Page 20 of Enticing Monsters

“Right this way,” he says, not bothering to check us in or even ask who we’re coming to see.

As we move down the hallway, the white tiles so meticulously polished I can see my grim reflection staring back at me, I peer at all of the open doors.

Supernaturals of every species lie on cots.

Some are connected to machines. Others are surrounded by healers. And others still are staring blankly at a wall, their expressions devoid of any feeling or emotion.

These are all fae who have been…broken. That’s the only word I can think to use. This assisted living facility has been around for over ten years and serves to help fae who can’t be healed through magical or traditional means.

Like my father.

Whenever anyone asks me what happened to him, I tell them he left. Hell, I even say that tomyself, as if I can somehow will it into existence by believing it hard enough. But reality is a double-edged sword just waiting to stab you in the gut when you least expect it.

His room is the last door on the left, and Mother doesn’t hesitate to walk inside, her abnormally tall high heels clanking against the tiled floor. She stops when she’s beside his bedside, staring down at a face that is so similar to mine, it’s like looking in a funhouse mirror.

This… This is what I’m going to look like when I’m older. At one point, that thought filled me with icy dread before I reminded myself that I don’t have to act like my father just because I look like him.

His olive complexion is a striking contrast to his dark hair, though the messy strands are currently streaked with gray. He used to be large—his body bulging with muscle—but time has withered him away, turning him into a husk of a man.

His dark eyes stare vacantly at the ceiling, not even blinking when my mother brushes her hand across his cheek.

“Gage,” she snipes. “Come say hello to your father.”

I swallow around the razor blade lodged in my throat and venture a single step closer. I hate staring into the face of the man I despise more than life itself.

The man I broke.

Destroyed.

Sure, his body may still work, but his mind… His mind is shattered, thanks to me.

Thanks to the nightmare I pulled him into, where he has no chance of escaping.

It’s why others fear me, why I’m terrified to tell Serafina the truth about what I am. Sometimes, I believe the supernatural world is like a balance, and every weight that’s added begins to tip the scale. It’s why my powers cancel each other out—I can heal, but I can also destroy.

I’m a baku, an Unseelie fae who can heal anyone with my magic.

But who can also trap anyone—human and fae alike—in a nightmare of my own making.

Once someone’s trapped in the confines of their own mind, there’s no escaping. They’re stuck in that prison until their bodies eventually fail or their hearts stop from the terror crashing through them.

It’s what I did to my father, after all.

So I stand there, staring down at the man who worked his entire life to destroy me but ended up being destroyed himself, and I wonder if my mother’s right. If I’m truly the monster she always accuses me of being.

Maybe I am. Maybe I’m not. All I know is that I don’t regret my actions for even a moment, and I’ll do it again if it means protecting the people I love. I’ll embrace all of the darkness inside of me, all of the wispy shadows that coil around my heart like slithering snakes, and I won’t hesitate.

Not again.

Not ever.

CHAPTER SEVEN

SERAFINA

Tristan makes spaghetti and meatballs for dinner, and much to my relief, actually allows us to help him in the kitchen.

It reminds me of the family meals I have at my own house, though the food here is actually edible rather than my mother’s insane concoctions. The last time we had spaghetti at home, my mother made the pasta with some kind of seaweed gel that was like trying to eat my own moisturizer.

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