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)
A feather. In my bed. Disgusting.
I look at the sheets and immediately want to burn them.
But I don’t. Can’t, really. Because it’s hard enough to get a regular delivery of whiskey and food. Getting one of my human crossbred descendants to venture into a bed and bath store out in the wider world to pick me up some new sheets feels like an ask too far.
Instead, I drop them into the washer, add some bleach, press hot, and start the machine.
Feathers. No. I cannot abide them. I walk over to the window, open it up, and toss the feather into the wind, then quickly close the window and try to put that whole incident out of my mind.
Now where was I?
Oh, right. I go into the bathroom, grab the waste can, and toss all of Callistina’s things into it. She’s got a lot more here than I even knew. I throw all her stupid bottles of crap into the trash.
Fuck her. She’s not even fun. She’s… well, she is a little bit fun. In bed, at least. A smile slowly creeps up on my face as I remember all the times we’ve had fun in bed. She’s a little wild. Of course, she doesn’t say anything meaningful, and her eyes are always closed, but every once in a while, when she’s climaxing, she will tell me to call her queen.
I don’t really mind it during sex.
The last time we had sex she wasn’t very excitable, but that’s what makes it kinda interesting. The unpredictability is stimulating. She was slow and softer than usual that last time, those perfect breasts of hers taunting and tantalizing as she rode me. The expression on her face was calm and almost accepting. Like she had let her burdens go.
And I felt that way too, come to think of it. Untroubled and quiet. It almost felt a little bit like… progress. We had crossed into new territory, or set new boundaries, or maybe removed some boundaries.
I’m not quite sure of the specifics, but it felt like change. And change is good.
And then all that fog stuff. And the bath, and the food, and the cuddling.
My God, I cuddled with her. And told her a story. Though the story really was on point.
Regardless. For the first time, Queen Callistina was vulnerable. That’s the only way to describe it. She had come to her end and given up in the fog.
And what did I do? I pulled her out of it.
She didn’t even thank me.
She woke up, threw aside all of the gestures I made yesterday, went back to being crazy, and then walked her ass out of here without a second glance.
It pisses me off. It feels a little manipulative.
Though I know what she would say to that, if she was inclined to say anything. She would say, “I didn’t come to you, Eros. You came to me. I never asked anything of you. You take from me.”
And maybe I do. But just because she doesn’t ask for things doesn’t mean she doesn’t owe a debt when they are given. I didn’t blink an eye when she showed up here. I didn’t care if she slept in my bed, or bathed in my bathroom, or whatever else she’s been doing on my dime.
It was all mutual.
But now I realize I was mistaken. It was not mutual. She was using me and it pisses me off.
This anger builds inside me until my whole body goes hot. And then I get this tunnel vision type of thing. Where the edges of my world go dark and only the middle has light.
And in this light, I see a place. Some place sunny and bright. A clearing in a forest, maybe, or the top of a hill. Someplace open like that. And then there she is. Callistina. The queen. In all her gryphon chimera glory—her golden velvet fur, and her yellow eyes, and her magnificent set of antlers that are not affixed to her head with string, but growing right out of her skull. Shining in the light. She is almost aglow, that’s how much light is shining down on her.
She is so beautiful, so stunning and majestic.
But streaming down her cheeks are tears. Her long eyelashes are dotted with them too.
She is crying.
I reach for her, but as soon as my hand enters the vision, it all disappears.
Gone.
I find myself sitting on a throne, wondering what just happened.
And then I open my eyes and realize that I fell asleep and it was nothing but a dream.
Unfortunately for me, it was not a dream. Well, maybe the part about Callistina, but my actual piece-of-shit life here in Savage Falls is all too real as I listen to the monsters and townspeople congregating in my bar downstairs.
Something has to give.
I can’t do this anymore. Not only that, I don’t want to do this anymore.