Page 99 of Demon Monster's Little Human

Her voice is soft. Too soft.

I snap my head up and freeze.

She stands over me.

Eyes glowing.

Not hers. Not Liora’s.

Amara’s.

My breath catches, the past and present overlapping, colliding, tearing me apart.

I reach for my dagger. I don’t think. I react.

A snarl rips from my throat. “What are you? What do you think your doing?”

Liora gasps, just for a moment. Then she blinks.

The glow is gone.

She staggers back, shaking her head, touching her face as if she, too, felt it.

Her lips part, but nothing comes out.

I rise slowly, my every muscle coiled and trembling, my claws aching with the need to strike. To end whatever this is before it’s too late.

But I don’t.

Because as I stare at her, at the way she stares back at me with fear and something else.

I realize something.

She’s terrified too.

If she’s afraid, then she doesn’t understand it either.

Which means whatever is happening to her, is happening to us both.

I have no idea how to stop it.

42

LIOR

Iwake to the sound of my own ragged breathing, my body tangled in damp furs, my skin burning cold. The cave is too still. The fire has long since burned down to embers, casting little light.

But I am not alone.

I feel her.

Not Dain.

Her.

The presence coils at the edges of my consciousness, brushing up against my thoughts like a whisper I can’t quite grasp. At first, I think it’s the dark presence again, lurking, waiting. But the warmth curling through me is different. Familiar.

Liora.

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