her whole side…they stretched across the seat, up the walls behind her, and one reached out to pull the door shut. And then she slouched, exhaling a long breath.
“I will be joining you for the journey,” she said, matter-of-factly. “Those animals are called Derins, and they run wild in the Hunting Lands but can be tamed. And yes, they are extremely horny beasts.” She chuckled. “Always out and ready in case the chance presents itself.”
“Guess that’s not too different to most males,” I teased, thinking of how absolutely horny my monsters were constantly.
She laughed once more, and I noticed that when she did, the double row of suckers on the underside of her tentacles jiggled.
I liked the ease that she spoke with compared to back in my room, and the tension she held onto earlier seemed to have melted off her shoulders.
The carriage suddenly lurched forward, and the force pushed me back into my seat. We were off, leaving behind the castle, and my stomach was in complete knots. I stared out at the landscape, the bridges we crossed, the towers, the monsters glancing our way from their homes.
It was only when I felt the slight tug on my hair, that I jerked back around to find several tentacles, gripping brushes that were combing through my messy pink hair.
“Now that we have time, I will style your hair and fix your makeup.”
“You really don’t have to,” I murmured, pushing strands of hair out of my face.
“Nonsense. When the king asked me to care for you, I swore on my life, and I take my job seriously. I can only deliver you to him when you are completely perfect.” She smiled, wrinkles deepening at the corners of her eyes. She was such a beautiful woman with an octopus body, which didn’t feel as strange as it should. A testament to the fact I was acclimating to this realm.
“Did Creed say anything else, like why he had to leave so early without me?”
“Oh, the king doesn’t share such things with me,” she said loudly, then leaned forward, whispering, “Some of the maids overheard him saying that he wanted to personally take the prisoner to the Cliffs of Doom for the ceremony, and he wanted you to turn up right as the event was about to commence.”
I bit my lower lip, mostly from frustration and anxiety. He was doing everything damn possible to keep Steele and me apart.
“It’s for the best,” she said, gesturing to the outside world with a tentacle. “It’s dry and arid out there near the cliffs. Better if you don’t spend too much time there anyway. It’s full of reptilian creatures who’d try to suck the marrow from your bones the first chance they got.”
I shivered at the thought, while she combed the knots out of my hair, then commenced pulling strands off my face before she braided them. I twisted sideways in my seat, to give her easier access to my hair.
“What’s your name?” I murmured, feeling slightly rude for not asking until now.
“Hopaka,” she answered with a smile, like she’d been waiting for me to ask. “It was my mother’s name, and her mother’s, and so on. In my family, the females take their mom’s name, you see, and the males take what name they please.”
“Wouldn’t that become confusing after a while?”
She shook her head. “Oh, but our names are differentiated by the way it’s pronounced. You say mine as Hopaka, while my mother’s is Hopaka.”
For the life of me, I couldn’t tell the difference in the way she said it. They sounded identical. But I nodded regardless and kept staring outside.
My knees bounced, my heart pulsing harder as I thought about losing Steele. How furious…and heartbroken I’d be if they killed him. I’d never got the chance to talk to him and find out the truth. Everything inside of me said that Steele would be honest with me.
I remembered the times we’d spent together back on earth, his affection, his promises, his devotion. I thought I’d met the perfect man, but I guess even the most angelic guy hid secrets...like the fact he was a real monster who was hiding on earth.
That didn’t mean he deserved to die though.
I guess the world was unfair like that though…no matter what realm you were in.
A soft sigh pressed against my throat as I thought about my family, and how I didn’t deserve their rejection, or being shoved into an asylum. Anger came over me whenever I wasted time thinking about them.
I pushed those thoughts aside, left only with silence and its whispers inside my head of my mother’s last words to me.
We all have to live with our own demons, dear. Enjoy yours.
If only I’d known back then how right she’d been.
I didn’t recall how long we’d been traveling, but outside, the city had turned into an open dried land, peppered with boulders, dead trees, and the occasional rock formation that came complete with doorways, I guessed where the locals lived.