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Thinking I was safe on the other side of my room, I frantically flipped through the spellbook. He was talking me, the words gruff and harsh. His monster language, I figure, and none of it makes sense to me. He keeps repeating one phrase over and over again—uxor mi, or something like that—and the way he absently trails his hand along his dick makes me wonder whatthatcould be monster-speak for.
His tone is cajoling. Even if I can’t translate his words, I know exactly what he wants.
Me.
Not happening, buddy.
So, yeah. One second he was hanging out in my closet. It was probably my fault for thinking he would stay there. For a few seconds, I take my eyes off of him.
A few seconds is all he needs.
I don’t even see him move. He’s there, then he’s not. He’s in the closet, then he’s looming behind me, laying his hands on my waist. A gasp escapes me as he whirls me around.
“What the—”
He’s saying something. The heat of his palms is distracting me at the same time as I wonder how in the hell did he get behind me without him seeing. Only one word stick out to me.
Sombra.
“Sombra? Did you just say ‘Sombra’ Like my book?”
He nods. I get the feeling that he only does so because I expect him to, not because he has any clue what I just asked him, especially since he follows that by lifting me, tossing me over his shoulder.
“Let me go,” I shout, hitting the bulk of his back. He’s a mass of shadows, my fingers dipping past the unformed edges of him. I still find something to hit and, big as he is, I put a little effort into it. “Let me go!”
It didn’t work.
Before I can try some other way to catch his attention, a rush of heat slams into me. It’s coming from my right side. Jerking my head, I’m stunned speechless when I see a… honestly, I don’t know what to call it. Hole, maybe? It’s a big, swirling black hole stretching from floor to about a foot about the monster’s horns. The heat’s coming from in there, and when he turns, loping toward it, I almost swallow my tongue in my hurry to shout again.
He leaps, and the black void swallows my scream.
The fall forward is over as soon as it begins. He lands in a graceful crouch, popping up quickly before patting my ass and setting me down on my feet.
The first thing I notice is that it’s not as hot as it was; it’s actually cooler than my room was. The floor is solid yet dusty beneath my bare feet. It has a distinctly sulfurous stink, like rotten eggs that has me choking as I stumble away from him.
He shadows my every move, watching me closely.
Glancing away from the monster, my eyes sweep across the room. It’s dark in here. Not because there’s no light. There is. A gentle white floating light is posted in each corner of the room, hovering over an iron sconce. A candle? Maybe. It’s weird, but as I blink my eyes, getting used to the small amount of illumination, I see that it’s so dark in here because the walls are a dingy black.
A shiny break on one wall is possibly a window. I don’t see a door, though I do see a bed that’s big enough for a monster his size to sleep without his feet hanging off the edge. At least, I think it’s a bed. It’s more like a collapsed dome with a dip in the center, an inky black sheet following its shape.
There’s only one other thing in this room besides the nest, the monster, the book I’m still clutching tightly to my chest, and me. Hanging on the wall, propped up on some kind of shelf, is a… a…
Oh my God.
It’s a skull.
It’s ahumanskull.
Why does this monster have a human skull hanging up in the corner of his room like some kind of trophy?
That’s when I scream again.
His pointed ears twitch. We don’t need to be able to understand each other to know that a scream is universal in any language. He hears my scream and immediately lowers himself into a crouch again.
Making himself smaller, I think. He knows I’m frightened. I get the feeling that he doesn’t want me to be.
When he reaches his hand for me, I jump a few steps back. If he touches me, I’ll let him. So that I can convince myself that this is a dream, that he didn’t steal me right out of my bedroom, I’d let him.
