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Then I drop his hand and dart for the light, calling out over my shoulder, “First one to the surface gets dibs on our next food find.”
But Chase doesn’t scurry after me. Instead, when I’m fully engulfed by the warm, bright, dust-mote sprinkled light, he strolls up slowly, as if he’s okay with losing.
And for a second, I’m unsure again whether I’m looking at Chase or the Empty Man because the man in front of me doesn’t look arrogant or cold. Instead, he’s wearing a soft, boyish grin.
7
THE DEVOURER
“Where is she?!”I roar, pushing away more rubble as I attempt to climb myself out of the collapsed meat factory.
For the first time in my life, I’m grateful I can transform into a seven-foot beast with primordial strength and uncanny healing abilities.
I probably would’ve been in amuchworse position if I hadn't been.
Being buried alive can really fuck up a monster.
As it is, my fur is matted and parted awkwardly to reveal the numerous bleeding wounds underneath. I don’t dare shift back, not when I know that my semi-humanoid form will be even more bruised, bloodied, and disheveled.
Pain radiates from my arm socket, where I probably dislocated my shoulder, but I shove that agony aside—trapping it inside of an iron box reinforced with steel—and focus on what truly matters.
Aliana.
“She’s not here.” Creep’s curt voice drags my attention off the wreckage and towards my closest friend—if you can call anyone in the monster world a friend.
The blue monster stands on the outskirts of the property, where the rubble has ended and shadows begin, his arms crossed over his chest and his dark hair swaying in the breeze beneath his antlers. The cresting sun hits his back in such a way that he almost seems to glow.
“You don’t know that.” My voice is more beast than human—anger and desperation weaving themselves together in a potent, toxic mixture.
I never should’ve allowed my mate to go off on her own. I should’ve insisted that I follow her, or had Creep follow her, or even the Grotesque…
This is why I wanted to keep her locked up. Safe! They all act like I’m a bastard, but freedom in this fucked-up world is often a death sentence.
With a roar, I grab the nearest object—which happens to be a piece of metal hacked off of one of the destroyed machines—and throw it as hard and as far as I can. It hits the chain-link fence surrounding the property and quite literally cleaves it apart, creating a large hole.
Creep, who has been abnormally silent since this entire shit storm went down, arches a blue brow at me. “Are you done having your temper tantrum?”
Condescension oozes from his voice, ruffling my metaphorical feathers.
How dare he treat me this way when mymateis missing? The only saving grace is the knowledge that she’s alive and well—my mating bond with her would tell me otherwise.
Anger raises my hackles and prickles my fingers where my claws have extended. I want to scratch them down Creep’s face, dig up his antlers like one would a damn flower, skin him alive?—
With another growl, I kick at a destroyed chair and then stalk out of the mess of debris and cement.
“Have you noticed that we have a pattern of ending up in demolished buildings together? Maybe that’sour thing,” Creep jokes.
How can he be light-hearted at a time like this?
“Maybe you were lying to me when you claimed Aliana was your mate,” I bark scathingly, stopping when I’m directly beside the fucking asshole. He’s tall…but I’m taller, coming in at over twelve feet. The bastard is forced to raise his chin to maintain eye contact, and I take a sort of twisted satisfaction in the fact. “If you were really her mate, you wouldn’t be so fucking calm.”
Not when I feel as if I’m crawling out of my skin.
Not when I feel as if my heart is in a pressure chamber.
Not when I feel a knot of apprehension coiling in my throat at the prospect of anything happening to her while she’s out of my sight.
Not when I want to kill every last fucker in the vicinity—friend and foe alike.
