Accidentally Pregnant with the Horror Boss novel · Chapter 2 of 32

Chapter 2: The Bride's Terms

In front of every guest at breakfast Daisy names the man who pushed her and sets her terms as bride, and a new house card makes Kyle smile.

"I'm sorry," I said. "I did what?"

"You married me." The head cleared its throat. "There's a second line."

He held the card closer.

"Brides may not be harmed by the house."

"Mouse wrote that," he said. "Years ago. She'd just discovered fairy tales."

"I like kissing ones," Mouse said.

"So I'm safe?"

"From the house, yes. From your fellow guests, I make no promises."

Somewhere a clock ticked very loudly.

He lifted his head toward a tall blur on the wall.

"Twenty minutes to midnight. Rule two. You need a bed."

"Do I get a say in which bed?"

"The blue room in this wing is the warmest. I'll have it..."

"No," Mouse said.

The candles along the hall dipped low.

"Mouse."

"She's sleeping in the nursery. With me."

"The nursery is cold, and she is a grown woman, and she..."

The floor under my sneakers tilted. Just an inch.

Somewhere in the walls, every door in the hall creaked open at once.

"If you take her to the blue room," Mouse said, very calmly, "I'll make the stairs go forever."

There was a long silence from the Master of Gravemoor.

"The nursery, then," he said.

I bit my lip so I wouldn't laugh.

"Does she do this a lot?"

"Every day for eleven years."

The nursery turned out to be warm after all, once Mouse wanted it to be.

There was a narrow nanny's bed against one wall and a dollhouse taller than me against the other.

Mouse curled up at the foot of my bed.

The Master stood in the doorway with his head tucked under his arm.

"Goodnight, Miss Lund."

"Goodnight. Thank you for not eating me."

"I don't eat people."

"Good to know."

"Knock if you need anything. I'll hear it."

He closed the door so gently I barely heard the latch.

In the morning a gong rang through the whole house.

Mouse led me downstairs by the hand, because I couldn't see the steps.

The dining hall was long and red and smelled like bacon.

Twelve blurry people sat at a table that could have held fifty.

Somebody counted out loud as I came in. "Thirteen."

"There were fourteen of us," a woman said.

Nobody had seen the man in the golf shirt since the candles went out.

Nobody said that part out loud.

A heavy gray shape in a flowered apron set a plate in front of me.

Everybody else flinched away from her.

I squinted up. Her skin was the color of wet cement.

"Thank you," I said. "This smells amazing."

The gray shape stood very still for a second. Then she shuffled off.

The double doors banged open at the far end of the hall.

Chairs scraped. A man screamed. A glass shattered on the floor.

The Master walked in with his head under his arm.

He sat down at the head of the table.

He set his head on the tablecloth next to his coffee cup, facing the room.

"Good morning," it said.

Two people ran for the door. It didn't open.

"Sit down," the head said. "Please. You're upsetting the cook."

He nodded his whole body toward me.

"Miss Lund kissed me last night. By house rule, she is my bride. The house will not harm her."

Kyle laughed from the middle of the table. I knew that laugh now.

"So she's on the monster's team. Awesome. Fodder's a traitor."

I stood up.

My heart was going.

"Before anybody follows this man anywhere," I said, "you should know what he did."

I pointed at the blur with the gold watch.

"He broke my glasses on purpose and he shoved me into the Master's wing so the Master would be busy with me while he ran."

The table went quiet.

"That's a lie," Kyle said. "Prove it."

"I can't prove it. I couldn't see you. I heard you, though. You said oops."

"I saw it."

The woman in navy scrubs leaned back in her chair across from him.

"I saw him stomp on something. I figured it was a roach." She looked at Kyle. "Big roach."

Somebody snickered.

Kyle's ears went red. I could see that much.

I turned to the head beside the coffee cup.

"If I'm your bride, I have terms."

The head's eyebrows went up. "Go on."

"One. I sleep where I want, and you knock."

"I already knock."

"Two. Nobody at this table gets fed to anything. Not by you, not by the house, not by him."

"I can't command the house," he said quietly. "But I can promise I'll never be the thing in their hallway."

"Three. You tell me the truth when I ask."

The head looked at me for a long moment.

"Those are reasonable," it said.

The woman in scrubs picked up her plate and walked around the table.

She plopped down in the chair beside mine.

"Penny Ostler. ER nurse. Dayton." She stuck out a hand. "I'm with the girl who kissed the headless guy."

"Daisy. Four-year-olds."

"Same thing as an ER, honestly."

After breakfast we all filed past the long table in the front hall.

A new white card lay on the silver tray.

Kyle got there first and read it out loud.

"Brides may not be harmed by the house. Guests are not the house."

He turned around and smiled right at me.

"So the house can't touch you," he said. "Good thing I'm not the house."

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