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“I, uh… Beryl, right?”
“Yes.”
When I said nothing else, he coughed awkwardly and held out his hand, then dropped it as his ears twitched. “I’m Greid.”
“Okay,” I said blandly, not particularly interested. “Look, I don’t—”
“I don’t really want to mate you,” he blurted, the frondy tips of his ears fluttering so rapidly I heard them brushing against his black hair. “I don’t know why I said that. I didn’t come here for…” He stopped and rubbed his face with a long-fingered hand as I exhaled a relieved breath.
“Okay, that’s good,” I said cautiously. His hand immediately dropped, dark features twisting with a hint of offence.
“I thought—” He looked at me and away again. “It seems like that’s what you all… want.”
“Not me,” I muttered before I could stop myself, then went stiff when his head cocked, eyes flaring with intrigue. Like I was a puzzle he suddenly wanted to solve. The gesture reminded me of a curious animal, which in turn promptly reminded me that I was speaking to a non-human person. I’d rarely spoken to demiurgus before—rarely interacted with them. They were still kind of a mystery to me, despite how much I knew about them thanks to the cult.
“Why not?” he asked with definite interest, his voice more animated than I’d yet heard it.
Oops. Did they have cameras in here? I tried to look around furtively. Was the high priest eagerly watching our interaction, hands clasped under his chin like he was witnessing a romance for the ages?
I didn’t want to risk it, so I decided to ignore the question and take a different route. “Look, you don’t want me to be your mate.”
He took a step back, shaking his head. “I already told you, I didn’t come here for that.”
“Why did you come here then?” I could admit I was intrigued. I’d been here for twenty-five years, and he was the first demiurgus to ever set foot through the front doors in all that time.
Cue more wild ear twitching, as well as those spikes fluttering along his hairline. I was starting to realise they were his nervous tell. It’s not kind of cute. No, definitely not.
“Just… to look around,” he mumbled, not meeting my gaze.
“Bullshit.” His yellow eyes snapped back to me and widened, so I continued, “We both know that’s bullshit, pal. You’re the worst liar I’ve ever seen.”
And I should know—I’d been lying for more than half my life.
His nostrils flared, but he didn’t necessarily look angry. “You’ve talked to me for about five fucking minutes. How would you know?”
“Just trust me.” I crossed my arms and raised my chin, although, it was already raised pretty high so I could actually look at him. “Tell me why you really came here. If it wasn’t to select an ‘eager and willing bedmate’.”
“I—” He crossed his arms, then uncrossed them, then squirmed with a groan. “Alright, fine. I came here to see if… I just wanted a… companion. Not a bedmate,” he added in a rush. “Not for sex. But when I got here, this place creeped me the fuck out. It’s creepy as shit. All those statues and the weird pictures of… I mean, what the fuck?”
I heard myself snort with humour. “Tell me about it.”
That made him focus on me intently again, eyes darting over my face. “You were the only one out there who wasn’t staring at me like…” He shuddered. “Like you wanted to tear my clothes off and worship my—” Cutting himself off with an awkward cough, he looked at me again and asked, “What’s your deal?”
“What?” I straightened and glanced around nervously again. “I don’t have a deal. I’m not—”
“I’m pretty sure there aren’t cameras in here,” he told me. “I’d be able to hear them. Electronics are so loud. So tell me. I told you, even though my thing is surely way more pathetic.” His eyes narrowed just a little. “Why are you even here? If you’re not… interested in my kind the way the others are?”
I pressed my lips into a grim line as I stared up at him in silence. I was a pretty good judge of character, and my gut was telling me I could trust him. He seemed… fairly guileless, to be honest. A little sheltered, maybe?
And okay, yeah, I was kind of softening just a touch at his confession that he’d come here looking for a simple companion. Was he lonely? Why didn’t he hang out with other demiurgus?
“I won’t say anything,” he murmured to me, his inhuman face open and honest. “To that weird old man or any of the others. Anyone.”
I snorted at his apt description of the high priest. The high priest was a weird old man. And… shit, after twenty-five years here, I really, really wanted to vent to someone about how odd this whole place was. I wanted to talk about how wild it was that all these people were dedicating their lives to the dream of one day getting banged by a demiurgus. I knew Violet agreed with me, but there weren’t many places to be truly alone here, and it was too risky for us to talk about it often.
Judging by what Greid had just said, he found it as strange as I did. The idea of talking to an actual demiurgus about it all was really tempting.
And for some reason, I wanted him to know that I didn’t subscribe to any of it. That I wasn’t a mindless follower of the cult. That I did not believe he was some ethereal sex wizard.
