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I’d have travelled and had adventures.
When I get home, I will not make the same mistakes again. I will not be meek and quiet and try to be what people expect me to be. I will be me and they can either accept that, or I will find friends who do.
“I have fear. Fear that I will not be able to climb, and that this is it for me.” He stares at his talons. “I fear you will hate me. I know you feared me, and that you didn’t like to look at me.” He lifts his head and stares at me.
“That’s true. It took me time to become used to your mouth. And now it has changed again. But I don’t hate you. How could I when you have done nothing but help? You have shown me, both of us, that you are not a monster in your heart.”
He laughs, and it’s as sharp and jagged as his teeth.
“You would not say that if you knew my memories.”
“We have all eaten fresh meat. We have all hunted and killed.” Joe grins at me. “Except Julie, because she’s never been a monster. What have you done that is so much worse?”
“I dragged people to Under.”
8
Theo
Idon’t want to tell them the truth but keeping that secret will only stop me from changing. The fear will hold me back, like it did Julie. But I don’t want to take that risk. What if they hate me when they know me?
I should eat them, then I won’t have to see the disdain on their faces.
But I would rather fuck them. I want to bite off Joe’s tail and fuck his ass. I don’t know if I ever did that as a human, but I like the idea. I want to watch his tail regrow while I fuck him and then bite it off again.
I want Julie to suck my dick. I want her to swallow the length of it like she did with Joe. I want to feel her hot and wet and tight around me.
But that is all lust.
That is easy and safe. It’s the fear I need to explore. It’s what I have hidden from for far too long.
I force out the words. “I dragged people to Under.”
I glance away so I don’t have to see their expression. I may be a monster, but I don’t want to be hated. A gasp swells in my chest as I understand what Julie has been saying about feeling. If she were to look at me with disgust…
I place the back of my hand over my chest. My heart would break if Julie hated me. It already feels fragile, like if I breathe too deeply, cracks will form.
“I thought only the queen could do that?” Julie’s voice is quiet, but it tears at me.
I lift my gaze from the ground to where she sits at Joe’s feet. Both of them are mostly human. They are perfect together. I am the oddity, the creature who they shouldn’t trust.
“Before the queen, someone else ruled. I’m guessing a king,” Joe says. There’s a tension in his voice because he knows what that means.
My gaze makes it up to her face, expecting the worst. I am determined to face this fear, even if it cracks my heart open. Is this what I need to do to feel again?
She’s staring at me like she doesn’t know me. And she doesn’t. I don’t even know myself. I have held onto fragments, the bits that would have blown away had I not gripped them tightly. But these bits do not make a whole.
If someone had cut Joe’s notebook into ten thousand pieces, I hold one hundred of them and each tiny piece is from a different page and holds only a few letters.
No matter how I arrange them, I cannot make sense of what they say. I’m not sure I even want to find the rest of the pieces, as I may not like the story they tell.
“She defeated me. Burned me and cast me out to climb or die.” As I talk, a tooth comes loose in my mouth. I spit it out and it makes a small noise as it hits the rocky floor. I run my tongue over the rest of my teeth. Some of them also feel loose.
Without teeth, how will I eat?
Even though I have just eaten his tail, and the taste of his blood is fresh on my tongue, I want more. I thought I was hungry all the time, but that was only a memory. Now I understand real hunger.
“How did you survive?” Joe asks.
