Chapter Thirteen

H e thinks I'm a mutant. That kind of monster. Not a demon, spawned of some other demon, but a modified human or something. Not a being that can live off of energy, a being that will dry and wither if she goes more than a day or so without spending hours in the water.

But he said it didn't matter, and while I think he's crazy, I believe him. He probably thinks I'm crazy, too, and he believes me.

Saturday afternoon and evening are busy. Ardy, the police officer, needs to ask me some things. Minegold and Leo are with him. There are tense hours and phone calls to the hospital morgue and Jasper Wainwright at the local news station. All of this would far better be done at my houseboat or perhaps at Jakob's, but Kev believes I was attacked at home. He doesn't want to let me out of his sight. So instead—he makes dinner while a parade of people hold whispered conversations with me in his living room.

Saturday spills into Sunday, midnight striking before everyone leaves.

"I hate drama." Kev is loading the dishwasher.

"I know. I'm so sorry. I can—"

"But your drama is legit, and I don't mind it. It just sucks that you have to go through it." His tight face relaxes, and he reaches for me. "I'm glad you don't have to go through it alone. You've got good people."

I let out a sigh of relief. "You're the one I want to go through things with the most. Only, I don't want you to go through any of this, because it's terrible."

"Don't start that again. Hey." He turns and holds up a pink and gold gift bag. "Minegold gave me this and said it's a housewarming gift."

"What is it?" I raise my eyebrows, sure that I'm blushing. Was Jakob being kind, welcoming Kev to Pine Ridge, or was he being pushy, making it seem like I'm moving in?

"It's a waffle maker."

I bite my lip. I love waffles. If I get a man who has any manners and insists that I stay for breakfast, I often find myself eating toaster pastries or illicit frozen waffles made in illegal toasters in some cramped dorm room. Fresh waffles, waffles in a restaurant... Those are a dream come true.

"And look—a bag of Pine Loft Coffee Shop Pumpkin Spice Waffle Mix. Tomorrow, we're going to sleep in, then make waffles. You're gonna tell me whatever you need to tell me. And then we're going to the gym and beat the shit out of stuff." Kev smiles, a soft warmth in his eyes as he pulls me close, kissing my head. "Unless that little press conference in there took a bad turn. Do we need to go off the grid? Hop in that houseboat of yours and sail away?"

"Not yet," I whisper.

We head to bed, exhausted. I'm full. Don't need to eat. I've never been to bed with a man and simply slept—not even Gregor. I can't disappoint Kev.

When I lie in his arms, I wait for him to pull me under him, to start with a passionate kiss. He doesn't.

He strokes my hair. "So soft. Smells like rain. You always smell like rain. Love that smell." Kev's voice breaks with a shuddering yawn. "So... Houseboat. How do you sail something and have electricity? Or indoor plumbing? I mean, cruise ships do it, but—"

"It wouldn't get very far. It's old, as in it comes from the time when horses dragged barges up the river. Mine has no motor. It just... sits. Moored. It's meant to give me a hiding place or a place to sleep when I can't—" I stop speaking, realizing what I've revealed. How abnormal it must sound.

Kev rubs one sleepy hand along my spine. "No cruises for us? Can't take it down to the Bahamas?"

"Only in pieces," I laugh.

"Do I get to see it?"

"I... No."

"No?"

"I don't like to show normal people how I live."

Kev forces himself up on one elbow and squints down at me. "You live just fine. You hardly need that place." Another long pause while he stares at me. "Did you... I mean, before me, was there another guy? Before Gregor, or after him, I mean... Someone who was just a place to live?"

I shake my head. I'm not angry that he asked—I'm rather relieved he's catching on. I used men all the time—for food, not shelter. Water is shelter enough. The houseboat is merely for appearances. "No. I never trusted anyone enough to live with. I... I have felt odd this whole time, with how much the pattern took shape—dinner, making love, sleeping, breakfast, Fridays turning into weekends..." I trail off, not sure what to say next. Long ago and far away, out on the icy tips of the East Siberian Sea, villages were few and far between. Gregor's snug little house was isolated most of the time, with miles between him and the nearest neighbor. Traders and boats passed infrequently.

He was lonely.

I was hungry—and not only for food. To know what it was like to have someone you could talk to more than once, someone you could trust...

Once we found each other, there was no question of separating, no thought of going back and forth between homes. The modern world is different.

Kev proves again how much I can trust him. "I think you'd better stay here for now. Forever is also an option. I mean, I'm thinking one day we'll have a house, but for now. Stay?"

My hand grips his as he lays back down. "Live here until Koshchei is dealt with?"

"I don't want you living on that houseboat if his people are watching you. I know you can kick their asses, but someone should have your back. Someone tall, dark, and handsome, who makes killer waffles."

With a laughing sigh, I curl into his arms. I wait for the seduction. The sexual touches.

They don't come. Kevin's muscles slow-melt with the ease that falls over someone as they slumber.

"Stay?" he breathes, a sleepy whisper. "With me?"

"I'll stay. With you."

SUNDAY MORNING? I SIT up, scratching my head. More like Sunday afternoon. My phone says it's 11:58.

God, I hope it's Sunday. I feel like I could have slept for days.

Marina is still asleep against me, a curled-up ball of curves.

We have a lot to talk about—but right now, I can't help it. There's a lot to look at, and she's an instant aphrodisiac. My cock was awake before I was, morning wood ready to go—and looking at Marina only makes the need more urgent.

I drop my lips to her shoulder and run them over her neck, lifting her long, wavy chestnut locks. She sniffs in and giggles out, sleeping breaths reacting to my touch.

She turns, still slumbering, and I take my time staring. No wonder Koshchei wants her. Honeydew melon-sized breasts with perfect, dark pink nipples. Hourglass hips. Plump thighs. I run my hand down her outer leg, from hip to knee, marveling at how her thighs just kiss. She has a mermaid-shaped "tail" with her legs together.

I want to turn her into a starfish, all spread apart.

With a smirk, I slide down between her legs, listening to her sleepy moans as I part them. Marina instantly moves toward me, her pussy pink and dewy, making my tongue practically itch to get inside.

"What?" she mumbles, hips rolling restlessly under my hands.

"I'm having a little something before waffles," I chuckle before I dive in, kissing the seams of her thighs where they meet her plump little mound, then dragging my tongue over her labia, working my way in, layer by layer, until Marina is panting as she holds her knees to her chest.

My fingers slide in, one, two, three, amazed at how soaked she is, and how hungrily the little "suckers" inside of her are. I rotate my hand back and forth, rocking against her to widen her as I suck on her clit, selfishly avoiding the little pocket on her upper wall—for now.

"You don't have to spoil me so," Marina moans, teasing her nipples and squeezing her breasts as I flick her clit with my tongue.

"I want to. I want you."

"I... I want you. I love you."

It's a contest of what's going to burst first—my heart with happiness or my cock because Marina is the sexiest thing on earth. She wraps one leg over my shoulder, and I rise to my knees, pulling her hips forward so I can bury myself in her desperate little hole.

Her thankful groans almost make me come on the spot. "I don't deserve you," she moans as I lean over her, kissing her neck, moving my mouth to her nipples.

I suck one dark pink tip into my mouth and enjoy myself, echoing the steady rhythm of my hips as they slap into hers. One breast, then the others, while Marina's magical pussy sucks my cock in deeper, swirling around it with so much dexterity it almost feels like tiny fingers are massaging it.

"I don't deserve you. Goddess."

"Demon," she corrects.

"Demons want to do evil. Do you?" I ask sternly, swatting her ass.

"No!" she yelps in surprise.

"Then you're not a demon, girl."

"What I am—"

"Isn't about some title. You're Marina. Beautiful, badass Marina. My Marina. Monster Marina, sure, Mutant Marina, sure, I don't fucking care as long as you're mine."

Do I sound over the top? I am.

Marina grabs me by the back of the neck, pulling me flat to her, then rolls so she is straddling me, riding me faster and harder than normal bodies can go. It's sex on steroids, and for a moment, I'm back to that dizzying wonder if my heart or cock will explode first.

Marina does—a sheet of juice gushing from her when she plants herself all the way down, insides milking me until I pop while watching her in the throes of her pleasure, a writhing, gasping mess on my cock.

Beautiful disaster. Beautiful kinds of crazy, this woman who screams in ecstasy as she engulfs me, who makes the edges of my vision go black with the force of my orgasm—and then who cuddles me with shaking arms and says, "Shower, then waffles?"

I don't have any air left after that breakneck finish. I just nod.

"I THINK I MADE TOO many."

I look at the stack of six waffles Marina puts in front of me.

"Uh. Maybe. I don't know. But—you know what you do with leftover waffles?"

Marina shakes her head, eyes wide in shock. "No, I've never had that problem. Who could leave waffles?"

"I have a feeling you'll handle my leftovers, but—bacon sandwiches. A waffle-bacon-and-pimento cheese sandwich is the nectar of the gods. Well, my grandfather thought so. I don't think pimento cheese is gonna work on pumpkin spice waffles."

Marina thinks. "Cream cheese, cinnamon, and chocolate? We can have them for dessert?"

"I like the way your mind works, baby. Now..." I catch her fingers as we sit at the table. "Tell me what you need to tell me about your life. Your past. Whatever you want. I'm going to listen."

EATING WAFFLES WHILE our bare feet tangle and tease under the table makes it easier to talk. I stare at the puddle of sweet brown maple syrup around my waffles, not at him.

"My kind have never married. We are not supposed to belong to anyone but our overlord. Koshchei."

I can feel Kev tense angrily, but he stays quiet.

"He can claim any one of his rusalka and breed with her. The chosen handmaids are never seen again."

"That's some cult shit, right there."

I shrug. The supernatural world is quite cultish in many ways, I suppose. It's harder to see it unless you've lived a normal life. I steal a glance out the window. I can just see trees and the edges of the taller buildings on campus, but I don't care. To me, Pine Ridge is home, a paranormal kind of normal, and I love it.

"We believe he owns us, body and soul. He believes it." It's true, but since Kev still can't quite see what I am (although I think he believes me when I say it) I'm not going to try to drive home that it's not just a belief, it's a reality.

Kev's fork slams into his plate, but he keeps quiet.

"If... If someone were to be our— If a man were my soulmate, and we used special words from my culture to bind ourselves together, Koshchei couldn't claim me as a handmaid. I think it might even completely sever the bond that we have."

"Good! Where are the words? Do I memorize them?" Kev asks.

"Slow down!" He makes me smile—even now. How do I explain my fears? That what he has isn't true love. That my soul isn't human, and I don't know where it will go when I die. Will Kev be forced to spend eternity in some demonic dimension?

"Okay. Where. Are. The. Words? Text. Them. To. Me." Kev says very slowly.

"Idiot," I tease.

"Stubborn." He lifts my hand and kisses the back of it. "Go on."

"I can't let you take the risk. Once you're all in with me, you'll be stuck. No divorces, no annulments. The words bind for life and eternity." In the back of my mind, I wonder if there is some way to break the bond—but I have a feeling no external force could do it. Maybe if we both let each other go...

I don't know. I have to assume—this is it.

It's his turn to stare at his plate.

"Scary. I know. I don't think you should do it. Even if you did—the soul isn't mortal. You wouldn't just be binding yourself to me for this life, but for an afterlife. An eternity! And I've killed innocent people. My soul could go to Hell. I don't know if yours would go with it."

More silence, deeper, more profound. Kev leaves the table and paces in his living room, hands folded into a steeple and pressed to his lips.

I know it's selfish to want him for myself. I know I should be preparing to let him go. Even if he doesn't believe in all the things I've said, I believe them, and that should give him pause.

"Okay." Kev's voice is loud and startles me out of preparing my bittersweet farewells.

"Okay?" Okay, we're done? Okay, I'm right, and we shouldn't take this risk?

"One. I'm not sure what I believe in terms of an afterlife. I believe that people can be forgiven and that they can turn their lives around. You did. So, I don't think that your soul is necessarily hellbound. Two—what if our souls are stuck together for eternity? Who says soul wins? Why doesn't mine? If this Koshchei handmaids you up and instantly you belong to him on some mystical soul level, if I say the words, do you belong to me? Because then maybe you'd go where I go—and I don't know where I go. I'm not perfect."

I think of the selflessness of my lover, his belief in forgiveness and chance, his good heart, and his career that is devoted to ending pain and bringing healing. "You will head heavenward, darling."

"Then you'll go with me. Or maybe we'll be stuck in the middle. Maybe we don't go anywhere... but you're saying your people believe we would be together?"

"Yes! Forever ."

"Well, then. Can't be all bad. You'll be there. If I get to be with you, then I don't care about the rest."

I sniff in sudden tears, overcome. "You have a brave and noble heart."

Kev returns to the table but doesn't sit. He kneels at my feet, looking up at me.

It should be the other way around, and he doesn't even know it. Humble, too, my man. I lay my hand against his cheek, staring into his shining dark brown eyes.

"Brave and noble? Like your knight in shining armor?"

"The shiniest."

He stands and pulls me with him. "Would you say that this knight might have a shot with the queen?"

My breath catches, something between a gasp and a sob. "Yes."

"And when he marries her—he becomes the king, right? Her king? Her everything?"

I nod, both hands sliding to his shoulders. As tall as I am, he's just a little taller, and he makes me feel like I have someone to look up to—not just physically, but in every way. "He is already a king. A warrior king. He doesn't need a queen to take possession of his crown."

"Girl... Marina, the way you talk..." Kev shakes his head, gives up looking for words, and then kisses me. "Tell me the words," he whispers when we pull apart.

"I will—soon. Why don't you take some time to think about it."

"I already thought. If this Big K bastard is coming for you in the middle of October—I want us to be a done deal ASAP. If he weren't a thing, if he wasn't even in the picture—do you know what I'd want?"

I shake my head, confused. "What?"

"A May wedding—because college track season is done in March and NCAA swim meets are typically done in April. That way both my brothers can be there without missing meets."

The words sink in slowly.

He wants me. Either way. With this threat or without it.

"W-we could have a promise ceremony sooner and a w-wedding—" I sag suddenly, and Kev catches me, scooping me up with a worried frown on his face. "A wedding in May. A wedding? To me?"

Someone wants me. Loves me. Forever. Not just to use or abuse, but to keep. Cherish.

"I would try to be a good wife," I whisper, breaking down.

"Oh, my God! Baby! Baby, Marina—you're fantastic. You're already everything I want. You're enough, okay? Just like this." He squeezes me to his chest. "This." He puts me in a chair and waves his hands in front of my body like a drunken magician, "All this is enough. You. You're enough. More than enough. I'm going to keep saying it until you believe it."

I lean forward and bring his forehead to mine when squats to meet me. "I love you."

"I love you."

"There is one thing more. I've told you already, but you must listen. Koshchei might hurt you for interfering. He will kill without restraint. My only hope is that he is too—" I can't explain this the right way to Kev, who doesn't fully understand Koshchei's true nature. I hope Koshchei is too unsteady and weak, forcing himself into being long before he should and having next to nothing to eat. "I hope he is weak. There are so few of us left right now." I drop my eyes. My kind is dying out. If I refuse to be his handmaid, and he's killed the others, I will be the last of my kind.

Kev gently brushes my hair away from my cheeks.

No more young men will die because of us. Any rusalkas who survive will have a chance at happiness, a chance to live without killing.

"You worried about what he'll do to the other girls if you don't play nice?"

"They're dying anyway. They're too far enslaved and under his control to break free. I tried to talk to Darya... She wouldn't listen."

"That police officer in town seemed pretty chill. He can't help? Can't make some calls to... I don't know. Interpol or something?"

"Nope. Koshchei is a phantom. No trail. No trace. Not until he comes for you."

"Damn. He really rattled you."

"And he could kill you, just for taking what is ‘his.'" Even as I warn him off, I lick my lips at the taste of freedom. I know what it is like to live alone and not be truly free. I know it is a paradox to need to belong to another to escape my bonds.

Belonging with Kev doesn't mean "owning." It would mean partnering. Loving. Being his other half as he is mine, not his possession to use.

Freedom is so very sweet—but not at the cost of him.

Kev shakes his head. "I don't think my girl would let that bastard even breathe in my direction."

"You're right."

A new thought enters my mind, one I thought I'd never need. I assumed Koschei wouldn't return to this realm until I had left it—but now that we're about to collide, I wonder—can he be killed? Not just starved into oblivion, but destroyed?

"You are very brilliant!" I say suddenly, kissing Kev on his startled lips.

"I thought you were telling me I was dumb for taking risks," Kev cries when I release him.

"Well... We are both fools—but we are fools in love. Can we go swimming now?"

"And then we drive down to your houseboat and get your stuff and bring it here," Kev insists.

I sigh. My cards are on the table. "I have nothing there worth bringing. A cot, a cooler, some books, a flashlight, some camping lamps... It was only a place to survive. To hide. Okay?"

Kev nods, his features working. "Then I guess we get to go shopping?"

"I have my own money," I reassure.

"Good. But... If I pay, can I get you some long black gloves and one of those silky, shiny-looking black satin bra sets?" He rubs his hands. "I have a fantasy I want to live out."

He doesn't know it, but thanks to him, I'm living mine. "Mm. Tell me more while I get my swimsuit."