Home for Horny Monsters - Book 3

The Naga, the Fox, and the Wardrobe

The door of the wardrobe didn't move.

Puzzled, Mike grabbed the handle even tighter and pulled again, but it still wouldn't budge. The wardrobe felt like it had been anchored into the wall, the door completely immobile. Frustrated, he tried rattling the door when he realized that he had missed one very important detail. Right below the handle was a small keyhole.

"Ugh." He got ready to kick the wardrobe out of frustration when he remembered that he had a key sitting in his dresser. It was the one he had found last week in the downstairs front closet. Excited, he started running back to his bedroom, pausing immediately upon entering.

"What the fuck am I doing?"

He turned back and stared at the mysterious wardrobe. Even from here, he could feel its pull on him. What could be on the other side of those doors that entranced him so? It wasn't just curiosity or a need to feel like he was making progress with the house. Something magical was trying to lure him into the wardrobe, and he wondered if it had his best interest at heart.

He moved toward the wardrobe again, but turned at the stairs, running down them once he looked away. Already, the mystical pull was fading. Once at the bottom, he went out the back door to find Zel, Abella, and Naia sitting around the fountain.

"Hey, I need a favor." He sat on the water's edge. "There's a key in the top drawer of my dresser. Can somebody go get it and give it to Naia?" He briefly explained the magical compulsion of the wardrobe to all of them along with the memory of Emily using portals to travel. "I don't want to go wandering in without thinking things through first. I'm fairly certain that it goes somewhere but don't know for certain, and I'm worried the key may have the same spell on it or something."

"I'm on it." Zel walked to the house, her hooves clomping on the wood once she was in the door.

"Someone's learning caution," Naia said, kissing Mike on the forehead. After waiting a minute, she vanished with a splash then reappeared, the small key in her hand.

His heart pumped frantically, and his hand shot out to grab it from her. At the last second, he closed his fingers and pulled his hand back. He knew he had made the correct decision.

"Hold onto it for me? Until I'm ready."

She grinned. "Yes, but only for a bit. Anything I take down there alters the flow of my spring, and I'm running out of good places to shove things."

"I'll deal with it soon." He let out a sigh of relief when Naia swallowed it and it vanished from sight. "I just thought it would be best if I didn't wander off to some other part of the planet with nobody knowing where I went."

"Agreed." Abella put a hand on his shoulder. She smiled, the fused crack in her face glinting in the sunlight. It was the stone equivalent of a scar, yet somehow the flaw looked good on her. It traveled down her forehead, across her eye and then along her cheek. "We can't bail you out if we don't know where you are."

He smiled but didn't feel good about it on the inside. "Well, at least I know I can count on you."

She smiled, her azure eyes glittering in the daylight.

Zel stepped out of the backdoor, her hooves clomping on the pavement.

"Check it out!" She lifted up her skirt to reveal that she had put on a pair of Mike's boxers. "There's even a tail hole in the back!" She spun around to reveal that she had practically destroyed the fly of his underwear by pulling her tail through.

Naia laughed, the sound snapping Mike out of his funk. He stood up and gave Zel a hug. "You can keep that pair. I don't need them anymore."

"Really?" She did a little spin, releasing her skirt. "They aren't as lacy as the ones Abella showed me on her tablet."