Vivian
The tight, cold grip of grief was unbearable.
Now only halfway across my field, I began to make out their facial features. Who looked like a man. Who looked like a woman. Who had scales, horns, spikes. Who was carrying a weapon. Who was carrying a notepad and satchel.
Hearing all that gunfire, I’d expected an army of soldiers. Why did onlysomeof them look like they were here to kidnap and destroy?
A Pyran with black hair pulled back into a short ponytail pointed at my alcove, a large binder of paperwork tucked under their elbow. My gut twisted as I imagined them with a construction hat and architectural map like some damn caricature, saying “put it over there, boys” as giant iron beams swung overhead. Just like the flat I’d been evicted from in New York. My home claimed, stolen, and renovated without my consent.
My grip tightened on the knife in my hand. I needed to use it to kill, not escape through these windows. I had to manifest bloodlust.
Even with survival on the line, I couldn’t do it. Rage, anguish, fear, a desire for justice—sure—but not murderousness. My knife-wielding hand shook as I imagined plunging the blade into their stomachs, slicing their throats, mutilating them with my bare hands. Why did Ihatethat feeling? I willed myself to enter the mental state of my last kills. Swinging an axe, removing a head, staring at an empty shell of a body. I couldn’t do it with my emotions intact.
To protect myself, I’d have to go numb again. Remove my soul from the equation so my body could defend itself.No. If I was going to lose my life to these bastards—which I probably was—I’d like to at least feel like myself until the bitter end.
That “end” didn’t feel quite so frightening with the knowledge that Theo was probably already lost. I was a goddess. I would find him in whatever afterlife existed. My bitch of a mother could at least grant me that. I’d bang on her fancy gilded doors and demand she put our ghosts together for eternity. I would be the loudest, most obnoxious problem heaven had ever experienced if it meant reclaiming our forever.
A deranged smile pulled at my lips as a tear rolled down my cheek at the thought. It didn’t sound quite so bad… we would laugh this off when we were dead. We were good at that.
The army was meters away from my cabin. If they were this close, Theo must be gone. He wouldn’t allow this violation.
The intruders pointed at the garden beds trapping me inside of the house. Their words were muffled, but their intent was clear. They were coming inside. Now was the time to hide, but I was paralyzed where I stood—watching out the window for a man who wouldn’t show.
A Thornian stood towards the front of the group. He had long horns that stretched above his head of lavender hair, theirtips twisting out and then curling into themselves. He must be in charge. From those purple locks, to the expensive satin button down, to the way the entire crowd seemed to flock around his center—he demanded attention.
Two people towered over him from behind, making him look deceptively small. I peered through the gaps in the wooden boards, but couldn’t make sense of their features. What type of being was furryandhad four arms? Or scaly with four arms? Both were massive like Quadmos, too.Hybrids? Did those exist?
They stepped around the lavender-haired Thornian, toward the barricade. Mr. Presumed-C.E.O. remained, continuing to chat calmly with the Pyran to the left, his hands shoved casually in his pockets.
My forehead pressed uncomfortably into the planks, the taste of disdain and tears on my tongue. How long had I been crying? It must’ve been over an hour since Theo left me alone and trapped to go fight.
A blur of colors crossed my clouded vision. I blinked away the moisture, desperately trying to understand what I was seeing. Black, red, beige—a dark hued rainbow fell across the sky. Suddenly, the lilac-haired dickwad vanished. The crowd jumped into action, yelling cutting through the eerily pleasant chatter of moments before. “Don’t shoot!” boomed out over the chaos before a single trigger could be pulled.
The monstrous Hybrids quickly disappeared into the crowd that blocked my view ofwhatever the fuckwas happening.
Was that the slightest spark of hope in my chest? I held my breath, afraid an exhale may extinguish the budding flame.
The crowd parted.
There he was.My Theo. Beastly. Massive. Godlike.
The Lychan-Quadmos dragged him from the skirmish by the forearm. Theo clawed and bit and thrashed to get back to the man he’d just attacked. He was soaked in blood, and I neededsobadly to believe it wasn’t all his. One of his arms dragged limp at his side once he got his feet under him and attempted to stand. The Hybrid yanked, sending my powerful, feral love falling back to his knees.
Theo sunk his teeth into the furry hand that held him, earning him a kick to the gut from the nearby scaly Arielna-Quadmos. The chunk of flesh in his mouth was spat into the dirt when the wind was knocked out of him.
Even as a small subset of intruders ran towards my door, I couldn’t look away.Theo is alive. I needed to know that. See it with my own eyes. Nothing else mattered.
The garden bed tumbled to the ground with a splintering “thud” and my front door flew open. I turned and backed into the corner of my kitchen, my eyes—raw from so much crying—widening.
The lavender-haired Thornian limped inside, no longer looking quite sodapperthanks to Theo’s ambush.Good. His expression was wild, his sharp teeth bared, his nose crinkled in a pained grimace. A chunk was missing from the side of his neck, the gushing blood soiling his white shirt. His right eye socket was a reddened void. One of his towering gray horns had been broken off, and was now clutched in his shaking taloned hand. A white and pink orb was speared on the hooked end.His eye.
“Hi Vivian,” he growled coldly through his teeth. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
“Get the fuck away from me,” I snapped, holding the point of my knife at him.
“Put the knife down. We don’t want to hurt you.” Two eight-foot-tall Quadmos Hybrids ducked through the doorway behind him, both armed with guns strapped across their chests. His reassurance was a waste of breath.
“I don’t trust that.”
