Page 15 of Wishing Upon a Monster (Monster Brides Romance #40)

Aurora

“ M mmm, well if that’s how we are deciding things,” his voice reached that low timbre I liked, and I shivered, my eyes closing as his lips met mine.

I felt so much in that kiss, his lips were firm and commanding, his gentle touch reverent, and our kiss was electric. Tingles radiated from my lips, zipping down my body. I shifted forward, my pelvis rocking none too innocently against his hard length.

I know he said we were compatible, but I had my doubts that the literal monster cock he had hidden in his pants would actually fit. Yeah, I wanted kids too, but hells bells, I wasn’t sure my vagina was that flexible. We hadn’t trained for this.

But when his hand slid down, pulling me closer in encouragement, suddenly the idea didn’t seem all that far-fetched. Perhaps I needed to discover if he could... for science.

I moaned as his kiss deepened, his tongue slipping through to caress my own.

Things got a little fuzzy then, the sensations drugging, as parts of me wound tighter and tighter at the sensual invasion of my senses.

He smelled good, Goddess, he felt good, and suddenly I wondered if it mattered that much that he was an ancient Stygian deity who had forced me into marriage when I wasn’t sure if I was the marrying type.

Or was it that I had never been given the chance to think I was until now?

Olan nipped my lips as he pulled back, breathing just as heavily as I was. He rested his forehead against mine as we both caught our breaths.

“While my hane all but screams at me that you are more than ready to take me and let me breed that little fisse of yours so full that your stomach bulges my seed, I believe that the location, and perhaps the situation, has heightened emotions, Mmm, min s?de skat?”

I shivered at his words, feeling incredibly needy and, I was not ashamed to admit, wet. It’s been a while, but damn.

I sighed, knowing he was right and that later, I would question my eagerness to hop on his dick at the first available moment. I was in the ECCM for Goddess's sake! That door wasn’t even locked, and yet I honestly, until this moment, hadn’t given a fuck.

Well, I suppose I had given a fuck —or hoped for a fuck, at least?

Embarrassed by my own line of thinking, I ducked, burrowing my face into the cool skin of his chest.

Laughing quietly, he pulled me up into the crook of his neck so I could hide more effectively.

“Thanks,” I mumbled against his skin.

“Of course, Aurora,” he said, stroking my back.

I’m not sure how long he held me that way, but sooner than I was ready, there was a knock on the door. I reluctantly let go of my position, moving to sit beside Olan.

He tsked at me like I was Sashimi and had stolen a bite of his dinner, before resituating me in his lap once more. I pointedly ignored the stiffer parts of his anatomy as his hand snaked around my waist before he called lazily for the person to enter.

What I was not expecting, but in hindsight should have expected, was my father, Councilman Arturo Aurum, to come barging past Council Enforcer Odessa St. James like he could take on a god.

“Councilman, I advise you––” Odessa warned, only to be cut off.

“You advise me? Hardly. I have the greatest respect for you and your mates, St. James, but this is my daughter who has failed to inform me of recent changes in her life! That Hemlock boy called me in a snit, the little shit, and now her husband has attacked the ECCM, all because her mother thought it would be adorable to follow tradition!” My father bellowed, red-faced and appearing nearly apoplectic with rage.

But I knew better, I saw a small twitch at the corner of his mouth.

He was exasperated, but he found this all amusing somehow.

“Dad,” I said, shaking my head at my father, “don’t tell me this was all over an initial.”

My father ran both of his hands through his golden hair, disturbing the carefully styled waves.

“I told your mother that we didn't have to continue that blasted tradition,” he said, looking at me, then to Olan, “but the Aurum family has a tradition of giving all of their children names that start with the letter ‘A.’ I had hoped, after the twins, Ainsley and Aiden, that she would have her fix and let us have a Darren for variety. But no, then there was Antiono, followed by Annaliese, and then you, Aurora, and now with your little brother, Adriel. If we have any more, I am sneaking out and naming him Bob out of spite!”

“Dad!” I exclaimed, grimacing at the idea that he and Momma could have a seventh child. While Magic Users lived at least a hundred and fifty years longer than humans did, and they absolutely could, being just a measly seventy years of age, I’d rather not think of my parents creating life.

“So, what you are saying, sir, is Aurora’s name was abbreviated? What has this to do with what happened here today?” Olan asked more respectfully than I expected.

It’s not that I thought he would be rude, but well... he did almost Dark Lord level murder everyone in the ECCM. He was giving my father a deference he hadn’t given anyone else because... he was my father?

“I checked it myself, but yes, they had that A. Aurum was expected at two in the afternoon. No note that they were going to Talentless Registration, which would have given someone a clue to adjust the wards like we usually do when such individuals are to arrive. Seeing our name, they assumed it was one of your siblings.” He took a deep breath and then stepped forward, bowing low to me and my husband.

“I am so sorry, my dear, that you were harmed.”

I blinked. My parents weren’t evil by any stretch of imagination, though perhaps a little overwhelmed by children, a lot entitled, and, in my teenage years, I would have screamed neglectful.

My lack of magic had made me much less of a priority than my siblings, who could participate in what our society offered gifted youths.

I wasn’t much for what little programs there were for the Talentless, and so I often was left to my own devices.

I didn't hate my parents, but they frequently disappointed me.

To have one of them apologize for anything was shocking, to say the least.

And perhaps had a bit to do with my powerful husband.

“I won't say it's alright; your people need to do better. Would you be as sorry if it were any other Talentless?” I said bravely. I felt Olan’s approval radiating through our bond.

My father straightened, his expression professional but tinged with sadness.

“I would not personally come and apologize, no. Someone would have apologized to whomever it was, though, because that sort of oversight is unconscionable. I assure you, this was not some sort of plot against you or a way to test your husband’s abilities. ”

I felt the heat rush to my cheeks because I had assumed just that.

My father nodded in approval of where my mind had gone. “It was, however, everything they needed for the testing portion of the interview, and Br?ndmands have now been classified as godlike beings. If Olan ever feels more inclined to further our knowledge of his brethren––”

“No,” Olan said, his tone firm as steel.

“I suspected as much,” my father continued, “then we have a basis to record his existence and that of his people, and that be the end of that, until you have children."

“ Min skat , do not worry about things we have not discussed,” Olan whispered in my mind.

“Even if you do bless us with children, we do not have to comply with any of this institution's demands. You live on the preserve and are protected as an employee of the Nyxian Council. I am also to be under the protection of the preserve. We have many options.”

I nodded, and I was sure Dad thought I was agreeing with him. He didn't need to know any more than what they had already learned about Olan and our bond.

“I would stay and talk some more, but I have to help reestablish some of the trickier wards. I would like to formally invite Olan and remind you, Aurora, about our annual Summer Solstice get-together before I go. You know your mother would love for y’all to be in attendance,” he said breezily, as if he hadn’t come in hollering like a banshee not even ten minutes ago.

“I’ll speak to Olan and check our schedules and get back to Momma about it,” I said, not sure if I wanted to accept the invitation now that I was bound to Olan.

What if we figure out how to discharge the life debt before then?

What if we don’t, and he still decides he made a mistake with me, and I have to go alone?

Though I guess that wouldn’t be any different than how it was back when I was dating Kenton.

Olan nodded again before scooping me up. I looked down at my father, the feeling a bit surreal.

“If that’s all, we are well past our appointed time, and I wish to return home.” Olan strode forward past my father and Council Enforcer St. James. “It is dark enough, we do not need an escort.”

My father said something, but Olan continued walking, somehow remembering the way we came. Every hallway we turned down that had people in it would suddenly go quiet. I didn’t think they were afraid of Olan, exactly, but they were at least wary, and I wasn’t sure that was a bad thing.

“How are we getting back to Ignesious Avenue? It is not far from here, but...” I trailed off as we exited the building into a rainy, soggy mess of a late afternoon.

“My shadows will protect us from the elements, and we will, of course, fly.”

“Of course,” I teased, earning me a squeeze on my thigh before we were covered in shadows, and he lifted us into the dreary sky.

I sat in my office looking out the window over my backyard at my new well. Our new well... Our backyard. Olan was at my desk watching MagiTube. He had questions, ones maybe he hadn’t felt comfortable voicing before the fiasco at the ECCM.

I pulled up a video on the Lost for him.

The Lost were magical children born to seemingly nonmagical parents in nonmagical places.

The widely accepted myth was that some of the Talentless had left our culture to live with nonmagical people, and through some miracle, a few hundred years later, the Goddess looked upon their descendants and granted them access to magic.

Since in the past no one tracked who left our society and married outside our culture, many people accepted it as fact.

This was a lie, of course, the real answer was that people did what they wanted.

They had affairs. Magic Users slept with non-magical people, and things happened, and these children were the result. But because of this lie...

“This is why they make you register, min skat ?” He sighed, the sound less harsh than it was a few days ago.

“Yes, they’ve bought their own chimera shit. The magical elite started this propaganda in the nineties,” I replied, still looking out the window.

“To what end?” he asked, pushing away from my desk and standing beside my oversized recliner.

“I think they wanted a reason to track us so that they could shame us into not having children. I think they think we are a blight, and if we are left to live out solitary lives and die without procreating, that eventually they will eliminate the genetic quirk that creates the Talentless. Or it could be the complete opposite. They could be studying us and our offspring to see if they can ‘cure’ us of this affliction, somehow breed it out of us,” I said, pulling my knees up to my chin.

Olan took it upon himself to scoop me up and sit back down with me in his lap, my back resting against the arm of the chair and my legs across his lap.

“You seem to have a thing against personal space,” I said ruefully.

“Only when my bride seems to be thinking thoughts too heavy for her to carry alone. Do you want to be ‘cured’?” he asked.

Kenton asked me something like that years ago. I remember being so angry that he would ask me such a question. Now, I feel like rotted wood floating in a pond.

“Is there anything to be cured?” I questioned, needing to know if this great being thought I was defective, too.

“No, wife, there is not. I am pleased with you, this is why I was willing to be registered with your foolish ECCM. Is this perhaps about––” he brought a fist up to his chin to think, staring out the window with me as if the window’s outlook could show him my point of view, “you said you wished to have children.”

“I did, and I do, not that it is up to you to provide them,” I added, suddenly feeling a bit nervous.

“Oh, but I would so enjoy the exercise of making them, min skat. I do not enjoy the thought of someone else providing them to you,” he grumbled, the gravelly sound making me shiver.

Mistaking my shiver for cold, Olan waved a lazy hand in the air towards a basket of blankets in the corner of the room. A shadow rose from within the basket and brought it to me.

“Thank you,” I said, followed by a soft laugh. “While that is still up for debate,” I giggled out right at Olan’s creaky harrumph, “You said they would have a mixture of our essences. What if the children are... like me?” I whispered, letting one of my longstanding fears free.

“Mmmm,” Olan said, his red eyes looking into mine like.

.. like what I had to say mattered. “What if they do? It matters not to me if they cannot control the shadows as I do or grant wishes. Are they happy? Do they feel cared for and loved? Is this not what a parent’s chief concern should be?

Having a mother such as you, brave and strong, they will learn from the both of us how to survive, min lille skat .

They do not need magic to flourish. You do not need magic to be loved for who you are, and neither will they. ”

Hearing that, from not only a male intent on having a relationship with me, but from a god, healed a little piece of me I wasn’t aware was broken. I scooted up, bringing my blanket with me, so that I could rest with my cheek against his chest.

“Thank you for that,” I said quietly, looking out the window at the fireflies.

“Why didn’t you tell me this before we left?” He asked, gently playing with my hair.

“Did you see you in front of the ECCM?!” I teased. “Do you think having this knowledge then would have made any of that easier?”

“Fair point, min skat ,” he laughed, scratching my scalp, “my wife is wise.”

I all but melted under his touch and his praise. “Don’t you forget it,” I sighed, content.