Page 19 of Demon Monster's Little Human

She’s feeling.

A mistake.

I step closer, keeping my voice low. “We leave.”

Her head jerks toward me, her expression snapping from raw emotion to hard resistance.

“You can’t be serious.”

I exhale through my teeth. I am not in the mood for this.

“We are two people, against an encampment of dark elves and whatever else they’ve bred in this pit.” My claws flex at my sides. “They will kill you. They will kill me. And if we’re lucky, they’ll make it quick.”

She shakes her head, refusing to look away from the mine, from the chains, from the broken people bent beneath their cages.

“You want to leave them here?” she whispers.

“Yes.”

The word lands like a slap.

Her jaw tightens.

“Of course you do,” she says, and it isn’t just anger. It’s disappointment.

It grates against my nerves.

I step in closer, forcing her to tilt her chin up, forcing her to look at me instead of them.

“You think you’re strong enough for this?” I murmur. “To save them? To fight for them? You couldn’t even stand on your own an hour ago.”

She stiffens. I feel her blazing anger, the way it coils tight inside her, simmering beneath the fragile thread of her control.

I lean closer. “You want to die for them?”

She doesn’t flinch.

That angers me more than it should.

“They’re just like me,” she whispers, voice hoarse. “How can you stand here and just?—”

My hand moves before I think.

Fingers wrapping around her jaw, tilting her face up further, forcing her to see me, not them, not anyone else.

“You aren’t them.” My voice is lower now, something sharper beneath it. Something dangerous.

Her pulse stutters beneath my touch.

Her eyes flicker—not just with fear. With defiance. With something that slams against me, pushes back, refuses to be overpowered.

It infuriates me. It pulls at me.

I feel it again—that slow, possessive thing in my gut, curling too deep, wrapping around my instincts like a sickness.

The artifact hums louder.

My head jerks toward the camp, toward the source.

---