This house is insanely beautiful. Better than when she described it to me when she suggested we stay here a couple of weeks ago. As Perry gives us the tour, I can’t help but feel an eeriness creeping up my spine. It’s a very familiar feeling. One I grew up with and it sucks that something this meaningful has stained her life just like it had once plagued mine.
The entire outside of the house is made of darkly tinted glass. It’s not shaped like a traditional house, either. Each section of the house is shaped like a dome. Three domes overlap one another in the center. The only part that is squared is the entrance to the eight–car garage.
For the sake of the tour, we entered through the front doors. It slides open, and the key is a fob. A little fancier than my car’s. We were all required to do a retinal scan and a fingerprint scan. Then our voices were archived to access the voice activation features. When it’s done, we walk into the high, round ceilings.
I was skeptical about how it would look, but I was wrong. The inside is just the coolest excess use of tech I’ve ever seen. There are frames along the glass walls, and short looped videos of my family are playing inside them. It’s oddly cozy, but there’s a scent. It’s faded. I know it belongs to her.
It’s what’s making me uneasy. It’s weird how I can taste her sadness under the harsh chemicals and natural scents from when the tops of the domes were opened to air out the house. The dark gray carpet is brand new. I think it’s in the furniture. They smell like they were just cleaned, but the fabric remembers. I know from experience that some things are so deep that they can’t be washed away.
The interior’s aesthetic is a blend of cyberpunk and cottagecore. The furniture looks rural, but it’s made of very glossy metal. The fabric comes in dark and neon shades–a royal blue with brilliant cobalt blue stitching. The decor is vintage, but almost everything is made of glass with a projection platform to give it dimension.
“Did you design this?” I cut her off. I haven’t heard a single thing since coming inside.
“I wish I were this creative,” she shakes her head. “I did the tech, but Darren designed it. He designed a few things in this city.”
There it is. The scent I’m picking up on is now coming straight from the source. She continues to lead us deeper into the house, and I want nothing more than to give her a
big, reassuring hug.
I fall in love with the kitchen the moment I lay eyes on it. It’s like the rest of the house, but this room doesn’t open up like the others. Black vintage lamps hang from the ceiling in different sizes throughout the center. The island in the middle of the room is chrome at the bottom, but the countertop is black–stained oak. It’s also where the huge kitchen sink is.
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The cabinets aren’t built in and can be moved around and rearranged. A shiny black backdrop surrounds the entire kitchen, so it’ll be visible no matter how the cabinets are arranged. The floor is a safety polymer, the kind used for magnetic suspension. I’ve seen it on some of the stages, Royal Threads are utilized to move large props around easily.
A square rack hangs throughout the room. Plants on it will look so good–long–vined, leafy plants. The darker the green, the better. Against the glass is a vintage stove setup. It’s electric, but the structure is beautiful.
An archway leads us into the dining room. A huge rectangular wooden table sits right in the middle of the room. It’s the same stained wood as the kitchen island. I’m unsure what it’s coated with, but it’s smooth and almost wax–like. The seats look like cute little goth thrones, and they’re very heavy.
There are black–light cones shaped and more frames with looping videos of us. The rooms are much simpler and bare. They’re all facing the woods behind the house, and while we have the perfect view, no one can see inside unless we allow it with the scenery pad on the wall or the cool house fob we all received. I had to immediately take them from the twins when they began to play with all the settings. I glared at Knight when he tried to do the same thing.
“This is beautiful. Thank you for letting us stay here.” I tell Perry when we stop at the master bedroom. The kids and Knight go downstairs to get their things from the moving truck.
“This is one of our safehouses now. I left it to Knight in my will, and since technically Pernicious Phurry is dead, it belongs to him,” she shrugs.
Now that we’re alone, I pull her in for a hug. It catches her off guard momentarily before she relaxes and wraps her arms around me. There are no other scents. Just hers, and I feel that because I was just as alone for the longest time, trying to fit in a world that didn’t know how to accept me.
She had told me about this place. How her mate had built it for her and the big family they planned on having. Seeing it in person hurts. More now that she’s probably looking at us, wondering what it would have been like if he had still been alive.
Hurting on behalf of someone else is torture. I don’t know what to do or say without making things worse for her. We probably shouldn’t accept staying here, but Knight agreed because of all the safety features and the proximity to the school.
“I love you,” I say gently, and her embrace tightens. She’s bright pink when she pulls away. She clears her throat and lets out a heavy breath.
“I’m working on not being sad,” she whispers.
“It’s okay to be,” I shrug. “I used to be. It’s better not to think about what gets us there. It happened, but it’s not happening anymore. Not unless you want it to,”
“Yeah,” she agrees. “I have to get going. I promised the guys that I’d be home before
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sundown. If I don’t get back when I say, the King likes to play hunt down the little stupid one.”
“Why do you call him the King?” I laugh. “He’s your husband.”
“He is, and he’s a really good one, but he’s the King first. It’s something you learn quickly when you’re with someone bigger than you, and I don’t just mean in size.”
“Okay,” I nod, taking that as something I need to take note of. “Be careful.”
“You too. Don’t fight Knight on the guards. The city is under new management, but it’s still very dangerous here,” she ruffles my hair. “Stay out of the downtown area, Phoebe.”
“I will,” I reassure her. “I’ll walk you out.”
“Back door,” she says when we get downstairs.
Before I can ask her why she’s wearing a robe, she removes it and shifts into a massive creature. My eyes go wide as she grows to be about eight feet tall, and I really wish that were an exaggeration. Her fur is a brilliant white shade–shinier than her pretty hair. She gets down on all fours and runs into the darkness of the trees with insane speed.
“Got dammit, Perry,” Jordan runs out of the house. “Goodbye, your highness.”
He bows to me and shifts to run after her. He’s twice her size and a pretty dark brown shade. A snort comes out of me when I turn around to go back inside the house.
“I should have warned you. Those things are scary.” Knight says, when I lock the door with the fob.
This is insanely fancy and ridiculously luxurious. Mr. Knightly has been a little tight- lipped since we arrived. Everything is a dick measuring contest with that man, I swear. He’s probably going to make the cabins he plans to build by the beach house this stupidly expensive.
“He called me your highness.” I laugh.
“You’re going to have to get used to that,” he grins.
“Never.” I shake my head. “Let’s get something to eat.”
“Perry brought us burgers. She swears they’re better than In–N–Out,” he scoffs.
“Nothing is better than In–N–Out.” I scoff. “The world just needs to get that through their thick skulls already.”
“You are literally my soulmate,” he laughs. “I’ll get the twins.”
