Home for Horny Monsters

Hi all! Annabelle Hawthorne here with the final chapter of Book Four!

Every chapter is but a leg on the journey, and this one was the longest yet. I started writing Book Four last year (2019) and can say the experience of spending over a year of my life on a single story has been eye opening in a lot of ways. Hundreds (if not thousands) of hours went into this endeavor, and I couldn't have done it without any of you. My readers are amazing, and thank you so much for all the kind words, comments, and letters. Your enthusiasm has definitely powered me through to the finish.

To address a question I have been getting asked a lot, this is not the end of Horny Monsters, nor will the next book be. Home for Horny Monsters is here to stay for quite some time.

Thank you to my beta readers, who helped me work out some of the serious kinks in the story, and a very special thank you to TJ Skywind for being the final filter through which each chapter has passed. The time they all put into proofing allowed me to finish each chapter just a little bit faster, and ensure that you are getting a quality read.

As always, don't forget to rate and review, your support has helped me keep going. I have been listing upload dates for future chapters in my bio, so give that a click and/or follow.

With everything that has happened thus far, I sincerely hope that what I have written in this last chapter of Book Four does the story justice.

Changing of the Seasons

Mike opened his eyes. He was lying in his bed with Tink wrapped around his feet. The ceiling up above had somehow become a dome-shaped skylight, allowing him a perfect view of the stars as they swirled about in the night sky of the Dreamscape.

Sleep in the Dreamscape was an enigma for him. Despite knowing that he was asleep, he still became tired after a while and allowed himself to crash on his bed. He didn't actually have dreams while he was here, but instead entered a meditative state where he simply floated somewhere warm and comforting, alone with his own thoughts.

He had asked Lily about it once, but she had simply shrugged. Apparently there were some things about the Dreamscape that even she wasn't entirely sure of.

Somewhere in the distance, somebody was singing. He sat up and walked to the window, rubbing large chunks of sand out of his eyes. Down in the backyard, he could see Naia dancing around in her fountain, her movements slowed down to a crawl. It wasn't the first time he had seen such an anomaly after waking up, and he often wondered what happened to this place when he was in a state of faux sleep.

Out in the gardens behind his home, he saw a figure glowing beneath the light of the moon. He realized that he was watching the faerie queen, and when he opened the window, he also realized that it was her voice that he was hearing.

Curious, he climbed onto the window sill and then slid out, landing softly on the hard ground. He walked down the path, through the back gate, and then kept his distance as he watched the queen move about. He didn't understand any of the words of her song, but he felt a tremendous sense of loss in her melody that moved him nearly to tears.

Deciding that it was probably better to leave her alone with whatever haunted her, he turned to go back toward the house and jumped when the queen appeared in front of him, her eyes wild and fangs bared.

"Are you following me?" she asked, her voice too loud for his ears.

"I heard you singing," he confessed. "I was curious is all, this is my head, you know. Don't worry, I was going back to the house to give you some privacy."

Her features softened, and she held up her hands. "Wait. Don't go, not yet."

Mike hesitated, wondering if he should really be alone with her so far away from the safety of his home. Then again, he also felt like the queen had ample opportunities to ruin his slumber and hadn't taken them. Resigning himself to whatever happened next, he nodded at her.

"Okay, I won't." He didn't dare say anything else, for he had no idea what the queen actually wanted from him.

"Tell me about the house." The queen turned her back on him and started walking away. "I'm curious what your plans are for it."

"My plans?" He followed a few steps behind her, his brow furrowed in concentration. It was sometimes hard to access his own thoughts in any logical order while he was dreaming, and this seemed to be one of those times. "Well, we've got a room on the third floor that's locked off, I would love to get inside there. Depending on what it is, we could use the extra bedroom, but that all depends on Quetzalli. I keep thinking someone else will show up any day now, so would like to be prepared with a bed and some furniture. Poor Kisa was just sleeping in random rooms for the longest—"

"Don't toy with me, Caretaker. I want to know your long term plans."

"Oh. Um..." He wasn't entirely certain how to answer. "Honestly, I wouldn't mind figuring out a better defense system. I hate that our protection is based on a magical sundial. Abella is great to have as backup, but the number of times I've had to fix my house has gotten kind of old. Tink has been spending forever fixing the electrical system, so maybe some sort of modern upgrades?"

"Ugh. I thought maybe you were playing dumb with me, but I can see from inside your head that you have no idea what I'm even talking about." She turned to face him, her cape flaring dramatically behind her. "I mean the Great Game. What are you planning to do to win it?"

Mike stared at her for several moments, his thoughts suddenly bogged down. He could feel her now, probing his mind for answers, and the sensation wasn't pleasant at all.

"Gods. You really have no idea, do you?" The queen's expression became one of astonishment. "You've amassed so much power already, yet you don't even know the stakes for which you are playing."

"Nope." He shrugged, more than a little embarrassed. "The shadow mentioned a game once, and I sometimes have visions where I see a chessboard with pieces I can move, but I really haven't thought about it much past that. Actually, my dream training was an attempt to help me connect with the house, maybe ask it what it wants from me."

"You want to know what the house wants from you?" She blinked in disbelief. "Shouldn't that be the other way around? Don't you want anything from the house?"

"Well, maybe a little peace and quiet. I don't really think of it as my house, rather it belongs to everybody who lives there." He turned to look at the silhouette of the house in the darkness. "I guess maybe if we're being very honest with each other, it's already given me what I want. Somewhere to belong and a family that loves me."

"I can't believe it," she muttered. "You are aware that the house holds massive amounts of magical power within its walls, yes?"

"Oh, god yeah. It's been brought up by pretty much everyone that tries to break in. I'll admit, I've been tempted to go digging around for magic items to protect everyone, but I keep getting caught up in almost being murdered and rescuing my friends from imprisonment. No disrespect, just stating a fact is all. Frankly, if people would leave us alone, I would be more than happy to just kind of let things be and enjoy my time with everyone."

"Hmm." The queen put her chin in her hand as if contemplating something difficult. "Would you like to know about the game?"

Mike wondered where she was going with this but wasn't about to look a gift horse in the mouth. "Yes, I absolutely would. That would save me so much time I would rather be spending with the others."

"You mean sexually." Her tone was matter-of-fact.

"No, not always. Heck, not even with everybody. I'm the Caretaker, so I try to spend time with them each day so they don't get lonely, and that sometimes means connecting on a more physical level. You can choose to see sex whatever way you want, but others, especially the women in my house, tend to see it as no different than a couple of friends just hanging out naked and giving each other orgasms. It doesn't have to be a big deal if everyone is having fun, but you shouldn't assume that I'm just in it for some monster booty."

"You can see why I may have made assumptions."

Mike nodded. "Sure, but for me, it's just so important to make sure that everybody feels important in their own way, especially the ones who don't get along with the others. Frankly, I'm a bit worried about Jenny, but that's mostly because she's...well, a bit standoffish. Oh, and Yuki. Her heart is broken in so many places, I have no idea the best way to help her. I wouldn't mind helping Kisa get her memories back, but that would require her to actually be around more often."

"Is that the black cat I keep seeing around the house? I only catch her from the corner of my eyes, and then she's gone."

"Wow, I haven't even seen her here yet." Mike looked at the house again and wondered why Kisa's soul hadn't shown up with the others. Then again, it wouldn't have been here for very long. "So, yeah, I assume so. I didn't know they were all living in here until we started our duel, I have no idea how any of this works. Well, I knew Naia was here, she was going to be my secret weapon."

"You really do spend time with everyone like you have spent time with them here. Conversations, games, meals. Things like that?"

"I do."

The queen looked at the sky and took a deep breath. "Your home isn't the only place the Architect built. And it didn't always look that way, either. It's been around a very long time."

"How many other places were there?" Mike asked.

The queen smiled. "I couldn't tell you if I wanted to. When a home like yours dies, it leaves a massive hole in the memory of nearly everyone involved. When I try to count them in my head, it's like they are a bunch of children running around. Just when I think I have them all, I see a new one in my head, and another disappears. I'm afraid that the geas isn't exclusive to your own home, you see, but I can tell you that at one time, there were many. Right now, I can only say for certain that your home is still active, but that's because I have had first-hand dealings with you."

"And what's the purpose of the house?"

"That I can tell you to a degree. Your home, like the others, is its own pocket dimension. The Architect wanted to create a puzzle with the ultimate prize, but it could only be found by someone who was truly worthy of it. But how do you decide who is worthy so many centuries in advance? The solution was simple; the Architect created many such places, each with a different set of rules. The owners of these places often went by different titles. For example, you are the Caretaker, but I have known others such as King, High Priest, and even Captain."

"Of a boat?" Mike was almost excited at the idea of a magic ship sailing the high seas and full of magical denizens.

The queen's eyes went dull for a second. "I assume so. I can almost picture it, but then it fades. I'm sure you understand. But yes, each home is its own puzzle, and yours just happens to be a refuge for monsters who have no other place to call home. I have a vague recollection of the Captain needing to sail their vessel along every known sea, but even they didn't know for sure if that was the key to unlocking it."

"Interesting. I've lived through some of Emily's memories, and she seemed to think that she needed to find more monsters to live in the house to unlock its secret."

"And if that's the case, would you do so?"

Mike shrugged. "I don't know. What's this prize supposed to be?"

The queen laughed. It was like the ringing of distant church bells, and it made his head swim. "You know as much as I do, but it's supposed to be something really good."

"Hmm." The idea of chasing down an unknown treasure seemed more than a little asinine. Emily had devoted a good chunk of her life to such an endeavor, and it hadn't ended well for her. She could have had so many good years with Yuki, and maybe the others in the home if she had just decided to be happy. "I can't say I wouldn't go looking if I ran across a clue, but I guess it's kind of hard for me to care when I'm already perfectly happy to just do my own thing."

"Interesting take. You aren't lured by the promise of power?"

Mike shook his head. "Not really. I'm plenty happy as it is, and I've seen what happened to Emily when she pursued it. But now I have a question. Why is it called the Great Game?"

"Ah, that's a great question. I can only speak second-hand, but here is what I know. At some point, the other Caretakers found a way to communicate with each other. Though they all sought the same prize, they discovered that they enjoyed the collaborative effort of sharing clues and ideas with each other. It was a friendly competition, and they genuinely looked out for each other."

"Boy, I bet that didn't last." They had exited the forest and were now on the beach.

"You are correct. It was discovered that if a Caretaker killed another one, they would take control of the dead Caretaker's property. These new places would act as an extension of the original home."

"Wait, really? So this shadow, if he killed me, would he take the house?"

The queen shrugged. "A good question, considering that you've already appointed heirs. I don't know if your death would bypass the laws of the human world."

"Damn." He didn't like that idea at all, but something else occurred to him. "Wait a minute! I know that I own some land in other places. Are those...former homes, or whatever?"

The queen nodded. "They were taken by previous Caretakers. Emily was ambitious, but she wasn't responsible for their acquisition."

His head swam at the implications, and he suddenly remembered a conversation with the shadow. He had been standing in a magnificent garden that was empty of others, but the shadow told him that it had once been full of life. Had that been the meeting place for the others?

"You look troubled." The queen frowned when she said this.

"I am. The idea that there may be others out there like me is exciting, but what if they are like the shadow? What if they want to conquer and dominate instead of collaborating? I wouldn't mind having someone to talk to about running things, but I don't want to put the others in danger."

"On this, we see eye to eye." The queen let out a sigh. "Oberon and I had ruled the faerie lands since the beginning of time. When he died, I didn't just lose the love of my life. I lost my partner, my support, the person I could go to when I couldn't make a decision. Heavy is the head that wears the crown, but it was much lighter when there were two to wear it."

"I'm sorry for your loss, Your Majesty."

The queen looked at him, her face scrunched up as if deciding something.

"Call me Titania," she said. "When we are alone, anyway. It isn't my true name, but it's one that the humans are fond of calling me, and I don't mind it. In fact, I was surprised you never referred to me as such."

Mike chuckled. "I saw that you had a few different names, but didn't want to call you the wrong one and piss you off."

"So you've been polite all this time out of self-preservation?" The corner of her lips curled up into a smile.

"You

are

queen of the fae, after all."

"Indeed I am." They were walking on the beach where the water drifted onto the shore. The water was cool and rolled just over Mike's ankles as the two of them continued along the beach.

"Since we're being so informal, you can call me Mike," he told her. "But only when we're alone."

Titania laughed, and all of the tension in her body seemed to disappear. Her wings hung off of her back like a floating cloak, and he wondered what it would feel like to touch them.

"I have to say, this has definitely been an interesting experience for me," she told him. "Not so much the fighting. I am used to being angry and getting my way."

"Naturally," he agreed.

"I'm more referring to the fact that I've spent so many days in your head without a care in the world. It has been quite some time since I've been able to let my guard down, to not worry about what is happening in my realm." She stopped and looked out at the water. "Without Oberon, I've had to make the tough calls by myself. In some ways, he was the light-hearted one, the regent who understood what made his people happy. In the same way that Sulyvahn and Cecilia are counterparts, he was mine. His weaknesses were my strengths, but that was by design. Between the two of us, we made the perfect team."

Mike nodded. "I've never had a second half, not in that sense, anyway. I was too messed up as a kid, and that carried over into adulthood. Naia is the closest thing to one, but only because she smoothed all of my rough edges so that I could function. Everyone in the house contributes in some manner, but I'm sure you understand that."

"I have enjoyed spending time with them myself." She looked at him, her face suddenly serious. "If I asked you if I could move into your home, would you let me?"

Mike shrugged. "Personally, I'm all about second chances, but the others would also get a vote. I'm not technically their leader, I'm just the guy who turns the sundial and keeps the bills paid, and most of those have been automated already. But I would be willing to put in a good word for you."

"Could you imagine it, though? A former queen, being able to live in your home, free of her burden?" Her eyes were closed now, and the wind from the ocean tousled her golden hair. Fireflies had emerged from the sand and flitted around them blinking yellow, blue, and green. "These are ideas I can never confess to another being, but I feel I can safely speak of them here."

He nodded. "If anyone's listening in, I'm unaware of it. And you have my word that I won't share anything you tell me in confidence, as long as we're on friendly terms."

"It is considered ill-advised to make such a promise to the fae," she whispered. "What if I should decide to take you up on it?"

He shrugged. "If you think it would help you feel better, go ahead. Vent a little. Cry. Throw a huge temper tantrum. I won't tell anyone about it."

"Do you know why I've been taking long walks with the others, Caretaker?" She opened her eyes, and golden light blazed from them as if a switch had been flipped.

"I thought you wanted some personal space with a little company is all. Everyone here is really nice, some just take longer to get to know."

"I spoke with them to ensure that they were not enslaved, that they were here of their own free will. That you did not pretend for my sake, did not try to trick me with this strange soul of yours. In terms I think you can understand, I wanted to know if you were too good to be true."

This made him laugh. "Honestly, I'm just doing my best to stay alive and be myself. I think the others see me as better than I really am, but that's okay. That's how love is supposed to work, right?"

"Indeed." The queen took a step toward him and grabbed onto him with all four hands, two on his shoulders, the others on his waist. "I would like to make a bargain."

"A bargain?" It suddenly occurred to him that he was no longer close to the house. If she were to try something, would the others even be able to come and save him? Would they even know to?

"This Dreamscape of yours has become a refuge for me, a place that I do not fear appearing weak, nor do I fear dishonesty."

"Have you talked to Lily yet?" he muttered. "Cause I know she has to tell the truth, but she will bend it quite a lot."

Titania snorted. "Indeed. But what I refer to is the idea that all these souls of yours have value, not in their essence, but in their counsel. In fact, the nymph is far wiser than expected."