The Last of the Monsters (10 page)

“No, you won’t.” Henry’s voice was low but carried a note of threat. He’d come up while they weren’t looking. His skin and wings were back to pale blue.

Runako narrowed his eyes, then looked between Henry and Akta. Akta held her breath, wondering if their secret was about to be exposed.

She hadn’t planned to keep what happened between them a secret, but she hadn’t had a chance to tell her friends yet. The day after her night of passion with Henry, they’d moved to this soundstage to shoot on the sets Jo and the art department had been building. Everyone was worried about being exposed, so they’d ramped up the already tight shooting schedule, and Akta hadn’t been alone with Henry since that night.

“I won’t?” Runako’s question held a bit of challenge.

“It’s bad enough they’re actually chaining her up. You might hurt her.”

Akta was both touched by his protectiveness and wanted to smack Henry—even the crew were looking at him strangely. He’d done a complete one-eighty, from seemingly disinterested in Akta outside of their scenes together, to facing down the most volatile of their cast members over her safety.

“I might hurt her?” Runako’s wings twitched and he widened his stance to brace his feet.

“Guys, enough. I’m fine. I’m enjoying my Princess Leia moment.” Akta smiled and touched Henry’s wrist, giving it a little squeeze. He relaxed under her touch. The way Runako was looking at them, she had a feeling he’d caught that. Akta needed to talk to her friends before word of her and Henry’s relationship got to them.

“Princess Leia?” Luke, who was playing the king—and who’d chosen the human name Luke for himself because he loved
Star Wars
—ambled over, the crown dangling from one clawed hand. “I’m hardly Jabba the Hutt.”

Akta laughed, dispelling the last of the tension. “I’m sorry, you’re not Jabba.”

Luke was the most mild-mannered of the monsters, making it almost comical that he was playing the brutal yet brilliant king of the monsters.

“At least you get to be king.” Seling, trailed by a makeup artist, came over, looking a little bedraggled. His character had already been killed—by Henry’s—so technically he shouldn’t have been in the scene, but Cali had decided not to let a monster go to waste. The special effects makeup people had gone to town on him, changing him from green to brown so that he could lounge in the background. Other monsters would be added with CGI, and as camera angles shifted Seling would be painted different colors so he could continue to serve as a very large extra.

“And you—” Seling pointed at Runako “—got a character name. I died before I got a name.”

The script had been an ever-changing thing—driving Jane, their screenwriter, to distraction—so at a certain point she’d given up and started using the monsters’ real names.

“My character’s name is Runak. That’s hardly a stretch,” Runako grumbled.

“And you’re getting a character name in the credits,” Akta said to Seling, lips twitching. “Bad Monster Number Two.”

“Gee, thanks.”

“None of you may complain.” A very disgruntled Tokaki padded over. Despite the warrior’s stoic, quiet and reserved nature, he’d succumbed to Hollywood and asked to be in the movie. Akta was fairly certain that he hadn’t wanted to be a pet. Jo, his fiancée and their production designer, had talked him into it after Cali had come up with the idea.

“Don’t be grumpy, kitty.” Runako reached out to pet him and Tokaki snapped, almost taking his arm off. Runako just laughed.

With all of them surrounding her, Akta was starting to feel a little claustrophobic. She was only five foot four, making her short enough as a human. When the people standing around her were eight feet tall with twenty-foot wingspans or a scary dragon-tigerlike thing as long as a freight car, anyone human would have been overwhelmed.

She took a step back, stretching, then sipping from the bottle of water. As she popped the straw into her mouth, Henry slid over to her.

“Akta.”

She could feel the blush heating her cheeks, and could only hope the makeup dirt covered it. “Hi, Henry.”

He searched her face. “Are you really okay?”

“Yes, I’m fine. You have to stop acting like you care.”

He frowned. “Why would I do that?”

“Because you’ve never cared about me before and people are starting to notice.”

His eyes widened and he took a step back, as if she’d hit him (not that her hitting him would have any great effect). “You think I wanted you hurt?”

Akta winced. “No, that’s not what I mean, and now I understand, but you’ve never asked if I was okay before, in scenes way more dangerous than this one.”

His jaw clenched and she could see the first swirls of black beginning in his skin.

“Henry,” she warned him.

He looked away, and the black retreated. After a moment, he spoke, but he didn’t look at her. “I’m surprised you still wanted me, since I’d been such a…” he made a pained noise, then finished, “…a monster.”

“Henry, that’s not what I mean.”

“Places,” the assistant director called.

Henry left her, exiting the set to circle around to the outside of the doors. Akta dropped down to the floor and held out her leg as Luke leapt lightly onto the throne above her. As the actors returned to their positions and Cali made her rounds, speaking quietly to the principals, Akta decided talking to her friends would have to wait. The first free moment she got she needed to get Henry alone.

Chapter Eight

Henry lay on his belly on the futon in his trailer. He was too tired to move, though he wasn’t exactly comfortable. He was lying on one wing, his arm dangled on the floor and his dinner was sitting on the table, probably cold at this point.

His trailer was actually a converted refrigerated big rig. From the outside it still looked like a truck, but on the inside the furnishings and amenities made it just as nice, if not nicer, than the other talents’ trailers. The refrigeration system kept it cool.

He should have been comfortable—the trailer had become his sanctuary, not only from the set and its endless streams of people and action, but also from his condo, which had been a monster halfway house for the past year. He’d moved in there with Michael and Luke. Almost as soon as they’d gotten settled, Luke had moved in with Lena. Then Michael and Jane started house shopping. Runako had spent a night or two with him, but when he’d moved out to LA he and Margo had already been together. Tokaki and Maeve had each stayed with him in the condo, but now they too were all but living with their human lovers.

Only Henry was left. Only Henry was alone.

And it was no wonder.

He was horrible. He couldn’t think of any other way to describe it. After his conversations with Akta, he’d realized that his lies and half truths had hurt her—which he hadn’t wanted. He’d assumed that only Akta felt that way, because she was the one he’d been trying hardest to keep at arm’s length. It wasn’t until she’d warned him not to be nice to her or act like he cared about her that he’d realize it wasn’t just Akta who would have gotten the wrong impression about him—it was everyone.

Had he been so distant and rude that showing even a little bit of concern for a fellow actor was enough to raise eyebrows?

“You suck,” he told himself, the words muffled against the futon. “You totally suck.”

“Are you talking to me?”

Henry bolted up—or at least he tried to. With his wing caught under him, he was stopped short. Off balance, he rolled and fell, landing on his ass on the floor.

Akta, face clean and wearing soft cotton pants and a loose sweater, was standing inside the door to his trailer.

“Are you okay?” She hurried forward, the door clicking closed as she let go of it.

Henry watched her come. She was soft and petite, more beautiful than he could describe. “I don’t deserve you.”

Akta’s eyes widened. “Did you hit your head?”

“Am I really so awful that a compliment makes you think I have brain damage?”

“What? No.” Akta stepped over his leg and sat down on the futon, tucking her legs under her. “Henry, what’s going on with you?”

He lifted his wings up and back, then climbed to his feet. Taking a breath, he found the spell Maeve had made for him and pulled on it, forcing himself into his smaller human body. When the change was complete, he grabbed a pair of jeans off a chair and pulled them on. Akta had seen him naked plenty of times, but this wasn’t a conversation he wanted to have while naked.

“It’s just that I hadn’t realize how…horrible…I’d been to you.”

“Henry, you weren’t horrible. You were sending me some mixed signals, but that hardly makes you horrible.”

“On set today you pointed out that everyone was looking at me because it was the first time I’d expressed any concern for you.”

“That was my fault. I didn’t mean for it to come out the way it sounded.”

“But you were right. Once you said it, I noticed everyone looking at me.”

“It doesn’t matter what their opinion is.”

“I know, and I don’t care what they think.” Henry stopped himself, hands balling into fists. “Fuck, I’m doing it again.”

“Doing what?”

“Being an ass.”

Akta’s lips twitched. “Maybe it’s part of your charm.”

Henry looked sideways at her. “I can’t imagine that it’s charming.”

“Henry, listen to me. Yes, it was hard to hear you say you didn’t think humans and monsters should be together, but that was hard for me to hear because I wanted to be with you. You’re not a jerk, not an ass.” She took his hand, laced his fingers with hers. “You’re smart and gorgeous. You’re an amazing actor. It doesn’t matter what people think.”

“Doesn’t it?” He wanted to accept her words and let them go. “I’ve lived my whole life trying to hide how I really felt—in my true form everyone knows my feelings, and as a human I have only slightly more control.”

He shook his head. “I’ve become so good at hiding myself that I’ve turned into the person I was only pretending to be.” He shifted on the couch to face Akta. “I want you to know that every time you were doing something even a little dangerous, I was worried about you. When you were filming the scene where Seling kidnaps you, I watched you. I knew how dangerous it could be with him carrying you like that. I was terrified something would happen to you.”

Her lips parted and her eyes were luminous. “I didn’t know.”

“I made sure you didn’t,” he said in disgust. “I’m lucky you’re still willing to sleep with me, let alone have sex with me.” He groaned and put his head in his hands. “You had to have sex with an asshole virgin.”

“Oh, Henry.” Akta’s voice was soft and there was a smile on her lips. “You poor man. I promise you it’s not as bad as you make it sound.”

“Which part? That I’m an ass or that I’m a virgin?”

“
Were
a virgin. I’m sorry to say you lost that status.”

He grunted.

Akta’s arms slid around his bare chest and she rested her head on his shoulder. “Henry, I always wanted to be with you. Even when I was sure you wanted nothing to do with me, I wanted you.”

“I hate to point this out, but that’s a bit insane.”

“Trust me, I know that. What I’m trying to say is that the way you behaved before was
normal
. This whole project has been like a monster-human dating game, which is decidedly not normal. In fact, if this were a normal set, the only people hooking up would have been the two of us. Normally the principal actors are the only ones messing around with each other.”

Henry looked at her, frowning as he tried to understand.

“Compared to how everyone else was behaving as they seduced each other, you seemed distant, but that’s because you and I were the only ones not acting like characters in a Nicholas Sparks movie.”

Her words brought a little chuckle, and his black cloud of self-hatred lifted a little. “Cali and Seling were the worst.”

“I know, they were like a bad soap opera. Today you acted like a guy seeing the girl he’s sleeping with being dragged across the floor. You were concerned, and you said something. That’s natural for, well, a boyfriend. Not natural for a costar.”

Henry let out a relieved breath. He wasn’t 100 percent convinced, but what Akta said made him feel a lot better. “You’re sure I wasn’t a jerk before?”

“Yes.” Her voice left no room for doubt. “There are four or five people looking out for me at any given time. That wasn’t and isn’t your job. What I said on set wasn’t meant to make you feel bad about the past. I just wanted to warn you that if you kept it up everyone would start speculating about whether we were together.”

Henry leaned back and wrapped his arm around her, pulling her against his chest. Her hand settled over his heart. Her fingers were cold, so he took her hand in his, warming her. “Are we a secret?” he asked.

“I don’t know. Are we?”

Neither had the answer, so neither said anything.

Akta’s breath was fanning across his collarbone and the longer they sat there, the more aware of her body Henry became. He slid his hand down her back to the hem of her sweater, lifting it enough so he could touch the bare skin of her waist.