Dancing With Monsters Read Free Page B

was a rustic home with a stone fireplace,
richly stained wood beams that was the skeleton on the home, and an
open ceiling with a loft overhead. It wasn’t a large home, but
looked like it came out of a magazine as it was neat and showed no
person artifacts, like pictures.
    “ Have a seat right here,”
he said, twirling an office chair around and shoving it towards
me.
    I looked at the chair then at
him.
    “ Your feet are bleeding,
and I don’t want blood all over my rugs any more than it already
is.”
    I looked down at my bare feet and at
the bright red splotches dotting the dull orange rug.
    “ Sorry,” I
said.
    “ Don’t be, just sit down.
I just bought those rugs.”
    I sat down and he pushed me into the
kitchen. Stainless steel appliances and cabinets made out of knotty
wood, made the kitchen look like a professional chef lived here.
There was an abundant supply of spices above the gas stove,
utensils hung over an island in the middle of the kitchen, and a
wine cooler, fully stocked, displayed bottles of wine from behind a
glass door.
    He went to a tall cabinet and got out
a towel and a small, brown, glass bottle.
    “ So, what’s your name?
Mine is Ben.” He glanced up at me as he gently took my right foot
and placed it on his bent knee.
    I couldn’t give him my real name.
“Beth,” I finally said.
    Ben snickered as he wiped off the
bottom of my foot with whatever was in the brown bottle.
    “ No, it isn’t. You are a
terrible fibber, fledging, and my assumptions were right about
you.” Ben wiped other foot. “If you were totally a human girl,
you’d be screaming in pain.”
    He put the bottle away and threw the
towel to the sink.
    “ If I was human?” I
questioned and looked at the bottom of my left foot. There were no
scratches or cuts.
    “ Your mark, and the fact I
just used serpent’s oil on you, tells me otherwise.” Ben crossed
his arms and smirked at me. “You’ve witnessed some pretty
remarkable things tonight, and I’m sure you feel it’s all a dream,
but it isn’t. Our kind has a way of …connecting for lack of a
better word.” Ben’s image blurred, and then disappeared. I rubbed
my eyes wondering if it was the aftereffects of whatever he used on
my feet.
    I felt my insides tighten,
and wondered if I had been drugged. Then, suddenly, Ben
materialized in front of me on bent knees. “I found you, and you
found me for a reason.” His eyes searched mine as I could barely
breathe. “Did you see your wounds?’’ he asked and I nodded.
“Serpent’s oil can only be used on one type of being.” He smiled.
“You and I are monsters, Beth .”
     
    Seth
     
    “ Time’s running out,” Ezra
stood in front of me running her pale fingers over mine. “I want to
stay together. I’m tired of meeting this way.” Her blue-black eyes
lifted to mine. “The air is changing here, and something’s coming—I
can sense it.”
    “ Ughhh!” A female voice
yelled like a battle cry behind me. “Let him go nymph!” The
unmistakable sound of Nessa’s voice demanded in the
distance.
    I felt that pull again. Each time I
talked to Ezra, I felt a distance slowly separating us. She begged
me with her eyes to stay as she reached for my hands.
    Don’t go…
    I had to, but hesitated. Ezra
tightened her grip on my hands. It wasn’t only Nessa who pulled at
me to come back to the living, there was something else.
    I let go of her hands, and gave into
that unknown and invisible force that kept pulling me away from the
girl I had planned to marry.
    “ Hey!” I yelled as
something burned on my right shoulder. What were they doing,
setting me on fire to quit seeing Ezra?
    I opened my eyes to see Uncle Hes’s
scowling face peering down at me along with Nessa. He held a
branding coin in his right hand as Nessa placed her hands on her
hips.
    “ Nessa said you’re being
haunted by a dead lover. That mark ought to put a stop to that, or
at least slow it down until she gives up.”
    I sat up, and should