Page 15 of Demon Monster's Little Human

The way her breath warms the my throat, the way her body molds too easily to my own.

I hate that she fits there, like something meant to.

I jerk my head toward the deeper tunnels. “Move.”

She doesn’t argue. She doesn’t have the strength to.

I drag her with me.

The tunnels curve into blackness, a deeper dark than what we left behind, one that presses, thick and full of something ancient. My skin prickles at the familiarity of it.

This place was never meant for escape.

Something shifts in my mind, an old memory crawling from centuries of stillness, something I should not recall yet do.

The dark elves spoke of it.

A way out.

Not a door. A stream.

Water that cuts through the lower ruins, a vein of something older than the temple itself. They talked of it when they thought I was asleep, whispered of it as if the walls could listen.

They thought I was stone. They thought I wasn’t watching.

“Where are we going?” Her voice is too soft, too human.

I don’t slow.

“Out.”

Her fingers twitch against my forearm. “You remember something.”

It’s not a question.

I do not like that she sees it.

“I remember many things,” I mutter, guiding her deeper, further into the dark, further away from the things that should have already killed her.

Her pulse flutters against my grip. Too fast.

“You think this is an escape route?” she breathes.

“I think it’s our only route.”

She exhales through her nose, barely keeping up with my pace, but she doesn’t complain.

She is stronger than she looks.

But not strong enough.

A sound slithers through the tunnel behind us, distant but closer than before.

They are still hunting.

I tug her forward, ignoring the way she fits too perfectly beneath my touch, ignoring the heat that curls in my gut at how easily she follows.

She is mine. I do not like how easily that thought comes.

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