Chapter 21: Human Hot Water Bottle

Ren dreamed she was sleeping in a freezer.

Not just any freezer. It was the walk-in deep freeze at her old restaurant, the one where her sous-chef Dave had accidentally locked her in during the dinner rush back in 2019. The air was bone-chillingly cold, damp, and carried the faint smell of frozen shrimp and stagnant water.

“Dave,” Ren mumbled, her teeth chattering. “For the love of God, turn the thermostat up. I’m turning into a popsicle.”

“I am not Dave.”

The voice was smooth, cool, and vibrated directly against her ear.

Ren’s eyes snapped open.

She wasn’t in a kitchen. She was staring up at a canopy of twisted, rotting trees that blocked out the stars. Pale, green moss hung from the branches like witch hair, dripping freezing water into the black abyss below.

She tried to sit up, but she couldn’t. She was pinned.

A pale, muscular arm was wrapped tightly around her waist, and a long, lean, terrifyingly cold leg was thrown over hers, pinning her down.

She craned her neck.

Syris, the Python King, was using her as a teddy bear.

They were lying on a pile of furs in the center of a long, flat-bottomed boat made of black wood. The boat glided silently through the dark water, pushed along by four massive Snake-Men with poles.

“You,” Ren gasped, the memory of the kidnapping crashing back. “You kidnapped me!”

She tried to shove him away. Syris didn’t move. Instead, he tightened his grip and pulled her back against his chest until there was no space left between them.

“Stop wiggling,” Syris murmured. His eyes were closed, his pale face looking almost peaceful in the gloom. “You disrupt the heat transfer.”

“Heat transfer?” Ren squeaked as his cold hand slid under the hem of her torn tank top to rest directly on her warm stomach. “Get your icy claws off!”

Syris opened one eye. The amethyst pupil was a thin, dangerous slit.

“My blood is slow tonight,” he whispered, his breath ghosting over her neck. “The swamp is cold. You, Little Chef, are a furnace. It is… pleasant.”

He nuzzled his face into her hair. “Your fire-mane tickles.”

“It’s called red hair, you oversized garden hose!” Ren kicked at his shin with her heel.

Syris sighed, sounding bored. He moved his leg, effectively trapping both of hers. “If you kick me again, I will have to restrain you with my tail. And my tail is much heavier than my leg.”

Ren froze. She looked down toward the end of the boat. She couldn’t see his legs fully under the robes.

“Where are you taking me?” Ren demanded, shivering. “And where is my frying pan?”

“Your… pan?” Syris frowned, testing the foreign word. He pointed a pale finger to the corner of the raft. “You mean the flat iron rock?”

“It is not a rock! It is a precision cooking instrument!”

Ren spotted it sitting next to a pile of strange, glowing blue mushrooms.

“It is safe,” Syris said. “Though I do not know why you carry a blunt weapon to battle. A spear is better.”

“It’s for cooking, you philistine. And for concussions.”

Ren looked around the swamp. It was a nightmare. The water was black and oily. Strange bubbles rose to the surface with a bloop, releasing wisps of green gas. Glowing eyes peered from the reeds.

“Kael will find me,” Ren stated, trying to sound confident. “He’s tracking us right now.”

Syris smiled. It wasn’t a nice smile.

“The White Tiger is chasing a shadow in the North,” Syris said calmly. “By the time he realizes his nest is empty, we will be behind the Gates of Onyx. No feline can swim the Black Waters. Their fur gets heavy. They drown.”

He ran a hand down Ren’s arm, savoring the goosebumps that rose on her skin.

“Besides,” Syris murmured, his hand lingering on her hip. “Why would you want to go back to a drafty wooden box?”

“I dislike you,” Ren corrected. “I dislike being a portable heater for a reptile with bad circulation.”

“You will learn to like it,” Syris said simply. “Or at least, you will learn to bargain with it.”

He sat up slowly, moving with a strange, fluid grace. The fur blanket slipped off, showing that under his shimmering robes, his chest was bare. Pale, alabaster skin stretched over lean muscle. He was beautiful in a haunted, almost vampire-like way.

He reached for a small clay jar on the raft.

“Hunger,” Syris announced.

He reached in and pulled out a raw, wriggling fish. It was small, slimy, and definitely alive. It flopped in his grip.

Ren gagged. “Please tell me you aren’t going to eat that.”

Syris looked at her, confused. He held the fish up by its tail. “It is fresh. It moves. Good meat.”

He tilted his head back and opened his mouth. Ren looked away, squeezing her eyes shut so she wouldn’t see his jaw unhinge, and then he swallowed.

Gulp.

Ren shuddered violently. “That is disgusting. Absolutely foul. Zero stars on Yelp.”

Syris wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “It is fuel. But…” He looked at Ren, his eyes narrowing thoughtfully. “It left me cold.”

He leaned in, invading her personal space again.

“The red water you made at the market,” Syris whispered. “The burning soup. It made my insides feel like the sun. Can you make that with this?”

He pointed to another wriggling creature in the jar, something that looked like a cross between an eel and a leech.

“With a raw Swamp Eel?” Ren recoiled. “Absolutely not. I can make almost anything taste good, Syris, but I have standards. I need real ingredients.”

“Real ingredients?” Syris tilted his head. “The Swamp is full of life.”

“I need protein that doesn’t slime me,” Ren snapped, crossing her arms. “I need a duck.”

Syris blinked. “A… Duck?”

“Yes. A duck.” Ren sighed, realizing the language barrier. “A bird. It swims on top of the water. It has a flat beak. It goes ’Quack’.”

Syris stared at her blankly. “It goes… quack?”

“It makes a noise! Like a honk, but smaller!” Ren flapped her arms like wings. “Floats! Webbed feet! Delicious fat!”

“Ah,” Syris nodded slowly. “You mean a Water-Fowl.”

“Sure. Water-Fowl. And I need crabs.”

“Crabs?” Syris looked even more confused. “Is that a disease?”

“No! It’s food!” Ren groaned, rubbing her temples. “They live in the mud. They have a hard shell. Eight legs. Two big pinchers in the front that snap. They walk sideways.”

Syris’ eyes lit up with recognition. “Ah. Rock-Spiders.”

“They aren’t spiders, but fine. Rock-Spiders.” Ren pointed to her frying pan. “If you want me to cook, and if you want that ’burning soup’ feeling, I need those things. And fire. And dry land.”

He looked at Ren with an intensity that made her stomach flip.

“I am tired of the cold, Little Chef,” Syris said, his voice dropping to a seductive purr. “Make me warm inside, and I might loosen the ropes.”

Ren looked at the dark swamp. She looked at her frying pan in the corner. Then she looked at the shivering, pale King who was looking at her like she was a magical artifacts dealer.

Okay, Ren thought. Plan B. If I can’t fight him, I’ll cook him into submission. A food coma is just as good as a knockout.

“Fine,” Ren agreed. “But if you eat the duck raw before I cook it, the deal is off.”

Syris smiled.

Syris called to the guard, “Catch a Water-Fowl. And dig for Rock-Spiders. The female is picky.”

He settled back down on the furs, grabbing Ren’s waist and pulling her back into the ’Little Spoon’ position.

“Until then,” Syris whispered, wrapping his cold leg around hers again. “We wait. And you warm me.”

“I hate this,” Ren grumbled, shivering as his chest pressed against her back.

“Your mouth says no,” Syris noted, resting his chin on her shoulder. “But your body temperature is rising. Fascinating.”

“That’s rage, Syris. That’s pure rage.”

“Rage is warm,” Syris hummed, closing his eyes. “I like rage.”

The boat drifted deeper into the fog, carrying a shivering chef, a cold king, and a Snake Guard who was trying to figure out how to catch a “Quacking Bird” without getting bitten.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep