Page 21 of Lessons with the Mothman (Monster Smash Agency)

CHAPTER 21

Elias

Is this love?

Victoria was stretched out on the cushioned seat of the bay window, perfectly nude and sunning herself like an orange tabby cat. She looked right there, a bright glow of peachy pale skin and vibrant flame hair, like a splash of well-considered color to accent the otherwise drab corner of my home I'd left mostly untouched.

It must be love , I decided.

After all, it made sense. The spark upon first meeting, the slow seduction, the challenge Victoria presented, and finally, the triumph.

The culmination was perhaps a little underwhelming, or my friends were prone to exaggeration. Still, I'd done it. I'd fallen in love. Goal accomplished.

Now what? a voice hissed in the back of my thoughts.

Victoria's head rolled, and her eyes fluttered open, her gaze not searching but wandering through the apartment. I suppose I hadn't given her much opportunity to study the space over the past few days. Oh, we'd surfaced for food and breathing room, paused to sleep, migrated to my shower to refresh, but I'd given her more physical space for the past six hours, and my pheromones were probably all processed out by now. I'd even showered alone to wash their residue out of my fur for a bit.

I crossed her vision, heading toward my kitchen area. "How are you feeling?"

"Like I'm in a dopamine fog," she murmured, her voice raspy from pleasured cries.

A feathery thrill traced up my spine at the sound of her, and I smiled as I pulled down a glass from the cupboard. There, that was better. More like what I'd expected from a romance.

"Is there a crash? I can't… Well, I was going to say 'remember,' but it's not like I have a precedent for this ."

She was moving, groaning as she sat up on the bench, slim torso and shoulders gilded by sunlight.

"A crash?" I asked, filling two glasses with ice water for us, then taking a bowl of precut strawberries out of the fridge.

"I know about dopamine versus prolactin, of course. I suppose I mean…is it worse after your mating season? After the prolonged repetition of orgasm?"

I blinked at my nice cherry cupboards. This was not the conversation I'd expected. I was thinking about love, and Victoria was thinking about…

"Explain," I said, turning and crossing to my small table.

Victoria stood by the bed, slipping the robe I'd lent her onto her shoulders. "Orgasms release extremely high levels of dopamine. The body regulates that with prolactin—as it rises, dopamine lowers. It's responsible for that sense of satiation, but also the lethargy." She crossed to the table, accepting the glass of water and drinking quickly, her thirst suddenly striking her.

"The human body," I said.

Her eyebrows rose, and she set the glass down with a gasp. "Oh! I hadn't considered that. Do you think it's relevant to the study? Has anyone published about biochemistry across different species?"

"I'll investigate," I said, drawing her attention back. "Why did you ask about a crash?"

Victoria popped two pieces of strawberry in her mouth and shrugged as she chewed. "Too much dopamine can lead the body into a state of stress and anxiety. Too much prolactin would be the equivalent of a depression. They're meant to balance one another, but for some people, one weighs over another. And I don't know what happens in…in a situation where there's been a great deal of both."

She blushed, and I was fascinated, studying her more closely. Her eyes were unusually bright. Victoria was an observer, studying me or her interview subject with a quiet patience. This was a wilder, more excitable version of that woman. I thought of the way she'd wept in my arms when I'd first broken through her orgasm. I'd assumed it was just an emotional response, like extreme relief.

"Do you remember a pattern for yourself? Highs or lows after orgasm?" I asked, watching as she gobbled strawberries. I picked up her glass and left the table to refill it.

"I suppose…I suppose lows," she admitted after a moment of quiet. "Brett would fall asleep and I would lie awake, thinking and feeling so…alone."

Brett. I stiffened. Somehow, having a name for the man who'd come before me made me…angry? How strange.

I carried the full glass back to the table, but I didn't return to my own seat. Victoria smiled as I lifted her and then settled us once more, with her in my lap and my arms around her waist and hips.

"I don't know all about the chemical responses, but I know that aftercare is incredibly important, especially in sexual experiences that feel extreme," I said.

Victoria hummed and tipped her head. "Serotonin, probably. Dopamine is a reward response. Serotonin is contentment. It lasts longer."

"What would you have wanted after sex? What could he have offered you that might've made a difference?"

Victoria stilled, strawberry poised at her bottom lip. It was an erotic picture, but I could see the bricks starting to stack in her mind. She'd cracked open in my arms this weekend and was suddenly aware of the fact.

"You know I enjoy touch, like this," I said, stroking a hand up her back, distracting her from her defenses. "But, for instance, I've had clients that wanted physical space and conversation. I would make them tea. A massage is a common request—I'm trained, of course."

"Of course," Victoria said, smiling.

"One liked me to read to them. They'd bring whatever book they were in the middle of."

Her eyes were shining, tears welling, and the bricks were gone once more.

"I know asking for what you want troubles you," I said softly.

Victoria huffed out a watery laugh and nodded. "Yes."

"Let's see, what else? A bath is very popular, with or without me. I can?—"

"Can you braid hair?" Victoria asked softly, blinking away tears.

"Elaborately," I said, flaring out the word just to make her smile.

"Would… Could we do a few of those?"

"We could do all of them," I said. She shook her head, laughing. "Which ones?"

"Tea would be nice. A bath too…" She hesitated, but I was patient. "Would you wash my hair and then braid it?"

I stood up, and Victoria barked out a full belly laugh as she found herself scooped up in my arms. "Of course. Let's get the water started while you pick out which flavor of tea you'd like."

Victoria hummed as I tucked a curl behind her ear and into the thick mass of twisted braids. It was still dark out, but dawn would come soon, and then it would be time for her to leave.

She was meant to leave the night before, but I'd whispered "stay" in her ear while we'd lain on the bed, and she'd told me to find her phone so she could text her friend to make sure he didn't mind an extra night.

I wondered if I could repeat the word once more, if it was like a magic spell.

"I've been thinking about your biochemistry problem," I said instead.

Victoria's lips curved up at the corner.

"You shouldn't go cold turkey, right?"

We hadn't had sex after our conversation and the bath the day before. My mating season had slipped away, and I had no doubt that Victoria was sore.

"I can't yet, Elias," she said, confirming the very thought.

"Not now," I said, kissing her brow, noting the way she relaxed and leaned into me. "Only maybe…not so…by appointment?"

Her eyelashes tangled into the fur on my chest, and she leaned back. I could see her in the dark, and I suspected she didn't realize what a good view I had of her puzzling frown.

"Did it feel like an appointment before?" she asked.

"Not like a job," I said quickly. "I just… What if I called you up one afternoon and said, 'Hey, what are you doing tonight?'"

She smirked. "Booty call."

"Booty calls happen after midnight. And they're mainly texts now."

"Ah, so this would be a more sophisticated version," she teased.

I rustled on the bed, feeling an itchy, annoyed pleasure at being poked at this way. "Victoria?—"

"Elias, we've already crossed the boundary we set at the beginning," she said with a sigh. A hard, intangible blow struck me in the stomach, and I braced for her refusal. "Of course we can see one another without making it an act. I'd like that."

Love, I observed as relief swamped me like a wave, was the symptom of extreme responses to small gestures. I hid my relief by covering Victoria's lips with mine.

"Tomorrow night?" I asked, and then scowled at the burst of nerves in my chest. It was only a question! But every millisecond Victoria didn't answer seemed to call on another flare of anxiety. "Doesn't have to be for sex. Dinner. Or we could…watch a movie."

I didn't own a television, but that was easily remedied.

"Mmm." Victoria stretched against me, huffing and dropping her cheek back on my chest. I should've been letting her sleep. "I suppose a little shot of dopamine tomorrow would be good. You know, to regulate."

I huffed and analyzed my own response to her answer. Sex it was then. Was I disappointed or pleased?

This was the problem with fae not taking mates, like many other species. My markers for love were based on watching Khell and Rafe, who had more or less moved in with their partners upon the discovery of their mating bonds. But as confident as I was of my own feelings, I was fairly sure the suggestion of cohabitation at this point would result in Victoria making a quick excuse to leave my bed. Or at least a very uncomfortable and romantically discouraging conversation.

It struck me, suddenly obvious, that even though I was in love with Victoria, she probably wasn't in love with me.

This would require planning.

Brrrr. Brrrr.

I paused the film on a scene of the couple embracing in the rain, frowning as I dug my phone out of my pocket. Research had promised that this film was a romantic masterpiece, but like all the others I had watched in my pursuit of understanding love, I failed to see Victoria and myself in the story.

I glanced at my phone screen, and my scowl deepened as Unknown Caller flickered into an unfamiliar name, then Wade County Library , then a series of indecipherable symbols.

I considered refusing the call, knowing not exactly but roughly where it was coming from. But it had been over a decade since I'd heard from the other side of the fae veil.

"Elias Goldwing speaking."

A soft melody crackled over the long-distance—across realms of reality—phone call.

"We expected you back for your mating."

I frowned, taking a long stretch of time to rifle through my memories of the fae realm, searching for the masculine voice.

"Alexi Oaksworn? Goodness, I haven't heard from you since the start of the industrial revolution. They have you on population?" I asked, trying to keep my voice easy and light.

There was a stiff pause, where only the sound of distant revelry echoed down the line.

"It's a promotion," Alexi said.

"So they say," I answered, staring at the ardent, tormented expressions now fixed on the lovers' faces on my television screen.

Alexi cleared his throat and I smiled as the flavor of his irritation reached me, bitter herbs and honey. "We requested your return for your mating season. We had several women of distinguished moth fae lineage waiting to meet you."

I swiped my tongue over my sharp teeth, recalling the ornately scripted "invitation" I'd received shortly before my mating season had started, the night I'd asked Victoria to spend it with me.

"I had no way of sending you my refusal, of course," I said. Not without coming in person, where I would be all but held captive until the breeding was complete.

"I see," Alexi answered, and the music was interrupted by the sound of leaves rustling in an oncoming storm.

"Am I the only male moth fae remaining?" I asked, slightly nervous to hear the answer. Would it make a difference in my decision? Probably not. But it might make the fae court desperate enough to be more aggressive in their demands.

There was a pause and then a slow, "No. You are not. There were two successful births in recent years."

Recent years could've been anywhere from the past three to the past hundred.

"Wonderful news!" I said, a little too cheerful.

"You are the last of your line," Alexi said, stern and just a hint hopeful.

I hummed, and my gaze trailed out the window. "I don't mind that. I've no…sentimentality in that regard."

Alexi sighed. "You've spent too long in the fast world, Elias. Why should sentiment be a factor?"

"What else should be?" I asked.

"Nobility, legacy, community, history—" Alexi listed off.

"I'm sorry, Alexi. I am unmoved," I said, cutting him off. I wasn't. Not entirely . But I didn't want to go back to the fae realm, where no one told a lie but no one told a truth either. Where progress moved at a glacial pace under the watchful eye of an ancient committee.

"You are so strange, Elias Goldwing."

Where I was so strange to those who were meant to understand me.

"Yes, I'm afraid so. Good day, Alexi."

The call ended without another word. I returned to my research, my hand clenched tight the remote as I hit play .