Page 14 of Claimed By Her Monsters

How focused and determined I was to change myself to please a group of dark gods. The various steps I took to please another, even if it invited disappointment, mockery, or pain. It didn’t matter to me back then.

As long as I pleased my dark gods, it didn’t matter if I suffered along the way.

Then I actually figured it all out. I began to understand that the many books within these walls were groomed to feed me with what was best for everyone else but myself. It wasn’t until I was introduced to Athena that I began to discover many books that sought a woman’s empowerment.

Knowledge could be a double-edged sword, one that fought against those who wished to take advantage of your lack of wisdom but also delivered too much that left you sinking in a world of overwhelming confusion.

What was right and what was wrong? Do the books lie or reveal that not all words written can be trusted?

It was the start of my desire to rebel — to contradict all that was given to me and discover my real purpose other than being chosen to encourage a set of gods' stability in this changing universe.

My feet came to a stop as I slowly took in the mess of chaos.

Books were scattered across the floor and tables while pages from various books littered the ground and furniture. It was as though a hurricane had formed in this very spot, leaving it a complete mess unlike the rest of this book paradise, but this out-of-order space wasn’t due to an elemental disaster.

It was done by one man, and he now stood before me with his back facing my intrigued face.

“These rituals are wrong. Unnecessary. Incorrect. What possible book did they discover to retrieve all this madness from? To torture an innocent child!” he screamed in anger. The intense emotion sent books flying in all directions.

They would crash in different ways — some managed to stay together, while others were so old and frail that the journey to their demise left sheets of paper whipping off the binds and fluttering through the air aimlessly.

“The only way to explain this is negligence. To taint what is ours…but we’re their gods! They must worship us to be bestowed our blessings. Why would that change? How dare they do all these despicable things. To hurt what was ours. To destroy what we’ve been waiting for all these centuries. It makes no sense! None of this makes sense!”

He tossed the remaining books in his grasp as he fought for breath. His body shook with frustration, as though he could no longer fathom why things had led down this path.

Why there was no manual to solve this difficult equation based on a group’s actions.

“Seeing you frustrated is weird,” I finally voiced, revealing my presence, which made him turn around quickly to confirm that I’d been standing here all this while.

As I waited for his spike of anger to come at me in the form of insults and bickering, I faced Aloisium, who took me in slowly from head to toe.

“You’re here?” he eventually whispered, as though my company was baffling to his intellectual mind.

“Am I not supposed to be here?” I countered and decided to stare anywhere else but him because the intensity of his gaze made me feel odd in all the wrong places. My body felt hot and tingly with his sudden attention on me.

It was the first time I’d really experienced a moment with Aloisium that wasn’t centered on some form of learning. He was my professor, after all, his defined purpose aside from our sensual nights in my dreams was to teach me all I needed to learn to be theirs.

You’d think it would focus on various techniques to please them in something as uncontrollable as my dreams, but Aloisium had taught me far more than I’d bargained for. It was as if my intelligence was what truly impressed him rather than my body, which was meant to feed his desires and keep him sane.

Maybe this was why he was acting this way.

“I’m dreaming, aren’t I?” I finally declared when he didn’t really answer me. He was clearly focused on staring at me like some sort of ghost or hindrance, but usually, my dreams went straight to the steamy portion and didn’t involve…well, talking.

“So…should I strip or something?” It felt so awkward to not fight with him. “Cause this really isn’t how my dreams start.”

“I summoned you,” he finally revealed, which forced me to look back at him to acknowledge his shock. “You came?”

“Well…I mean, I guess?” I gestured to my body. I wore a simple black dress and knee-high socks. “Though, I don’t understand why you’d summon me. Aren’t I the one who always summons you? Like when I was almost dying trying to heal Levi recently. Summoning you was obviously an accident cause I was minding my own business, doing what I’m good at seeing as I broke y’all’s expectations of me by running away and all that nonsense, but I still can’t wrap around my mind that out of all three of my sinister, impatient monsters, you’d —huh?”

My body was wrapped in frost as arms trapped me in a hug so tight, I thought my ribs would break from the tight squeeze.

“A-A-Aloisium?”Never had I felt so utterly confused by his actions until today. Being held by him in an act of affection made me worry for his own mental being. “Did you hit your head? Are you delusional? Is this my fault for avoiding you guys for so long? You’re not dying, right?”

“Why the fuck are you missing?” he demanded as he held me even tighter.

“Missing?” I felt even more confused. “I’m not missing. I’m right here.”

“No one has been able to reach you for three days, Nerissa,” he muttered into my shoulder as the truth began to settle into my mind.

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