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Simultaneously, the dolls lower their arms, and every egg in the room cracks as if they’ve been smashed against the floor. The faces of the egg monsters freeze in expressions of horror as lightning-bolt shaped cracks cover their bodies and yellow goo spills out, coating the floor.
I gape, mouth slack.
The dolls have frozen back into their original positions. They remain completely still as my mates and I walk around the room, verifying that each of the other monsters is indeed dead. Nothing could be worse than missing one and having it sneak up behind us. There's not a single shell left uncracked. With one gesture, the room has been obliterated.
I glance over at Brittany, the blonde doll with glasses, and the other one…whose name I can't remember. They both are just standing there, looking as unalive and doll-like as ever. It gives me the heebie-jeebies. Then again, I was about to have to fight a room full of oversized sentient eggs…so…
I'm torn between gratitude and wanting to ask why the fuck they made us fight through all the floors beneath this one. But seeing as I'm not an idiot, I bite the inside of my cheek and say nothing.
"Anyone feel like scrambled eggs?" Creep jokes.
My stomach growls in response.
When he turns to me with a raised eyebrow, I quickly shake my head. I need to win this fight more than I need to eat. More than I need anything. I just want to get this shit over with.
"Let's keep moving," Dev says, because he's in full bossy mode—his alpha instincts flipped to high and so intense they nearly cast a shimmering aura around him. His tail swishes as he turns to lead the way up the stairs, and we follow him.
Uni scoops his girls into his arms and speckles them with kisses as we walk, which at first is cute. Until I unfortunately see his tongue dart out and swipe over Brittany's mouth. Then it just gets weird again, and I avert my eyes because if I don't, I'll be forced to carve them out with rusty spoons, and I like being able to see. Usually, that is.
"I wish there were some other fucking way to get to the top," I moan as we tromp up to the next floor.
"There used to be these music boxes that floated up and down inside the building," Creep states, painting a beautiful, fantastical picture for me of mechanical music boxes with humans that danced inside them as they rode up and down.
Finally, once my thighs are on fire, we're on the landing, and Uni gestures for us all to wait again.
His dolls end up taking out the next sixty floors for us. Uni says they insist on helping so we can save our strength.
"And because they like to show off. Nothing gets them horny like an awed audience," he whispers confidentially to Tesq, who blushes furiously.
Is there some kind of bleach for ears? Something that erases what you just heard? If so, I fucking want that right now—a gallon of it.
Ultimately, I let Tesq carry me up the second half of the stairs, but only after Creep scoops Chase up with a cheerful, "Piggyback time for the humans and part humans! Gotta rest those legs… Now wrap them around me, pretty boy."
He gives me a wink as he says it, making me embarrassingly aware he's doing it for my benefit. But…I can't let pride win out in this situation, not when I'm pretty sure I won't even be able to stand once we make it to the top floor.
Begrudgingly, I let Dev take the lead as Tesq scoops me up and gently cradles me against his warm, cozy chest. He smells so good coated in monster blood, and the warmth of his lava veinsis so soothing to my sore legs that I curl in tightly against him, the steady pace of his footsteps comforting.
I may doze off, but I'll never admit it.
I just know that the final ascent seems to go a million times faster than any of the floors in the lower half of the building. When Tesq gently sets me down on a landing that's brimming with light so bright that it could be the stairway to heaven, I glance around at my guys, and I'm feeling reinvigorated. Refreshed. Renewed. Ready to fight.
"Two floors left," Dev announces, as if we don't all know. His posture is tense and ready, his black fur gleaming and his red eyes casting a glow across his muzzle.
"Thank goodness." Creep sets Chase down and then puts his hands on his lower back, stretching until there are several pops. "This one's constant boner has given me sciatica."
"Fuck off!" Chase retorts with narrowed eyes.
"That seems like exactly what you were trying to do against my spine," Creep waggles his forked tongue, clearly enjoying getting a rise out of the other man.
Chase's fists ball up, but I step between them, my eyes steady on the human I've known all my life.
"Hey. Save the fighting for the other monsters and the fucking for me, okay?" I wink.
I tried to break the tension with a little bit more levity, but Chase's expression immediately becomes gobsmacked.
Did I go too far?
"Showtime," Tesq calls out, and Dev smashes through the door, sending it flying, before Chase and I even have time to turn toward it.
