Page 27 of Monsters of Desire and Nightmares of Passion

Some rules of the world can’t be changed. One of them is that sex seals the deal between a human and a Shadow. Ivy and I have made love many times. She’s in my blood and under my skin, a part of me.

“Ivy.” I call out.

Mrez appears and points at me.

“What’s wrong?”

Mrez touches his face and turns his appearance into a more human one. Instead of the red eyes, they’re now brown. His face now has that disgustingly warm, human shade instead of the usual monster grey.

“Okay. I understand. I need to make myself look more human.”

As I gaze down at my naked form, especially the six arms, I realize this would come as a shock to her, and she’s already hurt. I’ll have to morph into my human appearance before Ivy wakes up.

“Ivy, please wake up.”

Nothing. I press my head to her chest, listening for a heartbeat that’ll tell me she’s alive.

“Her heart is beating,” I say with relief to Mrez. “She probably hit her head.”

As I touch the back of Ivy’s head, warm blood coats my hand. I pull her gently onto my lap, hold her body with two sets of arms to keep her stable, and cradle her head with my upper arms. My mouth fills with saliva. Leaning close to the split skin on her head, I spit the healing saliva on the wound, then use my forked tongue to clean the wound and push the tissue together. After a few minutes of licking and spitting, the bleeding stops. Ivy moves in my arms. I hold her. It’s a deep, warm feeling I’ve missed for too long.

“Mmm.” The sound she makes is not articulated. It’s soft, lost.

“Ivy, my love. It’s me. Khal. Please wake up.”

Her eyelids flutter. She has a hard time pushing them open. I’m hoping to see joy, recognition, anything except terror in her eyes.

The scream she releases chills me to the bone. I open my arms to show her she’s free and not a captive.

“Ivy, it’s me. Don’t be scared.”

She pushes away, half crawling and half dragging herself toward the wall, her eyes wide open and staring at me in terror. Her eyes dart around the room. The doctor is dead, lying on the floor in a puddle of blood, his severed dick a few feet away, looking like a discarded, bloody, dirty tissue.

“What, what?” she asks, terrified and confused.

“That’s nothing. I took care of him. I’ll never allow anyone to touch you, my heart, never. I was stupid. I can’t be without you.”

Ivy throws me another confused look. “Please, please don’t kill me. I just… I just want to go. Please.”

The fear in her voice hurts me. Our first in-flesh meeting after such a long absence is not at all the way I imagined.

Ivy

I wake up warm and safe. Something soft touches my skull, but it isn’t unpleasant. In fact, it must be healing my wounds since they don’t hurt anymore.

What happened?

Why did I faint?

All those fucked up memories of Dr. Martin trying to kill and rape me fill my mind as I open my eyes. My sight is blurred, and I want to vomit. I must have a concussion from when Dr. Martin threw me against the wall.

Fear grows deep inside me. I shiver, afraid for my life, knowing this evening is going to get so much worse. Four arms hold me down and wrap around me. They end in long claws covered with sticky red blood. The arms are black. Not quite. The skin is covered in tattoos, tattoos I can’t explain, images that don’t resemble anything I’ve ever seen before.

The creature holding me releases its grip.

My body shivers and I scream, “Please, please.”

Tears run down my cheeks and dripping snot collects above my upper lip. I don’t care. This is madness. I want to get away from whatever this is. Far away. I want to be home, on my reading chair with Powder on my lap, watching me eat stuff that’s not good for me.

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