Page 26 of Demon Monster's Little Human

The wind shifts, carrying something faint, almost familiar.

Smoke. Wood burning. And something richer. Something earthy, musky, alive.

I pause, inhaling slowly.

Not human.

The realization coils in my stomach like a warning.

I hesitate.

My legs buckle, my body giving in to exhaustion, and I no longer have the strength to care.

11

DAIN

The fire crackles low, flames licking over blackened wood, casting flickering shadows across the gathered figures.

They are my kind, or what remains of them. Gargoyles, carved from stone and flesh, survivors of a world that has tried to erase us. They sit hunched around the fire, broad forms shifting, clawed hands wrapped around raw cuts of meat, their eyes glinting in the dim light, sharp, calculating.

I should feel at home here.

I don’t.

The fire smells wrong. Smells like something that shouldn’t be burning. Like flesh. Human flesh.

The moment she stumbles into the camp, I feel her before I see her.

My body goes still. My breath slows and my muscles lock.

Liora.

She’s in the same ruined dress, soaked and tattered, clinging to her form in a way that speaks of cold and exhaustion. Her hair is a mess of tangles, filthy from the river, from the mountain, from survival.

She doesn’t belong here. Yet, she is here.

I don’t understand why that sends something sharp through me, something that tastes too much like possession.

I say nothing. I do not move.

She doesn’t see me. She only sees them.

The way they turn toward her. The way they notice.

One of them stands.

Rhogar.

His bulk shifts as he rises to his full height, a scar carved from his brow down to his cheekbone, one eye missing, the other gleaming molten in the firelight. He isn’t as large as me, but he’s close.

His gaze lands on her like a claim.

Something in me snarls. I crush it before it can surface.

She should not matter to me.

Rhogar tilts his head, stepping closer. His voice is smooth, amused. “Well, well. What do we have here?”

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