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Because they can. Because they want to push these beautiful machines the gods have given them to their fullest capacity, and then a little bit further. Because it is glorious to breathe air, even when it’s cold as knives, into your lungs, and then back out again, and then back in.
Even now, walking toward a castle full of monsters, there’s peace in my heart.
And it’s not only because of this new strength in my body. Well, that’s obviously the impetus, but really, it’s the change in perspective it’s all given me.
I let the people in my life walk all over me.
My mother. Drew. I let him treat me like crap. I made myself small for him. Not small in stature, I don’t mean. Small as in… I let him be the big man because it was what he needed. It was the only way he could go through life. I let him talk down to me and pretend like he was the only one who could take care of things. I let him take over when the whole time I was perfectly capable.
I made myself small. For a man, of all things.
But then, I’d grown up that way. Making myself small for my mother, who fretted over so many things about my illness and how it impacted her life, without it feeling like she was ever connecting to me.
Me going off on in search of a miracle, even when some part of me deep down had never really believed I’d find one… That had been more about me taking back control of my life. I’d been saying no, for once.
No, I wouldn’t let them control me anymore.
No, I wouldn’t let my mother suffocate me.
No, I wouldn’t marry Drew and make myself small for the rest of my life so he could feel like such a big man. Sometimes, I wonder if he cared more about what being with me looked like to our colleagues than he ever cared about me as a person.
Maybe it’s not fair to say. It was just a suspicion. But there were a thousand ways he made me small. In his glances. In the way he ignored me when we were at parties, stowing me in a corner except when he needed to show me off.
In the selfish way he fucked me, only ever caring about his own pleasure.
Even if the Beast takes away everything he gave me for breaking my promise and leaving, and my time on this earth is limited, after all. I’ll never forget the freedom I’ve felt this past week.
And I’ll never accept less ever again.
I won’t make myself small for anyone. Anyone.
That’s the last thought I have before the whoosh of rushing wings and the lion’s roar from overhead alerts me that I’ve been found.
Startled, I aim my flashlight into the dark sky.
Just in time to see the Beast’s furious face as he descends upon me. Glorious black wings flare. His chest burns with light from within. And his sharp teeth are bared.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
MONSTER
“Where were you?” I growl.
I have my consort back in the castle. My brothers are locked back where they belong. My feathers are only minimally singed, and the ache from Thing’s bite already fading.
Considering the chaos that met me when I arrived home earlier, it’s not too bad.
But my rage, oh, that has not abated one bit.
Especially considering my consort’s obstinate silence.
I slam the wall above her head with my clawed hand as soon as we are back in the castle and roar in her face. “Tell me where you were and where you obtained these coverings!”
She winces at the volume of my question then glares at me. As if I am the one out of line here. When she was the one who ran away and let out my brothers. My extremely dangerous brothers.
“You wear nothing but what I allow,” I roar again, slicing down through the clothing that has an unfamiliar stink on it.
An unfamiliar male stink.
“Who were you with?”
Not even the sight of her breasts bared by my slicing the clothes down the center can do anything to assuage my anger.
She just continues to glare at me. And say nothing.
“Answer me!” I pound the stone wall above her head again.
“Why?” she finally retorts. “So you can scream at me some more?” Her hands go to her hips. She ignores her clothing gaping open at the front, exposing herself to me.
And I imagine her showing up naked in front of this other male.
I back away from her, my fur bristling up my neck.
There’s no one else anywhere around here for fifty miles. For a hundred miles. I should know. My nose would know.
I fly these skies all the time. This is an empty, abandoned land. There are no roads. No life except that which is wild. Like me and the other beasts that roam.
