Page 3 of Demon Monster's Little Human

DAIN

Pain.

It isn’t the sharp kind, the fleeting bite of a blade or the sting of an open wound. This pain is deep, rotted, embedded in the marrow of me—a sickness that stretches through every inch of my flesh, filling the cracks of my body with something old, something ruined.

I am trapped.

I have been trapped.

I will not be trapped again.

A sound pierces the silence, sharp as a blade, a gasping intake of breath that is not mine.

There is another.

A threat.

Something shifts beneath me, around me—stone breaking, chains rattling, a prison unraveling. Centuries sloughs off like crumbling ruins, my senses clawing back into my body piece by jagged piece. My skin tightens, stone flaking off in burning sheets, raw flesh pulsing beneath. My wings, stiff and starved of movement, unfurl in jerking spasms, half-numb, heavy with disuse.

But my mind—my mind is a storm, fragmented and vicious, shattered memories bleeding into each other in a tangle of time and rage.

Who am I?

My fingers curl against the stone, claws scraping against the jagged edges of the broken seal. A throne. A war. A woman with fire in her hands and betrayal on her tongue. I see her, I feel her—she did this to me.

A hiss escapes me, low and ragged, dragging against a throat too long unused. It turns into a growl. A snarl. Something guttural and hungry.

The presence in the room shifts. A tremor in the darkness. A fragile breath,a pulse racing too fast, thrumming like a rabbit’s in a snare.

I smell her fear.

It snaps something loose inside me.

I lurch forward, muscles shrieking in protest, my entire form raw and aching, but I push past the agony. My head snaps up, molten gold eyes locking onto her—the figure standing frozen near the ruined throne.

Small. Soft. Human.

Purna.

The word erupts from some buried part of me, dripping with venom, with violence, with a hatred so deep I feel it deep in my core. They did this. They caged me. They stole centuries from me.

She flinches back, bare feet slipping against the dust-slick stone. The dim torchlight flickers over her face, illuminating wild storm-gray eyes that seem too large for her face, too bright, too familiar.

No, I do not know her.

I lunge.

She stumbles away, a strangled noise breaking from her lips, a plea, a curse, a whisper—it doesn’t matter. I am on her in a breath, my claws slamming into the wall on either side of her head, stone cracking under the force. She trembles between the cage of my arms, the stench of blood, sweat, defiance curling around me like a challenge.

I could crush her. Should crush her.

But I don’t.

Something stops me.

It is small at first, a flicker of hesitation that I shove down, baring my teeth as I curl my claws around her throat, just enough to feel the rapid flutter of her pulse. So fragile. So easy to break.

But my fingers won’t tighten.

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