Page 38 of An Invocation of Monsters

“Whoa, whoa, wait.” Shit, my glass was empty. I put the whole thing aside and grabbed the bottle instead. “Let’s back up a few steps, prior to the slaughtering and burning.”

Kiraxis let out a frustrated snort. “This is the den of the Hunter. Our young will not be safe here.”

“Well, that was one of the steps I wanted to back up to. I wasn’t exactly planning on children anytime soon.” I took another long, long drink straight from the bottle. “As happy as I am to meet you, I came here to solve a family mystery, not to get myself knocked up.”

It was almost comical how rapidly he drooped. Even his ears went down.

“I am… not impressive to you?” he asked mournfully.

I was screwing all of this up. I had to remember that he was a monster.

He was not like me; he hadn’t grown up with human conventions. I had no idea how the monsters had grown up, but judging from his self-professed positive qualities of slaughtering and burning, it hadn’t been a cute childhood full of sunshine and rainbows.

I had to remember that the Void was another world. One where there were very real predators.

“You are amazingly impressive,” I said, reaching out to touch his arm. Muscles flexed beneath my hand, and Horny Elle whimpered. “We just… do things in different ways.”

He perked up a little at the compliment, but before I let Horny Elle take over, I needed answers.

“Who is the Hunter?” I asked. I put the bottle to my lips again. As much as I wanted clarity, I also was dealing with a monster who had decided he wanted me pregnant right now. Sobriety could take second place to that. “Why are they a danger?”

Kiraxis shook his head, letting out one of those rumbling growls I felt in my chest. “The Hunter believes it owns the wood. It does not. The wood has, and always will, belong to the Void. It wishes to find us. To keep us. But we will not be contained.”

“No, of course not,” I said absently. “You’re far too strong to be contained.”

I was beginning to think that these monsters truly did not know who the Hunter was; only that someone in this Lodge meant them ill.

And out of this small group, there was one person I knew of who contained enough hate and rage to intend a whole lot of harm.

I felt another low grumble, rattling my bones, and realized Kiraxis was purring under my hand from the compliment.

“I am glad you see sense,” he told me. “My strength is undeniable.”

But we were so different, I couldn’t help but wonder… “Aren’t there, um, female Mlul’dra? Why choose a human?”

He twitched a massive shoulder in a shrug that could’ve knocked me over easily. “The females of my species are far more violent than the males,” he told me. “Very few survive the middle years to adulthood. They are angry when they mate. And… I have heard stories. Other monsters have taken human female mates. They find them to be soft and warm and enthusiastic, the highest pleasure to mate with. My cock would make you scream with joy, not claw my face off.”

My cheeks lit up flaming red.

We wants it, my preciousss, Horny Elle moaned.

I will throw your ass into Mount Doom, I told her.

“I do not smell a male on you,” Kiraxis said, sniffing the air around me. His breath tickled my neck, sending my hair flying. “You are not mated to a human. Why do you resist my allure? I smell your desire for me.”

“Nope.” I booped his soft, flattened nose before he could start sniffing lower than my neck, and the monster’s six eyes all widened with shock. “I’m a person, not a prize. I want to be treated as such, not grabbed and groped without anyone asking me first. I’m not used to people touching me.”

“I have not grabbed you, my Elle,” Kiraxis insisted. He held up his arms, flexing his claws. “I did not want to risk hurting you.”

“I know. And I appreciate that.” I really did. Even taking Drazan’s enthusiasm into consideration, these monsters had so far been way more considerate of me than most human men.

And, since Drazan didn’t know my hair wasn’t a mating call, he got props for putting me down when I asked him to. Plenty of humans couldn’t take no for an answer the same way these monsters could.

“I wouldn’t mind getting to know you much better, I just… have to get used to being touched.” I looked at my ungloved hand on his shoulder, feeling velvet beneath my palm. “There’s something wrong with me. It’s made it very hard to connect.”

Kiraxis shook his massive head. “No, no. There is nothing wrong with you. You are perfect as you were made.”

Though his simplistic way of stating things made him seem almost innocent, there was a keen intelligence at work behind his eyes. There was no guile, only the truth as he saw it.

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