Love, Laugh, Lich (Claws & Cubicles Book 1)

 “I just don’t think it’s a healthy workplace dynamic,” Janice from HR says during lunch. We’ve gotten a cafeteria table across from one another.

“I mean, giving away shivers? What if next he needs a quart of sweat, or to pluck all of your left eyelashes out? There’s so much paperwork involved, and the union to work with,” she continues on, waving around a forkful of her salad, losing some of her vinaigrette in the process.

“It was only a shiver,” I shrug, as if it was a one-time thing that I hadn’t drastically escalated since. “Besides, I’m not part of a union.”

“Well, then that’s another side of the problem, isn’t it?” Janice rolls her eyes as she chews through a mouthful. “I mean, gods, that’s why the downstairs security is so heavy. The number of weirdos that used to come in and prostrate themselves before their Dark Lord; it happened at least once a week when the Lich Lord first took over. It was slowing things down, that’s why we had to outsource through other agencies.”

I didn’t know that. Somehow not knowing makes me feel extraordinarily stupid and naïve. I fumble to keep my composure while something like jealousy and despair rises in my throat, and fights to be let out. I swallow a few times, holding my mouth in a firm line.

“And now we have to screen for assassins who’ve infiltrated the agencies and unions and whatever,” I scoff, but a little too much emotion comes out in the words. I need to reel it in or she’s bound to wonder why I care so much about ‘just a shiver’.

But Janice doesn’t seem to notice, taking my derision as annoyance at having my desk obliterated because of said assassins.

It’s been weighing more and more on me these last few days since I was the weirdo to prostrate myself before my Dark Lord and offer up my body to him.

The thought of offering my heart to him as well won’t leave my mind, no matter how I try to shunt it to the side or bury it under a pile of lust, as if that will make those feelings dissolve into mere lust as well.

I want him to know, but more than that I want him to return those feelings. But if I confess my feelings to him, and he either can’t or won’t return them, I don’t know if I’ll be able to continue working here. It might be too awkward to bear, or too painful to continue seeing him every day.

And I really like working here. It’s not just the health benefits. I feel needed and important. I don’t know that anywhere else will give me that kind of satisfaction. I guess that’s kind of one of the pitfalls of working in an evil dominion; there really isn’t anywhere else to work.

Still, the thought preoccupies me almost all day. Every time I have to dip into Soven’s Sanctum, something in my heart pinches when I look at him, and I feel like I need to duck out of the Sanctum again to avoid that feeling.

I step into the Sanctum, walking quickly to his desk to deposit a stack of internal reports. I turn on a dime the moment I put the folders down.  I don’t really want to give him the time to hold a conversation, or say anything not work related.

“Lily, do you–” he starts to ask, but when I glance back, my expression stops him.

I can feel the mix of panic and discomfort showing plain on my face.

“Is it urgent?” I ask, giving him my best ‘I’m way too busy right now’ look. I feel like if I tried to explain the way all my feelings are swirling together in my stomach like an ill-concieved smoothie, I would just spill my guts, figuratively, literally, or both.

Soven shakes his head and returns his gaze to his desk. “Nevermind.”

What if I’ve read too much into this, thinking that because we’ve developed an ease with each other, that that’s the same as romantic feelings? What if I clearly think too much of myself, that a human could ever mean anything to an all-powerful Lich?

By the time I finally push my worries down enough with my work, it’s after hours. I don’t want to think about how much time I must have spent dithering over my feelings.

I quickly finish up the seating chart for the next office-wide meeting that I was working on, the last person in the office. The desks are all empty and quiet. It’s as good a time as any to move my things back to the waiting room.

The recently obliterated waiting room has been spackled, painted and refurnished, so I’m moving my things preemptively to my brand new desk, raiding the cabinet for all the paperclips and quills I can carry.

The office is so quiet and empty, I’m surprised to see Soven standing by the water cooler on my third trip back and forth. I’m a little startled, because he’s still out of his cloak, and I’ve never seen him in the office without it.

I give him a skeptical look, glancing around at the empty cubicles, the darkened windows, but I cross over to where he stands. I do bite down on a ‘How did you fit through the doorway?’

“What’s going on?”

“I’ve always wanted to do this,” he says, and I blink at him in confusion.

“What do you mean?”

Soven gives himself a little shake, shrugging. I can see how he’s only pretending to lean against the water cooler, that way none of his weight actually presses down on it. He plucks two of the little paper cups out from the dispenser, handing one to me. I fill mine with cold water.

Then Soven says, “Workin’ hard, or hardly workin’?”

He snaps and points a claw out over the empty cubicle, and pretends to wink at some imaginary coworker. It’s so overwhelmingly ridiculous to imagine him working in one of these tiny cubicles, I can’t help but laugh.

“You’re such a dork,” I say, putting a hand over my mouth. “No one actually says that.”

“Would it help productivity if I put out a memo to have it integrated into the common parlance? Alongside ‘synergy’ and ‘incentivize’?”

I laugh-cough into my paper cup.

“Stop, stop,” I say, holding up my hands in surrender. “You’re gonna get water up my nose!”

Laughter dies down between us, the ache of smiling imprinted in my cheeks as I sigh and stifle a leftover giggle. Then it’s quiet for a long moment, and suddenly I don’t want this little moment between us to end. It’s different from when we’re in the dark sanctum, bodies slick with sweat and cum and still rutting against each other for just one more release. Somehow I’d thought that we wouldn’t have these fun little moments anymore. It’s quiet and soft, and suddenly my whole chest is brimming with the feelings I want to tell him.

I cough, and clear my throat, taking a different tact. “So… whatever made you start the whole, evil empire thing?”

“It wasn’t exactly a plan of mine,” he shrugs. “Being a Lich is… characterized by unending greed. To live, to constantly take in day after day of life, all that comes with them, and never being willing to relinquish any of it. It becomes a lonely, hoarding existence.”

“So you just collect things forever? I mean, is there anything you’ve had to give up?” I ask, the question clunky even as I say it. I might as well ask, ‘is it even possible for you to love me back?’.

He shrugs a little, and while I can see the question almost turn over in his mind, he seems to get lost in his thoughts. I guess it was that hard of a question.

We lapse into a long silence again, and I have to wonder if he could feel the question hovering on my lips, even unasked.

“Well, um, I have something for you,” he says, clearing his throat, straightening as he faces me. I look at him in surprise, and feel a faint flutter of excitement over my organs, I think my liver. Briefly I remember the flowers he had left on my desk. I don’t think I realized how much I wanted some small romantic gesture from Soven, unfettered, unabashed, until this moment. Something that clearly demonstrated feelings or intent.

I can see him holding back a smile, or as close to a smile as he can have with the structure of his fangs. “You’ve been here with us for a while now, so I’d like to present to you, your five-year-gift,” he says, producing a somewhat generic looking necklace, a pendant with the Evil Reign’s insignia stamped on one side, and a red stone on the other side.

I blink, frozen.

Soven takes this as a good moment to fit the necklace over my head.

“I thought I was supposed to pick something from the company catalog for that,” I stammer out, the only thought in my head that isn’t crashing disappointment. I barely want to admit to myself what I’m disappointed about, what I’d been getting my hopes up for. Something heartfelt. Something like those flowers, without the card that made them feel less like a romantic gesture and more like an apology.

“That’s for the ten year gift,” he shrugs. He looks so pleased with himself, having given me this congratulatory anniversary gift. 

Then he seems to take in my less-than-enthused reaction. “You… don’t like it?”

“It’s lovely,” I say quickly. “I’ll, um, treasure it always.”

He gives me another sort of grin around his fangs, and my heart sinks a little. I can’t keep getting my hopes up with him.