Page 18 of Monster Queen Rising

Harek takes the front. I get in the back. Daron pulls out.

Behind us, deep beneath a white building on the side of the mountain, the thermal purge is doing exactly what it was built to do. Forty years of stolen lives.

Burned into ash before anyone can use them again.

I watch the mirror until Camille is gone in the trees.

Above the tree line, a dark shape banks south and stays with us.

Chapter nine

Jen

"Tell me what you are."

Madison says it forty minutes after she wakes up. She has been watching the truck and the men and me the whole time.

"You lifted me off that bed like I weighed nothing. I'm a hundred and forty pounds. You got me down a hallway when I could barely stand. The man in the passenger seat has a green shine to his skin. The one at my room had tusks."

She meets my eyes.

"So tell me what you are."

I let out a slow breath.

"I would've told you I was human a month ago." I shake my head. "I'm still figuring out the rest."

"That's not an answer."

"No." I glance at the road ahead. "It's the best one I've got."

She waits.

"Okay. None of us in these trucks are fully human. The man driving turns into a wolf. The one in the passenger seat is half goblin, half fae. The one with the tusks is half orc. The one who wouldn't come into your room is a demon hybrid."

Madison looks at the back of Daron's head.

"An actual wolf."

"Born that way."

She watches him drive for a long moment.

"And you?"

Her eyes come back to me.

"What parts of you are different?"

"My senses. I can smell things across a room. I can hear breathing through walls. I don't get sick."

"That's...not exactly human."

"No."

"I can also grow horns." I shrug. "And I can make people do things with my voice."

Madison blinks.