Bedside Monster (House Beasts #1)

Beast

In the few days where Oliver had known Wovny, his flat had already changed a bit. Or rather, Oliver had changed the way he viewed it.

He no longer had any desire to check if the birds on the shelf in the entrance had moved, and he didn't look at the five paintings in his hallway. What for? All he wanted was to find his way back to the imp's arms, that was waiting for him. Maybe Wovny was hungry and wanted something to snack on before dinner, or he had seen something interesting today he wanted to talk to him about.

"I'm home!" he said. He took his shoes off and tossed them next to the rack where they were supposed to go. He listened for an answer and, when he had none, checked the hallway.

When he turned around, Wovyn was looking through his bag.

"Hey!" he cried, but he was laughing at the same time.

"Did you go shopping?" he asked. He pulled the pills from the bag and squinted at them. "What's this? They smell funny."

"Something I had to go get," told him Oliver. "It's the pills that would make me blind to you."

Wovyn looked at him with big, hurt eyes. That single look tore Oliver's heart apart.

"I'm not going to be taking any of them," he explained. "I'd be crazy if I did."

"Promise?"

"Yeah, I swear. The lady at the pharmacy tried to scare me by telling me that I would be crazy if I didn't take any. I told her to fuck off."

"Really?"

"Not really. But she can't scare me."

"I'm scarier." Wovyn handed him over the box.

"Indeed. Lemme clean this up somewhere where I'll never touch it again and then I'll come back to you."

Wovyn grinned. There was that twinkle in his eye he always had when he had some sort of plan to cause mischief. Oliver felt his breath catch in his throat when he considered what sort of mischief that might be, considering that Wovyn had had one thing on his mind lately.

He hurried to the bathroom and put the box in the cabinet behind the mirror. Even if he wanted to go back as quickly as he could, he took a moment to look at himself in the mirror. He had indeed changed a little, he could see why people kept telling him that. He couldn't quite say what it was. Maybe he was just holding himself straighter, he had heard that those sort of things could make quite a difference. He grinned to himself and left.

The first thing he noticed was that the flat was awfully quiet, all of a sudden. Or rather, there was a tension in the air that wasn't normal, as if something was about to happen. Naturally, his first reflex was to look for the monster.

"Wovyn?" he called, walking to the kitchen.

No one there. He made sure to go around the table, knowing that the imp liked to hide behind, but in vain. He looked into the living room but found nothing there but the mess of blankets and empty plates they had left from last night. Moved by his old habits, Oliver folded them quickly and brought the plats to the kitchen but didn't clean them up, sensing that there were more important things to do.

There was no way Wovyn was hiding in the bathroom. He took showers now, like a civilized person, but still didn't like hanging out in there that much. That left the storage room and the bedroom.

Oliver went for the bedroom.

He didn't see anyone; of course he didn't, Wovyn was a master at hiding. Yet he felt eyes on him, hungry eyes, which confirmed his suspicion. With a small smirk, he walked in confidently, pretending as if he was just going to redo the bed.