Lor (Monstrous, #7)

by Lily Mayne

There were still rumours to this day that one had survived whatever fate befell them that day. Travelling folk insisted on seeing a lone isdernuc wandering the lands, sometimes in the company of one of the telyths—the ghoulish creatures from a forgotten age.

This is a weird spaceship, I vacantly thought, but then two werewolves walked in, and I passed out.

I started screaming the moment I came to. The first things I saw were the big, eerie silver eyes of those two blue-skinned monsters as they peered at me—from behind bars.

The robe didn’t smell like him anymore, and how much of a weirdo was I to have sniffed it constantly until the scent had completely faded? I could still remember it though—smoky and herbal, like lavender on a bonfire.

I had been in my nightclothes the night before, and while they were made from the finest myrix silk, I wanted to look my best for Jugs.

“No, I worded that poorly. I meant before now.” My ears burned, but I forced myself to look him in the eyes. “I feel that way about you too, Jugs. I—I like you. Very, very much. Romantically.” “R-really?” he breathed, gazing at me. I nodded, unable to stop myself from staring at his mouth. “And I would… I would like to do the kiss. To press our mouths together.”

“Did you… did you like it?” I didn’t answer, my gaze wild as I stared at him. Then I lunged forward to kiss him again, wrapping my arms around his neck so he couldn’t get away.

“It is called a handshake, Lyri.” Lor sounded a little smug to know this already. “Grasp his hand and move it up and down.” “Why the fuck would I do that?” “Because it is polite,” Lor snapped. “It is a human custom. So do it.” “Alright! Hag’s balls, no need to shout.”

I slowly came to the realisation that I’d just had an intense make out sesh with a monster world ruler.

When our tongues met, he shivered and fisted the back of my mullet, long fingers brushing over my nape and making my scalp tingle with pleasure.

I knew he had a mullet!

“She’ll find something,” I got out, even though I didn’t believe it either. “She will, Jugs.” He let out a low sob, but lifted his head to stare at me with tear-filled eyes. “She won’t. Not in time. I can feel it… I can feel something happening.” A tear rolled down his flushed cheek as his mouth trembled. “I’m scared, Lor.” “No,” I choked out, clutching his face. “She will find something. She will. I w-won’t let anything happen to you. Please don’t be scared, Jugs.” The words escaped me on a weak sob that I couldn’t contain. “Please. I won’t let it happen. I won’t—” “You can’t stop it, Lor.” He covered my hand on his cheek with his own. “It’s not your fault.” “Yes it is,” I wept, letting go of him to cover my face. “Yes it is.” “No, it isn’t.” He tugged my hands away, sniffing as resolve settled in his crystal blue eyes. “When I’m gone, I don’t want you to blame yourself for this. It’s not your fault.

“I love you, Lor. I don’t regret any of it. And that… that helps. It helps me accept what”—his breath shuddered out of him—“what’s going to happen. It was all worth it. I love you.”

“And we still have a bit more time,” he said as he pulled back, smoothing my hair from my damp face. “Let’s do something fun tomorrow. Well, as fun as it can get in this room.” He chuckled. “We’ll do whatever you want,” I whispered, twining our fingers together on the pillow between us and kissing his knuckles. “Anything. We will spend the whole day together.” He smiled back drowsily, eyes already slipping shut, face lined with exhaustion after his emotional onslaught. “Sounds nice.” The next morning, he didn’t wake up.

I was going to make Jugs proud of me, even if he wasn’t here to see it.

One year and three months.

Five years.

Eight years.

I couldn’t truly grieve, because he wasn’t dead. But I couldn’t let myself hope, because there was still no cure. I was stuck. Waiting. Waiting.

Ten years.

“The salyik preacher went into that valley and never came back out.”

Uh oh was that Moths proginetor??

I was stuck. Still waiting. Still unable to grieve and still unable to feel any hope. I had no hope left. I had nothing left at all. I was a shell. Hollow and empty. A body that moved, a mouth that spoke, but nothing else.

The more time that passed, the less alive I felt.

Fifteen years. Fifteen years, and Jugs looked exactly as he had the day he fell asleep and never woke back up.

“I think… I think he said they were called Ronod Rayan. I remember thinking how strange the name was.”

Lmao ronald raegan??

“Because it feels like I will die if I let myself feel anything.” I let out a slow, shuddering breath and smoothed back my hair with a trembling hand, trying to stand up straighter. “So I can’t.”

Swallowing thickly, I croaked, “H-how do you know it will work?” Lilimar cleared her throat awkwardly. “Seis made me poison him several weeks ago. So that we could be sure.” My head snapped up, gaze shooting to Seis, who gave me a tiny smile. I thought I would pass out as a maelstrom of emotions threatened to drown me. Shock. Disbelief. Fury. “How dare you, Seis?” My voice wobbled. “What if it hadn’t worked? What if you had died?” “We had to be sure, Moric,” he said quietly. “I wanted to do it for you both.”

“I am furious with you, Seis,” I said shakily. He chuckled. “That’s fine, Moric.” “Lor,” I corrected automatically. Then I choked on a sob and flung myself against his chest. “Th-thank you. I… I can never repay you for this. Either of you.”

His blue eyes looked dark in the low light, and when they turned to me, I let out a pained sob. “Jugs,” I choked out again, my hand shaking wildly as I placed it on his chest. “Hi.” His voice was rough and hoarse, but his pink mouth curved up into a tiny smile as he raised a trembling hand. “High-five.”

Omfg she is hitting me in the heart

“You’ve w-waited for me this whole time?” I whispered. I could see the grief, the misery—the loneliness—still tightening his features, making him look brittle and even more fragile than normal. His long, elegant fingers were thinner and bonier than before. Even his hair looked flatter and messier, like he’d stopped bothering with it. Like he’d stopped bothering with much of anything. “I would wait my whole life for you,” he said quietly, trying to steady his voice even as tears continued to stream freely down his cheeks. He pressed his lips to my hand again. “I would wait forever for you, Jugs.”

Lor’s breath hitched. “You mean more to me than anything else. I would do anything for you, Jugs.” Lifting our joined hands, he pressed my fingertips to his mouth—to the ring piercing his lower lip. “This means that I will never want anyone else. My mouth will never touch another. I will never speak ill of you. Your name is the first thing I want to pass my lips every morning and the last thing I say every night.” I swallowed thickly, gently touching the tiny blue gem on the ring. “You… you got this done even though you didn’t know if I would ever get better?” “If you’d never gotten better, I would still have spent the rest of my life by your side.” He kissed my fingertips. “There is no one else for me, Jugs.”

He laughed, the sound still a little fragile. “You can have my whole fiefdom for yourself. Or we rename it. Jugslandia. And Thinir can be…” “The City of Jugs.”

When he had started snoring in the night, I’d had to clap a hand over my mouth to push back the tearful laugh that threatened to burst from me. I’d missed that sound so much.

Then movement at the edge of what Lor had told me was the poison plant garden had drawn my gaze, and I stared in utter shock when I saw a freaking human walking next to a tall, scary-looking dude in a hood with curling black horns.

Is that my bb Wyn??

Lilimar was openly weeping, and she patted both our cheeks in a gesture so much like my mother that my throat closed up. I held her tight for long, long moments, whispering over and over again how grateful I was to her, for everything she had given me. For never giving up on Jugs, even when the hope had begun to fade from me.

Trying to compose myself, I nodded quickly and wiped my cheeks, then finally looked over at Gryf standing silently beside him. Except it wasn’t Gryf. He was another human. His skin and eyes were a deep brown, and the closely shorn hair on his head and thick beard on his face were almost black. He was even taller than Jugs was, towering over Lyri beside him. My mouth opened and closed in wordless shock—and embarrassment that this stranger was seeing me in such a state. Nervously smoothing back my hair with shaking hands, I tried to pull myself together and give him a smile, but I wasn’t sure how welcoming I looked while I was still crying. Still, he smiled back at me kindly, then glanced down at Lyri beside him. “This is Cat,” Lyri told me proudly, taking the human’s hand and pressing a smacking kiss to the back of it. “And before you ask, Gryf is fine.”