Page 9

Chapter Nine

O nce I’m all dolled up, we decide to grab dinner at a pub close by that Egorr claims has “amazing fish and chips.” He gifts me with an appreciative grin when I emerge from my bedroom, and he runs his finger through one of the curls I put in my hair.

“You look gorgeous.” He kisses me, and then we hop in the car and head out.

The pub is a cute place tucked into the corner of an old building, and it’s surprisingly busy. Once we slide into an open booth, each of us orders a beer, and I pick something dark and malty to enjoy with my food.

It’s exciting to be out and about somewhere so… animated. The bar is packed full of monsters chatting and laughing—a griffon, a manticore, and what appears to be a giant. There are a handful of pool tables, and nearby, an ogress and a lion man are throwing darts.

It’s like something out of a television show, a world that only existed as fiction while I lived on the preserve. Now, I’m coming to find out it’s all very real. The world is so much bigger than I thought.

But today I’m painfully aware of one thing: how much smaller and weaker I am. I hadn’t been quite so self-conscious before, but after our bedroom misadventure, now I can’t help thinking of how much more appropriate any of these other, much larger monsters would be as Egorr’s partner.

Some of my enthusiasm about going out fades. Sure, there are lots of fun things we can do without, quote, vaginal penetration , but that was a lot of the fun stuff. And now, because of me, it’s going to be a whole month at least before we can try again.

After we’ve placed our orders for food, I notice the ogress playing darts is watching us with a sideways smile on her face.

“Hey,” she says, sidling over to our table. She’s completely focused on Egorr, as if she’s greeting only him. “What’s your name?”

I balk. Egorr, too, seems startled at the stranger approaching us.

“Egorr,” he answers automatically.

She extends her hand to shake, and after a moment’s hesitation, he takes it. Where Egorr’s big hand dwarfs mine, theirs are about evenly matched.

“Do you want to play darts with us?” the ogress asks. “My friend is beating me handily, and I want to show him ogres aren’t all slouches.”

I suppose that’s why she’s here talking to Egorr in the first place. He did say there aren’t many ogres in the world, so this must be a pretty uncommon circumstance.

Egorr glances over at me, then back up at the ogress.

“I’m not very good at darts, either,” he says amiably. “Well, I haven’t really tried.”

“Come on, just give it a go.” She winks. “You might be a pro and you don’t even know it yet.”

I’m silently asking Egorr to turn her down. We’re here to hang out together and eat dinner, not to play darts with strangers. I can tell, though, that he’s undecided.

“All right,” Egorr says eventually, standing up. My heart sinks. “But my girlfriend wants to play, too, right? Maddie?”

I swallow down how annoyed I feel, because I want to be a good, fun girlfriend, not a stick in the mud.

“Sure.”

Maybe it won’t be so bad, and I’m just being territorial. We could even make some friends, as I don’t get the sense Egorr has many of those.

The ogress gives me a flat smile. “We can all play,” she agrees. Then she offers Egorr a handful of darts, held together with a rubber band, and nods to the dartboard. “Let’s show this lion what ogres are made of, huh?”

Egorr gets up and I follow to join them in front of the dartboards. As a side thought, the ogress hands me a bundle of darts, too, and her eyes glaze over me like I’m not even there.

I thought monsters out in the world would be scary—not rude. But I have to remember Egorr doesn’t see his own kind much, and this could be good for him.

The lion man crosses his arms and leans against the wall while Egorr lines up with the dartboard, aiming his first dart. He throws it, and it bounces right off the board.

The ogress chuckles. “You have to put a little more force behind it,” she says. She steps up next to throw, and her dart hits near the outside of the dartboard.

The lion man tallies her score on a chalkboard, and then it’s my turn. While I aim my dart, I hear the ogress talking to Egorr.

“So, what do you do for work?”

“Oh, uh, I’m a computer guy.”

“What sort of computer guy?”

Egorr’s about to answer when I throw the dart, and I put my entire arm behind it. Just this movement makes the ache between my legs burn, but I’m not going to let that stop me. To my surprise, my dart lodges itself in the dartboard on the skinny ring closest to the bullseye, on the red wedge marked with a “20.”

The lion man lets out a whistle. “Wow. Sixty points on her first throw!” He gives me a nod of approval. “Not bad.”

The ogress is still too busy talking to Egorr to notice my high score. I prickle all over at how close she’s standing to him as they chit chat. But they probably have a lot in common, that’s all. More than Egorr and I do.

I grab my beer and take a big gulp, hoping the alcohol will calm me down, because heat is spreading rapidly across my body. I’m embarrassed and irritated at the same time.

“My turn,” the lion man announces, though I’m the only one paying attention to him. When he throws, he hits in the wedge marked with a “6.”

“Damn.” With a shake of his head, he adds our scores to the chalkboard.

The ogress is next, and she, too, doesn’t hit the board.

She giggles. “Gosh, I’m really bad at this,” she says to Egorr. “You have to reclaim my honor.”

Egorr gives a noncommittal chuckle, and picks up his next dart. “I will try to restore the reputation of ogres.”

I wish Egorr would talk to me instead. We were supposed to be here as a couple, to spend time together, but now some stranger has all his attention.

The lion man rolls his eyes as Egorr takes up position and throws again. This time, it lands, though only in the wedge marked “2.”

“Good try,” the ogress says, smacking Egorr playfully on the arm. That heat is spreading into my face, and now my vague frustration is morphing into anger. She’s clearly flirting with him, and he hasn’t done anything to stop her.

I don’t even know if he’s noticed—and if he has, he doesn’t seem to mind.

Thankfully, that’s when our food arrives. I surrender the rest of the game so I can go back to our table and eat, and hopefully return to having our nice dinner out.

“Aww,” the ogress says to Egorr when he turns around to join me. “You’re not going to give up yet, are you?”

He glances between me and her, and I stare into my food, my heart beating faster. Surely he’s going to choose me and give up this silly game.

I should say something. I should ask him to sit and eat with me. But I want him to choose that, to decide he’d prefer to spend his time with me. I shouldn’t have to make him.

“It’ll only take a few more minutes,” the ogress presses. “The game’s almost done.”

I stare at my food, too shaky to even pick up my fork. When I remain silent, Egorr sighs.

“All right, we’ll just finish out the game.”

I want to scream into my fish and chips as they return to the game and the ogress takes her turn. This time she hits close to the bullseye, and Egorr congratulates her.

While he steps up to take his next throw, the lion man sits down across from me.

“It’s too bad you gave up,” he says. “You had a killer score going.”

My shoulders curl forward. “Yeah. Whatever.” I couldn’t care less about my score. All I can see is red as Egorr hurls his next dart, and the ogress crows.

“Good throw!” she says, slapping him on the back.

I want to crawl into a hole and die. He still hasn’t told her off, and now I’m starting to wonder if maybe he likes her back. Maybe he hasn’t said anything because he really doesn’t mind the attention of another ogre.

The lion man extends a big paw across the table toward me. “I’m Astor, by the way.”

Not wanting to be rude—and feeling a little uncertain now that Egorr’s left me completely in the hands of another monster—I reluctantly take it and shake. Astor holds on to my hand for much too long, so quickly I withdraw mine.

“I don’t see many humans out here in the world.” Astor cocks his head. “And I’ve definitely never met one in person.”

“Yeah,” I say noncommittally. “We’re doing a trial marriage.”

His eyebrows rise up into his big, fluffy mane. “Oh, really?” Then he frowns at Egorr and the ogress, who are now chatting as they add up their scores. My skin feels like a raging inferno, and every one of my muscles has gone tense. “Doesn’t look like he’s married to you from where I’m sitting.”

There’s a pitying look on the lion man’s face as he picks up a few of Egorr’s fries and eats them.

“Maybe after he sends you back to the preserve, you should do a trial marriage with me instead?” Astor asks with a grin. “I certainly wouldn’t be off flirting with someone else when I had a sweet little human waiting for me.”

After he sends me back? Egorr and the ogress are still locked in conversation, and tears sting my eyes.

It all makes sense. If he’d tried to have sex with someone like her instead, this wouldn’t have happened. Egorr would never have torn someone his own size. Maybe he was kind to me at the doctor’s office, but what if I’m really not suited to him? What if we can never have sex, and then he does take me back to New Eden?

That’s the last straw. I refuse to be returned again. If Egorr is going to send me back, I want it to be on my terms, not his.

I get up and stalk over to Egorr. He turns to me, smiling, but it quickly fades when he sees my murderous expression.

“You,” I say, glaring at the ogress. “I don’t know what you think you’re doing, but it’s fucking rude.” Her mouth falls open in surprise as I turn my gaze on Egorr. “And you? I thought…” The tears are coming now, and I can’t stop them. “I thought we had something. I really did.”

“What?” His eyes are wide. “Maddie? What do you mean?”

My temper flares even bigger. Is he really that clueless? Despite what he said when we first met, I think he’s attracted to this ogress and doesn’t even realize it.

I don’t care if I’m not supposed to be alone. I can’t stand looking at Egorr’s face a moment longer, and my temper has unfurled into something big and terrible. The last thing I want is to say something even worse than I already have, so I spin around and stomp out of the pub.

“Maddie!”

Tears rushing down my cheeks, the door falls closed behind me with a slam!

Out in the sunshine, I jog down the street, wanting to get as far away as possible from that scene. I have no idea where I’m going, but I want to be anywhere else.

“Maddie!” I hear Egorr call after me. I speed up, running around a right corner, where I keep going, too full of rage and hurt to stop. “Maddie, wait!”

I turn my head to see him chasing after me. But while I’m looking away, I collide with something rather hard.

Stone hard.

Wincing with pain, I glance up, only to find myself standing hip-level with a huge, towering rock giant. It stares down at me.

“A human?” A smile spreads across its face. “Wow. I haven’t seen a human in a long time.” It reaches down, and even as I try to back away, its arms are much too long for me to escape. It seizes me around the middle and lifts me up into the air.

I scream. The rock giant smiles wider.

“So small,” it says, bringing me close to its face to study me. “How cute.”

I’m going to die. This is how I die. Eaten by a rock giant because I was stupid and ran off on my own.

“Hey!” It’s Egorr below me, shouting angrily. “Put her down!”

The giant tilts its head. Egorr looks ready to throw himself into the huge creature’s leg like a linebacker.

“What?” my captor says with an annoyed grunt. “Is this yours?”

I want him to say yes . Yes, she’s mine .

Instead Egorr says, “You’re going to hurt her. Let her go.” He readies his fists, and even though he’s big, I’m not sure how well he would fare against a twelve-foot monster made of solid stone.

“Jeez,” the rock giant says, lowering me to the ground again. “Sorry.”

With a huff, it drops me onto the sidewalk. Then it strides on past us, grumbling as it goes by.

I sit there on the cement on my ass, tears of anger and fear rushing down my cheeks. Egorr kneels beside me, his expression panicked.

“Are you okay?” he asks, putting a hand on my shoulder. I shove him away, and he looks even more surprised.

“Leave me alone!” I crawl back to my feet and dust off my knees, trying to pretend I’m not terrified out of my skin. I might have almost just died.

“What happened?” Egorr asks, keeping his distance this time, but his expression is worried. “Why did you run?”

I round on him, all my fear turning into frustration.

“Because you don’t want me!” I feverishly wipe my face with my arm as more tears drip down my cheeks. “We’re all wrong for each other!”

“What?” His mouth falls open. “What do you mean?”

“I want to go home. Take me back to New Eden. Right now.”

The surprise on his face fades into devastation.

“Oh.” Egorr fumbles like he’s trying to find words. “If that’s really what you want…” He clenches one hand into a fist and stares down at the ground.

“It is.”

It’s not. I wanted him to choose me. I wanted to be right for him, but this is just Shisek all over again. I should go back to the preserve now, before Egorr realizes what a mistake he made taking me home with him.

This time, I want to be the one who says how it ends.

With a slow nod, Egorr turns around and starts walking back to the pub. I follow behind him, trying to stifle my angry tears. He opens the car door for me and I slide in, then grab the handle and slam it closed. Still silent, Egorr goes inside to pay our tab, and while he’s gone, I yank out my phone to call the resident director. I’m going to tell her I’m on my way back, that things haven’t worked out.

But before I can hit “dial,” the driver’s side door opens again and Egorr gets in. He doesn’t start the car, though. He just sits there, looking out the windshield, his lower lip trembling.

“What happened in there?” he asks, keeping his eyes fixed on the road, blinking rapidly. “What did I do?”

“It’s a matter of what you didn’t do!” I can’t believe he doesn’t see it. “You just let that ogre lady fawn all over you. You could have told her off, you could have sat down with me and eaten dinner together, but no . You had to finish the stupid game. You had to keep talking to her when I was right there waiting for you!”

I’m panting by the time I’m finished, so full of hurt and anger and rejection that I’m shaking. Egorr turns to me, and it’s as if some great realization has dawned on him.

“I’m sorry,” he says. His eyes are red. “I’m so sorry, Maddie. You’re right. I should have said ‘no.’ I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

“It’s fine,” I grind out. “I understand. We’re not a good fit.”

In more ways than one.

“I…” Egorr suddenly hits the steering wheel with his fists. “I have to take you back if you say that’s what you want. Those are the rules.” I realize now, from the cracking in his voice, that he’s crying, too. “But I would hate doing it. I want to go home with you. Back to our home. I want to…” He sniffles, interrupting himself. “There are so many more things I wanted to do with you.”

Something about seeing this giant ogre cry makes me break inside. My anger morphs into sadness and regret.

“Why?” I ask, sniffling. “Why did you let her flirt with you like that? Why didn’t you stand up for me?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t want to be rude to another ogre. I… I didn’t realize I was hurting you.” Egorr reaches out like he wants to touch me but stops himself. “I’m sorry. I should have put spending time with you first.”

“Yeah.” I cross my arms over my chest. “You should have.”

“Please don’t go back to New Eden.” This time, Egorr does take my hand in his, and I let him because as upset as I am, I still crave his touch. “Give me another shot, Maddie. I promise I won’t mess it up again.”

I see how his cheeks are still wet with tears and sigh. He really is clueless. Not malicious, just clueless, and too nice for his own good.

And maybe that’s one of the things I like about him.

“Okay,” I say eventually, rubbing my eyes, which are now dry and sandy from crying. “Let’s go back to your house.”

With a relieved nod, Egorr puts the car in drive.