Page 29 of A Very Monstrous Desire

Theo froze. He crouched down next to the fallen tree, several of its dead branches curved above him, struggling to get his breath back, the strangest of feelings suddenly flooding through him.

The creature above him howled again. No, it was not a howl, it was more like a cry, and there was an odd melody to it. It made Theo feel…something…something that he couldn’t quite identify. He stayed exactly where he was, as still as possible, trying to listen to what his body was telling him. After a moment he drew in a slow, shaky breath and the creature responded by crying again.

Sadness.

A desperate sadness.

That was what Theo was feeling.

But it was all looped up in adrenaline and fear so that Theo couldn’t quite separate it enough to realise, at least not until the creature’s cry deepened and a horrible sort of misery flooded Theo.

He closed his eyes.

Why was the creature so sad?

How could he help it?

Another cry. It cleared the fear and the panic so that it filled Theo’s entire body, and he knew then that he would have to emerge from his hiding place and do something to make the creature feel better.

It was so very sad.

It needed him to help it.

Theo opened his eyes, ready to reveal himself when a hand clamped around his mouth and dragged him deeper beneath the canopy of dead branches. Theo wasn’t so far gone yet that he didn’t recognise exactly who the hand belonged to. Perhaps if he had been thinking perfectly clearly, exactly as he had been just ten minutes ago when he’d freed himself from the spider’s net, Theo might have questioned how he knew immediately that it was Baku.

His monster.

In that moment it really was so.

“Do not move,” Baku whispered in Theo’s ear as he loosened his hand.

“It needs me,” Theo whispered back.

“What it needs from you, you do not want to give,” Baku growled. “Now come, quickly, before its sorrow calls for me too.”

Theo didn’t know what Baku meant by that, and he realised vaguely then that he wasn’t quite himself. He made to move forwards even as Baku pulled him back once more. The dry leaves crackled beneath them. The creature called again, but the mournful cry was slightly different…there was an angry note to it now.

“Please, Theo,” Baku said, and because it was the first time that the monster had ever used his name, Theo turned and looked at him. He opened his mouth to respond, but something swooped above them, and Baku held a finger to Theo’s lips. There was clear worry in his moonlit eyes.

“We must leave,” he said.

A shadow crossed above them, darkening the space even more. Baku pulled Theo close to him, and Theo couldn’t help but shiver at the feel of the monster’s big bulk surrounding him. They stayed low, almost crouching, as they edged along the fallen tree.

Another cry joined the first. Baku placed his big hands over Theo’s ears.

The cries of the two creatures now stalking them came as one then, a perfect melancholy sound that, even with his ears muffled, seemed to pierce Theo’s heart. He shuddered. Baku pressed his hands closer.

“I must help?—”

Baku cut him off. They were at the end of the tree now, its huge branches crawling out from the trunk and creating a passageway through to the forest and the dwindling light ahead. That was so obviously the route Theo should take, he knew that, and yet he didn’t. He shook his head, trying to understand what he was feeling, what he was seeing. Everything looked and felt wrong.

“You are going to run now, Theo,” the monster commanded, snapping him back to the moment. “A few minutes and we will be free of the forest. You will be safe. Do you understand?”

“Run away from them?” Theo asked because he was sure Baku must mean run to them.

“There,” Baku said, and he pointed to where there was a thin shaft of light. “You must get to there.”

He paused for just a moment and then he ran his hands down Theo’s face, along his ears, over his head, anywhere at all that Theo was bare and the monster could touch him, skin to skin. Theo gasped slightly from that even as the monster’s touch cleared his mind. The sorrow replaced by that craving for just long enough that Theo was able to understand what was happening.

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