Page 55 of My Monster's Keeper
“Huh.” Frost toes the pile of ash.
“It just happened,” I sulk.
Puppy giggles manically on the roof.
“I think perhaps you should let us-”
I whirl on Wilder and find him smiling at me. My anger fades as he puts a finger under my chin and tilts my head up.
“Let us apprehend the suspects for you, warrior,” he murmurs and leans down, brushing his lips against mine.
I’m frozen, and my stomach has fallen from a drop a mile high, but one brush of the lips from the Lord of the Hunt and I’m weak, I’m brain dead. He’s magic.
Gah!
“Okay,” I find myself agreeing.
“Just wait right here, and we’ll bring them to you,” Wilder purrs. “Let us flush out the prey for you.”
I stare up at him, dazed, and why is the air around him sparkling? Oh, that’s me. I need to blink. With effort, I tear my face from his, clear my throat, and nod. Wilder turns away, and when he comes back, he reaches for my hand and puts my knife back into my palm. I swoon.
“Okay,” I whisper.
The four of them disappear. Cold air rushes in from the front door, and the house throbs with a violence, taking on a darker and more sinister tone. The longer the silence drags on, the more uneasy I get. I cautiously step into the house defying that feeling.
A movement in the corner of the room has me glancing that way, but my instincts scream that something is behind me at the exact same time. I throw myself away from both, hitting the side of the wall.
A shadow appears, its orange eyes spark, and when it exhales, orange lights up the back of its huge throat. It’s easily close to ten feet tall with horns that scrape the roof, raining paint down on us.
He’s built like a brick shit house. But perhaps that old adage of ‘the bigger they are, the harder they fall’ is still true. Guess I’m going to find out.
“Omega,” he whispers, and the sound is the one you hear in your nightmares before you wake screaming, it’s the sound when you’re alone in a dark street, and there’s no one around, it’s the sound when you wake up and find your front door open, and you know you locked it.
Fear locks my throat closed.
I take a step to the side, giving myself more room. He reaches out, slowly, slow enough that I can easily dodge the blow.
“Omega, you don’t belong here. You belong on your knees, waiting for a death blow.”
I raise my eyebrows, surprised at this familiar line. “We haven’t even been on a date yet,” I say with a smirk. “At least take me to coffee.”
He snarls in frustration. “Your time of freedom is limited, Omega. It is time to fulfill your destiny.”
I back away, feeling something other than amusement. This is the third time I’ve heard this line of conversation, and it’s starting to get under my skin.
“What destiny?” I ask warily.
The demon’s eyes flare with triumph, and he smiles wider, showing that gaping orange hole that is his throat. “You will kneel and die as the consort to-”
Stix launches between us, shoving me back. His long fingers rip through flesh and into the body of the shadow in front of me.
“I warned you, Briox. I warned you not to cross me.”
My shadow sounds different. He sounds monstrous and so very deadly. He pulls pieces of shadows off the monster in front of him, causing the creature to scream.
“You should never have come here,” Stix growls, low and menacing.
I watch as the shadow monster collapses and then vanishes. Stix is almost eight feet tall, he’s not hunched like he normally is, but I realise this is the real him. I make a sound, a small, weak sound of awe in my throat.
