Page 34 of Moist!

chapter five

LYRA

“Girl, you are crazy distracted today…what gives?”

I spin in my chair and glance at my coworker Nikita, a pixie with the most gorgeous bright purple wings and matching hair.

Shrugging, I try to think of something other than Nefkenir—perhaps the documentation I’ve been trying to finalize for the better part of an hour.

“Documentation,” I lie.

Nikita snorts, lifting a hot pink brow. “Documentation my ass. You’ve been staring at your computer screen for an hour and haven’t typed a single letter. Spit it out or I’m going to get insufferable.”

She’s the closest thing I have to a friend here in this tiny haven in western Vermont. Even so, I’d consider us work friends. We eat lunch together every day and we bitch about our ridiculous boss, Kermit, but we don’t hang out otherwise.

“I took dinner to Nefkenir last night,” I whisper, leaning closer to her.

Rosy pink eyes spring wide, her bow mouth dropping into a shocked looking ‘o’. She rolls closer to me. “You did what now? You took the lake monster dinner? What? Why? I can set you up with a real cute troll who’d be far less trouble, Lyra. ”

I don’t like the insinuation that there’s anything troublesome about Nefkenir. “Don’t call him the lake monster,” I say a little more harshly than I should. Nikita’s a nice person. But everyone reduces Nefkenir to the lake monster. It’s dehumanizing and I hate it.

She sits back and gives me an irked look, popping her lips. “Hmmkay. So what’s your end goal? Befriend Nefkenir and what? Find out you’re Selah, long lost and reincarnated as a cute but quiet black witch?

“I’m not Selah,” I mutter. “But I’d like to be his friend.” I lift my chin. “What do you care, anyways?”

Nikita’s brows lift, but she purses her lips and turns back to her computer in silence. Shit, I’ve pissed her off. But damn, she didn’t need to get all nosy.

I’m still thinking about that hours later at quitting time. Why did I take dinner to Nefkenir? Why did I thoroughly enjoy it, brief and awkward as it was? Why am I about to do it again?

I mull that over as I grab takeout from the little Italian place under my apartment. I’m still noodling on it as I perch on a rock by the lake, wondering if there’s a better way to call Nefkenir than start shouting for him.

“You came back.”

I jerk and spin to my left. White orb eyes shine from the darkness of the treeline.

Nefkenir’s hidden in the darkness there, his huge body shrouded in shadows.

He falls forward onto both forearms and crawls over the rocky shore toward me, his long dragon tail bunching and coiling to propel him forward like a snake.

Like yesterday, he bunches his body until there’s a flat section he can use as a bench.

Black hair hangs matted and dripping down his chest. In the fading winter sunlight, he’s stunning.

His cheekbones angle high, framing a thin nose that tips up slightly at the end.

His lips are dark and plump, the top thicker than the bottom.

I wonder if he was this beautiful before Selah, or if she made him gorgeous and that’s just part of his curse .

“You came back,” he says again, crossing his arms as he narrows white eyes at me. Except this close, it’s easy to see dark irises behind the white sheen over his entire pupil. I wonder if it’s a second protective eyelid, like a vampire.

Or a shark.

I hand him the bag with the food. “Italian this time.”

He takes the bag but doesn’t open it. “Why?”

I shrug. “You’re the second monster to ask me that today. I told you yesterday. I want to.” I glance up into those intense eyes. “Does there have to be any other reason?”

“I don’t have money to pay for this food,” he says curtly, waving at the lake. “I know there are rumors that there’s pirate treasure in the shipwreck but there isn’t.”

I chuckle at his assumption. “You don’t need to pay for the food. I’m just here as a friend.”

Nefkenir sets the bag down and leans forward, crowding into my space as he plants both hands on the rock I’m seated on. I bend backward until his mouth is close enough for us to kiss. White eyes drop to my lips and linger.

“I don’t have friends,” he says in a tone so low, so deep, I feel it all the way through my body.

I lean forward, a slight challenge to this dominance thing he’s doing. “You do now, Nefkenir.”

He shifts backward onto his lower body and opens the bag, bringing it to his nose and sucking in a deep, appreciative-sounding breath. “I don’t recognize the scent of this food, but it smells good.”

I stand and reach into the bag, ignoring the fact that like this, he still towers over me. Grabbing the plastic forks, I open them as he lays the containers out on my rock. When I remove the tops, he leans forward over the takeout boxes and scents each one deeply.

“Rosemary. Garlic. Flour.” He moves to the next. “Tomato. I love tomatoes and I haven’t had one in five hundred years.” White eyes flick to mine. “Thank you, Lyra. ”

And just like that, I’m fucking hooked on this friendship.

Just like that, I’m in trouble.

Because that ‘thank you, Lyra,’ is something I really wanna hear a lot more of.