Page 47 of Monster. Me.

Why is this guy telling me all this?

It's almost like he's trying to distract me from something.

Oh, hell no.

I'm not falling for that.

I turn, intending to walk around the truck, but the beta grabs my arm.

"Wait. We're actually looking for workers right now. You wouldn't happen to know anybody who might be interested?"

I yank my arm free.

What is this, some kind of trap?

I step past him with a decisive move and look around the back of the truck.

The sight that greets me freezes me in place.

The handsome alpha is gone.

Instead, my car is being pushed back onto the road by something that looks a lot more like a forest demon or some ancient spirit of the woods like a Leshy than a human being.

It's made of some kind of green plant matter woven together with rust-colored branches and vine-like strands that resemble veins. Or is it some tree golem? That's the closest comparison my brain can come up with.

And it's glowing.

Actually glowing!

Tiny sparkling lights drift around it like magical embers.

"Holy shit," I mumble.

The beta grabs my arm and spins me around with a surprisingly strong yank.

For a beta in his sixties, he's ridiculously strong.

"You weren't supposed to see that!" he snaps. "I told you we'd help, but you just couldn't listen!"

There's genuine anger on his face. At the same time, something about him looks different now. His eyes seem to shimmer with a strange color somewhere between green and brown, but in a way that feels unnatural, almost luminous.

And am I imagining it, or is the world around me starting to strangely blur and darken… fuck! Is he trying to cast some forgetting spell or what? Good thing I am a magical creature too, so I shake it off.

"Hey, relax!" I say, raising both hands. "Your secret's safe with me."

To be fair, they just pulled my car out of a ditch. It seems they're not bad folks, so I can keep their secret. Or maybe even do more? If they are magical ABOs, like me … could I, for the first time, be bold enough to reveal a small part of my own secret? In a spirit of kinship!

It takes a bit of pushing through, since my dad’s years-long fear programming has a good hold on me, but finally I do it… feeling a strange relief.

"I'm like you. I've got my own secret too."

As I say it, it's so fucking liberating that I let out a huff. I've never revealed it to anyone before!

But the man narrows his eyes.

"I doubt you're like us. Our bloodline is extremely rare."

I roll my eyes in response.