Page 346 of Pucking Feral: Part Two

I can't do that to her. I can't⁠—

“She chose you. She doesn't expect you to be normal,” Valek says, lifting his head out of the water to speak. "How you look clearly doesn’t matter to her. I've seen how she looks at you. You're beautiful to her."

I turn away.

The river laps against my scarred chest. Cold water slips between my exposed teeth and over the muscles of my jaw, and I swallow, tasting dirt and salt in the river water.

I’m not beautiful to anyone.

Ivy loves me despite my face.

That’s different.

Valek moves closer, water curling around his lean body. “Look.”

I follow his gesture toward the water.

The dark surface between us is smooth again now that we’ve stopped trying to drown each other. Moonlight floats across it. This calmer section of river is like a mirror.

My stomach drops.

I rise to my feet, water pouring off me, and start trudging up toward the shore.

Valek dives and resurfaces between me and the riverside, cutting me off as he straightens to his full height, his drenched hair covering his eyes. "No. Stay."

I glare at him.

He doesn’t move. Instead, he looks down at his own reflection in the water between us.

“I’m not asking you to admire yourself. Lean forward and look.”

My skin prickles with enough anxiety to turn my stomach.

I don't think I've ever looked at my face deliberately. It's always been a fucking accident, always been something I looked away from and blocked out of my mind because I can't process it. My brain doesn't want to accept that's what I look like.

But Ivy does.

Ivy is going to have to all the fucking time.

And so is everyone else, unless BioMuzzle works so well I can lock myself in the loft without risking going fucking insane.

I take one step forward. The ripples spread away from my body and break both our reflections apart. Valek waits for them to settle.

My pulse climbs into my throat.

I lean forward.

The face in the water forms slowly.

If it could be called a face.

Dark hair hangs across my forehead, longer than I usually let it grow. The scar through my right eye pulls at the lower lid, keeping it from closing completely when I blink.

Beneath my cheekbones, there’s nothing human. Only scar tissue, exposed jaw muscle, and the permanent skeletal display of sharpened teeth.

The reflection breathes when I breathe.

Its jaws flex when I swallow.