Total pages in book: 103
Estimated words: 99201 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 496(@200wpm)___ 397(@250wpm)___ 331(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 99201 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 496(@200wpm)___ 397(@250wpm)___ 331(@300wpm)
The birth order makes a difference. Second Daughters are much more desirable. But still, Callistina is a very important lioness. She is the Queen of Vinca.
Or she was. Now she’s just a has-been. A fadeaway, like the rest of us. Someone who was important once, but has been stripped of power for bad behavior.
She is human. A sad, pathetic race of magicless creatures that are as ordinary as ordinary comes.
She made it pretty far in her other life though. I mean, being Queen of Vinca is quite a thing.
Not as good as being the god of love, but ordinary or not, she is the highest-ranking monster in this town. It would’ve been nice to have access to the monster side of her. Fur on females can be quite attractive if properly groomed. Callistina’s was a nice short velvet that covered her whole body. And just looking at it made you want to touch it with your fingertips.
I feel like I got a consolation prize with her in this form.
Still, she’s a nice-enough-looking human. Tall and willowy in the arms, like a dancer, but curvy in the hips and breasts, like a stripper. She’s got a sweet face—genetics, obviously, since she’s a complete bitch—and the long, golden hair certainly doesn’t hurt.
But Callistina, former Queen of Vinca, is insane.
That’s not an exaggeration, nor am I being hyperbolic. It’s just a fact.
At nearly all times of the day the former Queen of Vinca is wearing a giant rack of antlers on her head that have been badly spray-painted gold, a mangy leopard-skin coat, and blocks of wood on her feet to simulate hooves.
Which, as a gryphon chimera, she never had. So I haven’t yet worked out just how the wooden blocks fit in.
She carries around a broken broom handle like it’s a scepter and constantly bangs it on the floor demanding that people call her ‘queen.’
That’s only during the day though.
At night she takes all that shit off and goes naked, as she is right now. And I cannot deny that when I see her stripped of all her madness, I am turned on.
I, myself—or Himself, as they sometimes call me (because I am so full of myself)—am only wearing a pair of jeans and some boots. I like shirts as much as the next guy. And I love leather jackets. Especially mine. Especially these days, since I’m top dog here and I treat the whole gang of monsters like a motorcycle gang. I offer up patches to get shit done around the place. Like Boy Scout badges, but better. Because they often have titties on them.
This is how I motivate the monsters and eros chimera alike.
It’s visually… cool, ya know? To wear the cuts and sew the patches on. One cannot dismiss the value of production quality. We even have a rocker for the back of the jackets and vests. And rankings and everything. We are called the Savage Springs chapter, a little homage to Savage Falls and Granite Springs combining in order to facilitate some kumbaya bullshit.
I, of course, am the founder and the president. Plus I have a nickname—Himself—and my personal philosophy in the form of numbers. Eleven-eleven, written one-one-semi-colon-one-one. Which is actually a Bible verse. Behold, I will bring evil upon them, which they shall not be able to escape; and though they shall cry unto me, I will not hearken unto them.
Powerful shit, if you ask me. I like to let people know where they stand and 11:11 gets the job done. The evil I’m planning is inevitable and though they might beg, there will be no mercy.
But shirts and jackets are such a pain in the ass when you’ve got wings. More often than not, I just opt out.
All of the aforementioned is just a roundabout way of getting to the point. And the point is, I don’t have much to take off to get naked and slip into bed next to Callistina.
Even though I do not like her, I do enjoy sleeping with her.
And by sleeping, I mean fucking.
One arm immediately slides around her waist and I tug her towards me. She’s warm, and soft, and nice, actually. A ‘ten,’ as they say. I might be cursed, and unloved, and unable to love—but she doesn’t care about any of that. She doesn’t care about anything, actually. Aside from the insane idea that dressing up like a gryphon chimera will turn her back into one, she floats through her new, cursed life mostly unaffected. The ‘call me queen’ thing gets on my nerves a little, but she moans at alllll the right times, and arches her back in juuuust the right way, and doesn’t ask for a single thing. Nothing. She wants nothing from me.
It’s not just nice, it’s satisfying.
I lean into her neck and she stirs a little, still half asleep. When I kiss the tender skin just below her ear, she sucks in a breath and lifts her chin up. When my hand slides over her hip and slips between her legs, she whimpers a little.