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“Come,” I say.
She shoves everything back in the bags then picks them up. They are nothing to me, but she struggles to carry them.
I both want to go over to her and ease her of her burden, at the same time disliking myself for the thought.
I cannot trust her. She still has not told me where she disappeared to. Or where the strange male’s clothing came from.
Even the thought makes me want to snatch away the food. Not to ease her burden but to say she can only have it back once she tells me all I want to know—
Except my consort… Hannah… I think of her shuddering body last night... Despite her occasionally spiteful tongue, she gives in to me every time.
And she was hiking back toward the castle. Though maybe her foolish mortal senses merely got turned around in the snow, and she still thought she was fleeing.
But I will make her tell me all eventually. And my Hannah-consort must have all the food a mortal body needs so that perhaps my seed might take root inside her and grow. Then she will have no choice but to accept her life here, as mother to my many kits.
So, I take the bags which are a burden to her, but only so that we may move faster.
“Come,” I repeat. “Cook.”
“Why are you back to monosyllables?” she asks after I snatch the bags from her. She’s crossed her arms over her bared bosoms as she walks, but she quickly drops them so she can keep up with my long strides. “You were so talkative this morning.”
Too much so, it seems. She is the one meant to be answering questions. Not me.
“What male did you get the clothing from?”
She looks away evasively. “I just found them.”
“Where?” I bark.
Her eyes flash angrily. “Somewhere.”
I pause. “Do not defy me. I will tie you to the bed again.”
“So you’ll just starve me?”
I look to the ceiling, wishing I have a magical deity to pray to like she is always doing. But certainly there is no God in the sky to help one such as me. No, starving her will not do well for my new goal of getting her with kit. So I say nothing but continue stalking back to the stairwell, down one flight, through a door, and then charging through the underground.
“Some help here? Can you actually see in the dark? Because I can’t.”
I look behind me to find her perched on the threshold, still at the door where only a little bit of light from above filters in.
Oh. Right.
“Yes, I see in darkness.” I head back and crank the big lever by the door from down to up.
Unnatural electric lights buzz on from overhead. I wince and squint. I hate the unnatural light of mortals.
Creator-Father had no more need of it than I do, but he prized it greatly when it was invented, along with the gas stove he had installed in these prized kitchens. He prized all mortal things, not that he would ever admit it. He was jealous of so much of what the mortals had. Unacknowledged gifts, he said, from his Father.
So, he had Romulus, the engineer among us, fashion the castle with electric light and gadgets far beyond what the humans of the time had. This was decades before their mortal inventors as soon as the concepts were discovered. On occasion, over the years, when he is in his right mind—hence, when Remus is not around—I’ve allowed Romulus out of the dungeon to update the infrastructure and fixtures around the castle so that it does not fall down around us.
Hannah-consort gasps as she enters the kitchen, and now I am glad I allowed Romulus his little projects. She seems especially impressed with the modern-looking stoves. I’ve never found much use for them, but occasionally Romulus likes to cook a feast using the strange devices.
“Holy crap! All this was down here, and you’re only showing it to me now.”
She smacks my arm as she passes me. It feels like a caress, and I want to yank her back to me, but she is already headed into the large kitchen area.
Creator-Father rarely allowed me in here when he was alive. He said I was too big and too brutish to handle all the delicate implements. Though Romulus has updated everything to be far more sophisticated than anything in Creator-Father’s era, and in all that time, never once have I broken a thing.
It’s true, though, I did destroy many of Creator-Father’s little trinkets and prized human possessions after his death. The castle used to be full of such objects. In celebration, rage, and grief, I destroyed everything, and then burned them in the same pyre we burned his body in.
I approach carefully, assuming Hannah-consort will also think I am too clumsy to be in the space if my horns bump into the many pots and pans hanging from hooks on the ceiling.
