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“To realize she loves you.”
Em laughs up at the stars, a harsh and bitter sound that fills the entire clearing. “We don’t have fucking time. Our kingdom’s under attack. God-fucking-dammit. You’re useless. I just want to get fucking laid before I die in this shit body. Is that too much to ask?”
He storms off into the trees, and I share a startled look with Fluffy.
This was all about sex?
I sigh. This is exactly why I’ve avoided monsterkind for years. Solitude is easier than reading between the lines. And Em’s a rude asshole. But he’s right. I am useless on the subject of sex. It’s been decades since I’ve slept with a monster because I never really believed that someone could want me that way. And humans? Never.
That’s why when Creep swapped dicks with me and was so eager to use it on Aliana, I let him. Why not? It was the closest I’d ever come to touching her, to touching anyone. And I was so worried about breaking her when I thought she was human.
But she’s not human.
She’s not breakable.
And Em is right.
Our kingdom’s under siege, we’re about to have the fight of our lives, and who knows if we’ll come out on the other side of it?
I swallow hard and sink down onto a tree stump, my hand still stroking Fluffy’s head.
After I realized Aliana cared for me, that someone could love me despite myself, I didn’t think I could ever want anything more.
But that painful, desperate ache is back inside my chest, throbbing like an open wound.
I want to be with Aliana so badly it hurts.
The problem is, I have no idea how to be with a woman. And I have no idea how to ask.
I sink into that painful knowledge and cease to hear the crickets chirping or the stars gliding overhead. I don’t notice the changing shadows or when Fluffy stalks off to hunt her dinner. I don’t feel the wind blowing a few stray leaves onto my lap.
I’m as still and silent as stone as I stew on the realization that I once again am the monster who is different from the others. What comes so easily and naturally to Creep and Dev is a struggle for me. Em appears to be in the same boat, but that realization doesn’t make me feel any better.
Aliana may love me, but does she want me that way? And if she does, there’s an entirely new and terrifying set of possibilities. Scenarios in which we could be together, and I could disappoint her.
Bile rises in my throat, and a cinching sensation straps my ribs, pressing them inward until they feel like they’re stabbing me.
“Grotesque.”
The sound of my name rouses me from my daze, and I glance up to realize that the sky is beginning to turn pink and Uni’s standing in front of me, shrinking as rivulets of water sluice down his gray features.
His eyes dart to his girls, who haven’t moved all night, before glancing back at me and giving a nod of approval.
I simply stare at him, blinking, still coming back to myself and the present moment.
“I have seen many things, but Barnabas is a disgrace to monsters. Did you know that his minions are killing monster babies in order to quickly level up?”
That revelation jolts me, sizzling under my skin and igniting the lava that still churns somewhere deep inside of me. The veins along my arms and legs start to glow orange. “What?”
Uni nods, his tentacles whipping around his body. “It’s true.”
My lip curls, and I open my mouth to express my disgust, but Dev’s voice calls out from the trees. “He WHAT?”
Dev, Creep, and Aliana emerge from the forest, and the scent of sex is heavy on all three of them, filling my nostrils and settingoff that painful ache—though right now, that ache throbs dully underneath the thick layer of disgust I have for Barnabas.
I knew the bastard abused his son, but wholesale treating monster children as expendable? As simple tools for leveling up?
“That explains the ridiculous number of Eights and Nines at your place,” Creep tells Dev. “And at the meat factory.”
