Page 47 of A Very Monstrous Desire

“I took your vibrations when you were on the army base and again when you arrived at the infestation site. After one of your team set off your containment zone. A technology we did share.”

Theo remembered the feeling of static, and he shivered as he realised that was Baku. The monster had been so close. “I thought our scientists invented it?”

“With some help.”

He started, realising then what else the monster had just said. “The army base? You were watching me there?”

Baku nodded. “Yes. In truth, Theo, I became intrigued by you then. By the time we met my attraction for you was almost inevitable.”

“But…” Theo shook his head as he imagined the monster watching him as he trained for his mission. Theo knew he’d spent those six weeks wearing nothing but a scowl. What had the monster been thinking as he watched Theo? Had he planned there and then to fuck him? “Was I the only one who had the right vibrations?” he eventually asked.

“No,” Baku said. “There was another, the female you were with in the infestation zone. It would work with her also.”

“You didn’t take her though,” Theo said.

“My preference was you,” Baku replied. “I didn’t realise why…” He reached out and took Theo’s free hand, and Theo’s body responded to that as it had from the very beginning. It welcomed it.

“Baku…”

“At least I did not realise then,” the monster added. “I watched you and you intrigued me. And I thought that intrigue was because you were the right human for this job. I was wrong about that though. That was not the reason at all.” He paused. “And perhaps it was wrong of me to use my attraction, our attraction, in such a way. But it is done now, and I cannot change it.”

“Baku…”

“But this will work, Theo. I know it will,” he insisted. “I have tested it.”

“At the store,” Theo said because it was all making sense now. “The munching monsters...”

“They were from a much smaller infestation,” Baku said. “They were responsible for the rip in the store, the rip I pulled you through.”

“The queen?” Theo asked.

“I was able to reach her before the serum wore off,” Baku said. “But only because she was not a queen who can eat through dimensions, and she retreated back to mine.”

“How long before they realised you weren’t one of them?” Theo asked.

“Exactly twelve minutes,” the monster said.

“But we need fifteen? And you’re absolutely sure of that?”

“It is the distance that must exist between rips,” Baku replied. “They cannot form any closer to each other than that. If she wants to eat through to another dimension, she must put that distance between herself and the rip she came through.”

Theo realised then that he had never seen rips close together. Never.

“And the rest of them?”

“Some of the nightmares will be on this side but very few,” the monster said, and he gave Theo’s hand a squeeze. “They will not risk the displeasure of the rages. If we get close enough…if we move fast…and if you take the serum, Theo, it will absolutely give us enough time.”

“You hold them off and I kill her?”

“Yes.”

Theo closed his eyes, imagining how it would be to be surrounded by the munching monsters, their clicking beaks and their chattering teeth, and they would be all around him. And she, the queen, she was bigger and stronger, and she would absolutely gobble him up given the chance. He frowned slightly as he considered the queen he had seen in the clearing.

“How would I even kill her?” Theo asked.

“Your knife, straight through her brain,” Baku said.

It sounded so very simple…and yet… “I never wanted to be part of this,” Theo said.

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