11. Dec

Chapter eleven

Dec

(No one is surprised by this plot twist)

O h he is so smooth. I almost put my hand in his, but I take another step away to keep myself from making any mistakes. "Nope. No. We are not doing this. We are pretending it never happened. Remember?"

Thoren looks from my face to his outstretched hand and back to my face. "Really?" he demands, but there's a smile in his eyes that I decide means he's teasing me.

I shrug and give him my most professionally polite smile. "It's a very nice necklace. You should be happy you were genetically blessed with such excellent form."

He gives me a disbelieving look, but it clears away quickly, and his fingers curl up and he drops his arm, shaking his head. "I can admit when my advances are rejected. When you're ready to admit that you've made a mistake, you know where to find me."

I laugh as I start walking back toward the next thing I should do on my never ending list. "I'm nothing if not capable of never admitting I was wrong," I toss at him, winking to let him know I'm teasing.

It feels like a mistake to walk away, but that's just my dick talking, and that guy isn't known for his sound judgment, so I keep walking, forcing my feet to keep moving until I finally get to my office. I really don't have much in the way of work, but I do some reorganizing until Mr. Simms' appointment with the groomer is done, then I meet them at the front of the house to pay the woman. She reports that Mr. Simms was perfectly well behaved, takes her payment, and I see her out.

"Come along, Mr. Simms. Spa day is over. Time for a snack and a nap."

Mr. Simms, being the proper good doggo he is, follows me straight to the kitchen, waiting patiently for his good boy treat that he takes to his bed in the corner to snack on.

Jax eyes Mr. Simms as he takes his place in her kitchen. "I don't know why you insist the dog bed has to be in here. It's unsanitary," she comments offhandedly.

"Don't listen to her, Mr. Simms. She's obligated by her proper schooling to object to your bed being in here. She likes having your company, I assure you." Honestly, the reason the dog bed is in the kitchen is because there isn't another room in the house that is as regularly occupied as the kitchen is. Jax is here all day, and in the evening after she goes home, Mr. Simms accompanies me to my rooms. I don't know how things were before I arrived, but no one is complaining that they've lost their sleeping companion, so I assume it's ok for him to sleep on my bed.

"I am not a pet lover," Jax denies as she hands me a bowl of raw foods that she put together specifically for Mr. Simms, even though I told her I would buy him dog food. She was the one who said, "It's my job to feed this household and he is part of the household."

I put the bowl down where Mr. Simms can get it if he's hungry and smile at the squishy-on-the-inside chef. "You don't have to be a pet lover to love Mr. Simms. He's such a good doggo, everyone loves—ah!" I yelp as a stone statuette of one of the roof grotesques appears out of nowhere on the counter. "What that fu—dge."

Jax looks at me like I've lost a marble or two. "What was that?"

I cough to clear out the need to find the biggest expletive I can find, and gesture to the statuette. "This just appeared out of thin air."

She looks right at the statuette, shaking her head in confusion. "No. It's been there. Someone brought it in. I don't know why they left it there. Isn't it one of the gargoyles from the roof?" She shrugs like she doesn't find it strange that someone left a statuette on her counter. Also, it was literally not there when I walked into the kitchen, so that's weird.

"I swear to you it was not there when I walked in here just now. That thing appeared out of thin airrrr…" I trail off as it disappears and reappears in the doorway leading out.

Jax tilts her head, confused even more. "It's been in the doorway this whole time. You had to step over it to get in the kitchen. I'm telling you, you need to find a furniture dolly and get it out of the way because it's a fire hazard and a poorly thought through prank."

What in the Finding Nemo Dory fish forgetful hell is this?

"Are you joking? Are you teasing me right now?" I ask, walking over to the statuette and pointing at it. "This was on the counter a second ago. I didn't walk over it to enter the kitchen. I would never leave something in a doorway—aaaand it's gone again."

"What's gone?" Jax asks, barely looking back from where she's started pulling ingredients from the fridge.

I fish-mouth at her in complete disbelief. I don't even know what to say. I feel like I need a meme right now with the sound clip "emotional damage" playing on repeat. What the fuck?

I glance around the doorway to find the little grotesque a few feet down the hall with a wing out, pointing to the left.

I don't know what is happening here, but it looks like I'm being led by a moving statue. Maybe I'm the delusional one? Am I having a psychotic break right now? If I follow the moving statue, is it my own mind leading me away from the kitchen? If this is what a psychotic break feels like, then I'm a bit disappointed in the entire experience. Being aware that my mind is fucking with me takes something away from the whole ordeal.

Possibly I'm not having a psychotic break and there is something extra going on. I believe in aliens, no doubt, so maybe that's what's happening here?

Aliens or a psychotic break. I'm not liking my options here, and yet, I still find myself walking toward the little statue and following its lead.

It disappears and reappears and leads me on a direct route from the kitchen back to the elevators, but it stands in front of the one that I don't have the access code for.

Which is apparently not a problem, because it disappears again, the elevator doors open, and then it reappears standing in the elevator.

"This is fun," I tell myself as I enter the forbidden elevator.

The button is already lit for sub-basement three. Wow. I am going to get fired for sure.

"So, what's your name? Where're you from? Where are we going and what's with the handbasket?"

The statue obviously doesn't respond, but the elevator chimes so prettily that it makes up for the weirdness of it all. I kinda wish the other elevator chimed like that. It sounds like church bells.

The doors open, and I wait for the statue to appear ahead of me. The elevator opens into a well-lit, stainless steel and white room that looks like it was built straight out of a sci-fi movie. Except recently all the sci-fi labs have been dark except for spotlights over the lab tables, which seems inefficient because you literally can't do anything except deal with what's on the table.

What's on the tables, you ask? No idea. I do not recognize even a single item of tech on the tables. I don't know what the beakers are cooking, and I couldn't tell you what that smell is. It's all just science stuff and aliens.

Oh hey, I found aliens. So it's not that I'm having a psychotic break, that's nice to know.

The alien looks exactly like Walker with his furry pants and horns, except that he's gray skinned, has wings, and the facial features are more pronounced, like...

Like the statues on the roof I saw earlier, except this Walker is definitely moving around and not made of stone.

He's a gargoyle... and now the name of the mansion makes so much more sense. Chez Gargouille. I'm... I'm working for aliens. That's, uh, something.

"So are you—"

Walker startles and flings what's in his hand in a hundred different directions, jumps backwards and runs into the table behind him, knocking over the beakers on it, and making a huge mess that waits about three seconds before exploding with a deafening bang and igniting his pants on fire. He immediately strips out of them and throws them across the room to a shower space that vaporizes them into nothing, leaving him naked with nothing to wear.

I glimpse a dick worthy of being memorialized in art before jerking my gaze up to his wide eyes as he stares at me.

"How the fuck did you get down here?" he asks, more shocked than angry.

I point to the little statue on the table with its wings spread as if to say, "Tada!"

Walker's wide eyes slide to the statue and narrow. "You little gremlin. You know the staff are not supposed to be down here."

My eyes slip back to his dick, but I force them up again. "So, are you all aliens, or are gargoyles, um, native to this planet?"

Walker's gaze returns to me. "You can see me."

I tilt my head to the side and raise my hands as I give him my best are-you-joking look. "Obviously. It's hard not to see you. Do you want me to go get you some pants? That would be well within my job description."

Walker glances down at himself and shrugs. "I only wear pants because it's necessary around humans. How can you see me? Well no, more like, what are you if you're not human?"

He looks me over, head to toe.

"I'm fairly certain I'm human. Have been all my life." Self-doubt makes me wonder if maybe I am actually going through a psychotic break and this is just my mind playing a game with me. At least it's interesting this time; hard to tell reality from fiction with this twist.

"No, if you were human you wouldn't be able to see the chrylich moving, and you certainly wouldn't be able to see my wings. Humans can't see magic, and I am, at the core of me, magical. Most species are. Humans are the only species in the known universe and all its realms that have evolved to be fully blind to magic. If you can see me, you're not fully human." He gives me another once over, but this time it's for more assessing. "Probably rabbit shifter. You got the ass and hips of a rabbit shifter and those huge feet. It would explain why you can see magic. I assume you can't shift, otherwise this conversation wouldn't be all that surprising."

"My brain is gaslighting me. I didn't even know I could do that to myself. This is super fun." I should probably see if that health insurance I have now is any good. Mental health support is super important.

The elevator behind me dings, and I turn, catching Thoren in nothing but that beautiful loincloth ducking out of the elevator because he's too tall for it with the horns on his head. That's right. Horns. And wings, obviously. He looks exactly like the statue on the roof did earlier except his skin is velvety and not made of stone. Holy shit, he's hot. Like the tingle in my dick is not at all subtle.

"What are you doing down here?" he demands, then looks at Walker. "Why the fuck are you naked with Dec? You know the staff aren't allowed down here."

"I didn't make me naked, he did!" Walker defends himself, pointing at me like I'm the one who took his pants off.

The tingle disappears so fast, I bet it could win a Formula 1 race. "No. You took them off all on your own. You threw them over there and they were vaporized. I am not taking responsibility for nudity. That is not in my job description." I'm a lot of things, but a doormat is not one of them. "And don't even start blaming me for following a moving statue through the house to the basement. I don't even have the access code to this elevator. One cannot be blamed for following a statue that keeps disappearing and reappearing."

Thoren scowls at the little statue. "They're gargoyles, just a different species than us, and they're alive, not statues. They're only statues when you perceive them because you're mostly human. The rest of us can see their substance when they're active."

"Is this that whole humans-can't-see-magic thing again?" I suspect again that I may not be having the psychotic break I thought I was having.

Thoren confirms this with a low grunt. "Gargoyles are the standard for perception to be included in the intergalactic senate. No species who can't perceive their active form is allowed a seat in the senate."

I should probably wait to freak out until I'm alone, right? Freak outs about aliens and intergalactic senates are alone-time things, right? Right. Ok. Freak out later, for now extricate myself from the situation that my foolish curiosity and stubbornness have gotten me in. Yep, extrication. And maybe stop staring at the hot alien.

"I'm, uh, going to just, ah, go." I get that stupid sentence out as I back up toward the elevator. On the plus side I don't have to input a code to call it since getting out of here isn't the problem. I press the button and the elevator immediately dings.

Thoren stomps in after me, but he doesn't say anything as the doors to the elevator close us into the small space together.

I look up at his enormity—he's bigger in this form than in his human form—and my mouth decides that my thoughts should not be kept private. "Nice horns. The loincloth makes sense with the wings. You're furry, so that's something. Holy shit, I need to be quiet." I clap my hand over my runaway mouth.

The side of Thoren's mouth lifts in a half smile that makes me want to do nasty things with him. Jesus. I'm a monster fucker. Well, I could be a monster fucker if I just say the words he wanted to hear earlier. That's... possible.

"Thanks," he says, casually brushing his hand against my hip.

"So you still want to fuck." I should not have uncovered my mouth.

Thoren chuckles softly, turning to face me fully even as the elevator stops. "Yeah. I still want to fuck."

I stare up at him as my wayward hand reaches out to touch his furry chest and his hands grip my hips. I cannot not look at the alien I am definitely going to have sex with. He's stupidly handsome in his human form, but in his gargoyle form? Well, it turns out I have a kink for Thoren in his natural state. "I'm going to be a monster fucker, Thoren. You're not going to take this away from me, are you?"

Thoren's smile spreads across his face with a wave of heat that feels like it could burn me up if I get too close. "I wouldn't dream of it."

Oh what a way to go.

I hit the button for the third floor of the house. "Take me to your room."