Page 22 of My Monster’s Keeper

Becky

T he difficulty with teaching them via the television is that I can’t predict what shows will be on. We’ve covered sex, cancer, pimples, relationships, sanitary products, governments, a whole host of small subjects, and the purpose of each thing in the hotel room.

I’ve also been giving Puppy a special lesson in eating. Or what he can’t eat.

I’ve answered questions until my throat's aching, and I’ve talked more in the last day than I have in the last year.

Frost, who is on my phone, brings it over with a look that I’m starting to identify and react to with panic. He holds it up so I can see the screen.

“What’s this?”

I stare at the purple and blue tentacle dildo that I had put in the shopping cart a week ago. Why did I teach him how to shop online?

“That’s a…” I trail off, staring up at him.

He’s frowning fiercely. “Why would you need a tentacle? What are you going to do with it? I assure you, you do not have the constitution to eat it.”

Shit.

“Who wants to go for a walk?” I look around the room with a small glimmer of hope I can get out of this.

I scramble off the bed while Frost hangs onto my phone and studies it.

He mutters under his breath, but the others are ignoring him. I’ve noticed that occasionally the four of them find a subject and just gang up on me.

They haven’t scented the blood in the water. Yet.

“Oh!”

I tuck my shoulders and freeze.

“Oh, Becky, this is just sad,” Frost says with thick pity in his voice.

Wait? Sad? I whip my head around. “What do you mean, sad? ”

“It’s a silicone tentacle.”

“What are you talking about?” Stix grumbles.

Frost hands him the phone without ever taking his eyes from me.

“A kraken is not an appropriate mate!” Frost says with absolute authority.

Puppy screeches to a halt and backpedals over to Stix, leaning over his shoulder. The hiss is something I feel rather than hear.

Oh, my monsters are displeased.

“It’s a toy,” I protest and then wonder why I am even engaging in this argument.

“Of a fish!” Stix wrinkles his nose and shifts shape, advancing on me, all long limbs and legs. He grips my jaw and bends over so he’s at eye level with me.

“No, my love. Just no.”

“But-”

“No fish!” Puppy thunders.

I glance at Wilder, but he just shrugs.

“Fish is not going to be your thing.”

“It’s just a toy!” I almost wail.

“If you want a toy to bring you pleasure, I will find you something more appropriate,” Stix says and lets me go.

Frost hands me back my phone and leaves a skin thick layer of ice on my hand.

He waves his hand, and when he lifts it up, an ice penis sits in my palm, heavy and scarily real. It glitters and is strangely beautiful.

I stare at it in amazement. “I didn’t know you could do that. What else can you do?”

I ignore them and cradle my ice dick as I carefully place it in the tiny freezer. It’s not that I have plans later, but I might.

Either way, it’s mine now.

“Let’s go,” Wilder says in a strangled voice.

I nod and lead them down onto the street. I notice Frost watching a homeless woman and move to stand beside him.

“You do not take care of your elderly?”

“Some people take care of others, but not everyone does or agrees with it.”

He frowns. “What makes this world better than any other?”

“I honestly don’t know. Hmmm, no, I don’t think any world is better than any other. I do know that even in the worst times of my life where I didn’t think it could get worse, someone or something came along that gave me hope. ”

“Like what?”

“Well, there was a time when I hadn’t eaten in a couple of days, and we were just lying around, waiting for night, and this woman walked into the park, and she had pies and these little cakes, and she just gave them to us.”

I shake my head, lost in the memory.

“I was worried there was something wrong with them, but I was too hungry to care. She went and fed everyone but circled back and sat with us. Turns out her parents had thrown her a party. No one had shown up, so she brought the food down here to donate. Her misfortune turned into a lucky day for us, and we actually had a really good time with her.”

“That sounds terrible.” Frost frowns. “Your world appears to be very lonely.”

“Yeah, I guess it does. But she met this guy that day who was down on his luck. I saw them a couple of years later. They were married and doing really well. It’s just weird how life works out sometimes.

When there’s a fire, new shoots grow, when there’s a disaster, people come together to help.

It’s just life. There is good and bad in everything. It depends on how you want to see it.”

“How do you see it?”

“I see the bad, and I want to protect my people from it. But I can see the good too, Frost. Like you. I can see that you are remarkable and not meant to be caged.”

Frost scoffs and angrily brushes his hair over his shoulder. “I don’t want to protect my people.”

I turn to face him straight on and smile faintly. “I’m going to tell you something my teacher told me. Maybe you just haven’t found your people.”

A guy walks towards us and doesn’t look up. Frost glides in front of me and grabs him by the shirt before he can get within two feet of me. “You don’t touch,” he snaps and easily brushes the man to the side.

I stare at Frost in awe as the guy stammers an apology and gives us a wide berth.

He turns back to me, and I swear the air around him glitters. How is he so beautiful?

I realise I’ve got a hand over my heart and pull it away, breaking eye contact and turning away so I can compose myself.

Puppy lets out a shrill sound and stalks between us, pushing Frost out of the way. He speed walks ahead of us until he gets to a big, shiny sign that points to a pet shop.

Oh, no .

Puppy walks in before I can stop him and goes straight to the huge glass cage in the front of the shop. He crouches down and the kittens all hiss, backing up with tiny little arched backs and teeny tiny needle teeth.

Puppy scowls and shoves away, stalking around. He sees birds that he glances at but ignores. A huge African Grey Parrot calls him a bonehead, but he ignores that, too. He gets to the fish and whirls on me accusingly.

“No fish!”

I hold up my hands in surrender with absolutely no idea why he’s so mad at me.

He stalks out, leaving me and the shop assistant gaping at him.

“What is happening here?” I ask as I rush after him, only just managing to keep an eye on him as he stomps away. “Stix? What was he looking for?”

“I don’t know, poppet.” There is something evasive in Stix’s tone, but I don’t have time to call him on it. I need to keep up with Puppy, I can’t lose him.

By the time I catch up with the enraged Grim, I haven’t. He just went vertical. I stare up at him as he disappears onto the roof of a building.

“Should we do something?”

“I think he’s made it pretty clear he doesn’t want to talk,” Frost says easily.

I huff and pull out the bank card. “Can you go get a heap of food and bring it back?”

Stix and Frost head off, leaving me alone with a massive Wilder. I sit down on a ramp, and he sits beside me.

“Argh! Distract me!” I say roughly. “I’m worried, no, I don’t know why I’m worried. He was upset. What happened?”

Wilder is silent for a moment.

“Tell me about all the wild places.”

Relief fills me, and I focus on the subject and lean into it so I can stop worrying about Puppy.

“There are so many I have wanted to go to,” I say wistfully. “There’s an ocean that’s so salty you float on the surface. Islands with waterfalls, and caves with their own ecosystems. Forests with trees that are so big you can’t even fathom their trunks. Beaches, deserts, mountains.”

“Why didn’t you ever travel?”

“I never had the money, and Grant was here, and it was just home. I know this city, I know what to expect, and all the streets were familiar.”

Wilder nods .

“One day, though.” I frown. “I should have been dead a thousand times, but this is different. This time, I’m going to really live. I’m not going to be afraid.”

I lean my head on Wilder’s shoulder, smiling slightly when he inhales and sighs.

“Are you afraid of anything, Wilder?”

“Yes,” he says slowly. “I’m afraid I’ll end up back in the Unseelie Court, chained like a dog.”

“I wouldn’t let that happen. We’d come rescue you, wouldn’t we, Puppy?”

When had the Grim come back? And how did I know?

“And eat them, yes!”

He lets out a hiss and then sits down in his human form in front of us.

“Thank you,” Wilder says.

The warmth in my chest grows, and I feel happy.

“You have your hooks in me, deep, soul deep now. There’s no escaping you, Becky Dawson,” Wilder murmurs.

“We’d come for you, too, Puppy,” I whisper.

He pauses, cocking his head. “Why?”

“Because. We’re friends now, I guess.”

He considers this. “Friends?”

“Yep. And friends get friends chicken.”

Puppy sits up straighter. “Chicken?”

“Yep. Fried chicken.”

Five minutes later, Stix and Frost show up with four buckets of chicken and a bag of fries.

We sit in peace, eating in silence, when I get an idea.

“Hey, Puppy, have you seen a zoo before?”