I hesitate, debating a thousand times, and I’m still debating if this is the right move as I pass the Korean couple again on the way to the bathrooms. They both seem confused and surprised to see me again so soon as I slink past them like a creepo weirdo to the mouth of the tunnel.
I turn into the entrance, the red light of the lanterns washing over me as I stand there, ready for my gotcha moment. Though who am I kidding? If I caught them making out like teenagers in love, the only person getting got would be me.
Compromising with myself, I peek around the corner instead of jumping out like a burglar, and what I see fills me with confusion.Cynthia’s clutching her face and weeping as Taranis lords over her, words I can’t quite hear ripping out of his throat. I’d expected to see them wrapped up in each other, but it looks like ... he’s torturing her. Is Taranis the narcissist doing that because she’s annoying him? Or ... is he doing that for me?
I know the answer and my stomach smashes all together and then expands like a balloon on my next jerky breath. Butterflies. Not a little flutter, but a tornado of butterflies paints my insides with warm syrup with every flap of their wings. I press my hands to my belly lest they escape as I watch Taranis release Cynthia against the lanterns behind her, lingering electrical shocks still skittering over her perfect bone structure in purple and blue shades.
Ssi-bal!What if he kills her?
I stagger out of hiding and take out my phone to record in case it comes down to a case of he said / she said, but the moment I open my mouth to call Taranis off, he takes an abrupt step away from her as if pushed by an invisible hand. His body lurches, and he grabs his head at the same timehornssprout out of it.
I gasp, staggering back myself while Cynthia screams bloody fucking murder, and we both watch, mouths hanging open wide, as Taranis becomes something else entirely.
“Your head!” Cynthia screams, pointing a shaking arm at Taranis as horns as white and glittery as freshly fallen snow sprout from the subtle peaks of his hairline. His brown skin takes on a bluish hue, the color rolling down his body like a flush, and he wavers where he is, like he’s trying to fight against this transformation ... and he’s losing.
I take a few steps forward, my hands raised, including the one holding my phone. “Taranis?” I try, worried. Shit fucking scared. Is he ... in pain? He looks like he’s in agony. “Let me call—” Who the fuck do I call? Panicked, I start to put my recording down in favor of calling the lead COE doctor, Emily.
“Don’t fucking ...” he snaps at me, his voice loud and warped. It’s so deep and dark that it scares the piss out of me, and I jump. Then I slap my free hand over my mouth as Taranis crumples in on himself.
He lands hard on the ground and I rush over to him, only to be thrown back onto my ass when a burst of energy is flung from his body. I’m thrown back toward the bathrooms. I can hear the doors slam against each other. I grab my phone; my clutch is around my wrist. I shelter my head in case another blast comes out of him, but when I look up, I’m fairly certain the damage is complete.
I scrabble over the ground toward the ... toward Taranis. He’s three times the size he was when I last blinked. His body has exploded out of his tuxedo, and did I say I thought his skin was blue before? Because now I’m sure of it. The hands he was using to hold his head have become massive and taloned—clawed. I don’t know the difference. They’re white like his horns, dusted in glitter, serrated on the sides, and look deadly sharp.
I’m freaking the fuck out, begging him to be all right. “Taranis, please ... Please ...” I keep begging him while Cynthia sits nearby shouting uselessly.
“Oh my God, it happened! Oh my God, did it ... Was it because of me?”
That warm fluttering in my gut turns to a cold knife as, for just a second, I believe the conviction I hear in her laughter. I rebel against it, trying to focus, trying to stay calm. Did he revert because of her? Is this what happened with the Wyvern and Vanessa? Are Cynthia and Taranis inlovenow?
But before I can dig too deep down that rabbit hole, the smart part of my brain catches up to the knee-jerk thoughts. No. Fuck no, he didn’t fall in love with her. Neither Taranis nor Cynthia are capable of loving anyone.
“Taranis! Taranis?” I’m scared to touch him. Scared of his claws. He releases this deep rumbling sound and, all at once, starts to unfurl. “Cynthia, help me!”
His engorged, muscle-bound arms are busting out of his tuxedo, leaving strips of it hanging off his frame in tatters. Those bulky arms lash out for stability, one hand grabbing on to Cynthia’s arm—which I’m pretty sure she’d lifted only to defend herself—while the other reaches out toward me and grabs my shoulder. I’m still recording.
Taranis starts to angle himself toward me and give me more of his weight. “Easy,” I grunt, struggling to accept it.
“Monika?” Finally, fucking finally, he’s trying to open his eyes.
I gasp as soon as he does. His eyes ... they’re fucking radiant. The purest pale blue, a shade I’m entirely positive isn’t found in nature. “Y-y-yes?”
Cynthia says more stupid things while Taranis releases her entirely. I try to encourage him once again to let me take him to Emily, but he refuses. I don’t think he realizes what’s happened to him, so with significant effort, I manage to get him to the bathroom. He needs to see this with his own beautiful blue eyes.
“There’s something on my ass,” he tells me as his head swivels on his neck. He’s regaining mobility, slowly but surely, but he doesn’t seem to be fully with me yet.
I’m worried about an injury I can’t see, so I don’t hesitate to end my recording, stash my phone back in my clutch, and reach for his belt. Under other circumstances, this might have made my heart pitter-patter. As it stands now, my heartdoespitter-patter, but not because I pull a beautiful, glorious dick out of his pants ...
Because I pull out a tail.
I curse in every language I know and fall back against the closed bathroom-stall door. I manage to get a few words out before the bathroom door opens up behind me. I almost crash into theajumeoniemerging from the stall behind me. She shrieks, and I’ve got half a mind to join her as Taranis’s tail starts to move autonomously. Why it wouldn’t, I don’t fucking know, but it reminds me of a giant boa constrictor, and I’m absolutely terrified when it wraps itself around my waist.
We stumble out of the bathroom. I’m freaking the fuck out. I want to get him to someone who might be able to be calm about all this, but Taranis is insistent that we get back to his car. Which means we have to fight our way through the press.
How fucking ironic.
Throughout it all, Taranis electrocutes my heart, carries me with his tail, scratches me with one of his claws, and bumps his horns on every-fucking-thing. I’m not even sure he’s aware of most of what he’s doing, and by the time we get back to his car, I’m almost positive he must have lost his mind completely. He can’t be aware. He can’t be fucking aware. Because he’s kneeling on the floor of his car while Nicoleta pulls away from the curb, looking up at me like I’m the thing that matters most in this moment.
Not his tail.
