Page 18 of Monster's Obsessive Hunger
She finally looks at me, her eyes dark with the weight of her own hard-won wisdom. Her next words are a cold, sharp splash of reality, washing away the last of my romantic, girlish notions.
“You’re not healing from a wound,” Elira says, her voice leaving no room for illusion. “You’re recovering from beingclaimed. What he did to you was not just an accident. It was an anointing. The first of your scars in a life that will be full of them if you choose to stay with him.”
Her words are a chilling, brutal truth. They reframe everything. The violent, passionate encounter in the clearing was not just a moment of lost control. It was a fundamental act of possession, an indelible marking of my body and soul. I am not just a girl who was hurt; I am a creature who has been claimed by a predator, and my life, my very being, has been irrevocably altered.
Tears well in my eyes, hot and thick. They are not tears of self-pity, but of the overwhelming, terrifying gravity of the path that lies before me. I could leave. The thought is a clear, simple path in my mind. I could heal, thank this strange, fierce woman for her help, and walk away. I could find my way back to the world of humans, find a quiet village where no one knows my name, and try to build a life from the ashes of the one I lost. A safe life. A normal life.
But the thought of that life is the thought of a gray, colorless world. A world without the impossible, chaotic beauty of his heart-light. A world without the profound feeling of being truly, completely seen. A world without Thorrin. The thought of leaving him to his guilt, to his ancient, crushing loneliness, is a pain far sharper, far deeper, than any broken rib.
I look at Elira, my voice thick with tears but firm with a resolve that feels like it’s being forged in the very core of my soul. “I don’t want to run from it,” I say.
Elira holds my gaze for a long moment, and I see a flicker of something in her expression—not pity, but a kind of grim, weary respect. She understands the choice I am making. She has made it herself. She looks away, toward the cold, dark stone of the wall, and her shoulders slump just a fraction, a silent acknowledgment of the heavy burden I am choosing to carry.
“Then you’ll need to learn how to live with it,” she says. A final verdict. The words are not a comfort, but they are a truth, and in this strange, monstrous world, truth is a far more valuable commodity. Not some foolish girl who was broken by a beast. I will be a survivor. I will learn to live with the storm, to dance on the edge of the blade. I will learn to love my monster, not in spite of what he is, but because of it.
28
THORRIN
The wait is a new kind of hell, a torture of stillness and silence that grates against every fiber of my being. Three days have passed since I carried Lyssa to this place. Three days of pacing a trench in the snow outside the unyielding stone walls, of listening to the wind sigh through the pines and imagining it is her final, fading breath. My guilt is a physical weight, a shroud of cold ash that smothers the burning core within, leaving only a dim, sick green. Kaerith keeps his own vigil, a silent, menacing shadow at the far end of the gate, his presence a constant, burning judgment. We do not speak. There is nothing to say. We are two ancient beasts, bound to this place by the fragile life of a single human.
The quiet of the outpost is what unnerves me most. It is an unnatural calm, a civilized silence that feels more menacing than the honest, brutal quiet of the deep woods. Civilized creatures have civilized cruelties, and I have just delivered Lyssa into their hands. My trust in Elira is a thin, fraying thread, the only thing keeping me from tearing these gates from their hinges and razing this entire settlement to the ground. But the fear that my own monstrous intervention would doom Lyssa keeps my clawsin check. I am helpless. A predator forced to be patient. It is the most profound agony I have ever known.
Then I hear it. The sound is faint at first, muffled by stone and snow, but my senses, honed by centuries of listening for the heartbeat of prey, catch it instantly. A scream. Sharp, terrified, and unmistakably Lyssa’s.
Every promise I made to Kaerith, every shred of hard-won restraint, evaporates in a single, violent instant. The green light explodes into a supernova of pure, protective fury. A roar rips from my throat,it is not a warning, but a declaration of war. I do not hesitate. I do not plan. I charge. The ancient wood of the gate splinters under the impact of my shoulder, the iron hinges screaming in protest before they are torn from the stone. The elven guards on the other side have only a moment to register my presence, their violet eyes wide with shock, before I am upon them. One goes down with a shattered breastplate, another’s throat is torn out before he can draw his blade. I am a force of nature, a storm of bone and wrath, and my only purpose is to get to her.
I burst into the healing chamber, and the scene that greets me is one not of mending, but of violation. There is a scent of ozone and a cold, clinical malice. The elven magus and two of his acolytes are not tending to Lyssa. They are restraining her on the stone table, along with Elira, who fights against them with a fierce, desperate strength. Lyssa is conscious, her eyes wide with terror, her body trembling. Glowing, ethereal tendrils of magic snake from the healers’ hands, not to knit bone, but to probe, to sample.
“The essence is remarkable,” the magus is murmuring, his face alight with a cold, scientific zeal. “A true Keeper’s Balm. The research will be invaluable.”
Research. They are not healers. They are scholars of a cruel and terrible kind, and my Lyssa is their specimen. The roar thaterupts from my chest is a physical force, shaking the crystals from the ceiling. I slam into the closest acolyte, my claws finding the soft flesh of his throat, and the sterile chamber is suddenly painted in the warm, honest color of blood.
The other two turn on me, their faces masks of cold fury. Enchanted blades, shimmering with a purple, corrupting light, materialize in their hands. Wards of pure force spring into existence between us, designed to repel and contain my violence. I crash against the first ward, the impact sending a jarring shock through my bones, but the barrier holds.
Just as the magus raises his hand to unleash another, more powerful spell, a silent, deadly shadow detaches itself from the doorway behind me. Kaerith. He moves with a liquid, terrifying grace, his own heart-light a furious, blazing white. He is no longer my rival, my judge. He is an ally. He is bone and wrath incarnate. He hits the wards from the side, his raw power shattering them like spun glass. We are a terrifying, impossible alliance—two rival kings, two ancient monsters, fighting side-by-side to protect what is ours. Magic lashes at us, enchanted steel scrapes against our bones, but we are relentless. We are the primal fury of the mountain unleashed, and this cold, sterile room cannot contain us.
The battle is a chaotic symphony of screaming elves, shattering magic, and the guttural roars of two Waira united in a singular, violent purpose. But through it all, my focus is absolute. Lyssa. I see nothing else. I fight my way through the press of bodies and the crackle of arcane energy, my every movement aimed at closing the distance to her. I see an acolyte reach for her with a glowing, needle-like instrument, and with a final, desperate surge of strength, I am there. I bat him aside, the elf flying across the room to crash against the far wall with a sickening crunch.
I reach her side, my claws, still slick with elven blood, moving with impossible gentleness as I tear away the magical restraints that bind her. She is sobbing, her body trembling with shock and terror, but the moment she is free, she throws her arms around my neck, clinging to me as if I am the only solid thing in a world that has just tried to tear her apart. I cradle her against my chest, a low, rumbling sound of comfort vibrating in my ribs, my massive form a living shield around her.
Across the room, Kaerith has reached Elira. He hauls her close, his fury now a cold, lethal thing. He turns his blazing white gaze on the last surviving elf, the magus, who cowers in the corner, his robes stained with the blood of his acolytes. Kaerith’s voice is a low, deadly whisper that promises an eternity of pain.
“Touch her again,” he snarls, the words a final, absolute sentence, “and I’ll salt your entire bloodline.”
The threat is a promise of a vengeance so complete it will echo through generations. The magus simply stares, his mind broken by the primal, terrifying force of two monsters who have just reclaimed their mates. We stand there, the four of us, a strange and terrible family forged in the crucible of this battle. Two broken humans, and the two monsters who love them enough to burn the world down to keep them safe. The fight is over. The outpost is ours.
29
LYSSA
The aftermath of the battle is a ringing silence. I am cradled against Thorrin’s chest, his body a solid, comforting wall of bone and warmth against my back. His heart-light is a steady, protective gold, a beacon in the blood-spattered gloom of the elven chamber. Across the room, Kaerith stands with Elira, his arm a possessive bar across her waist, his own light a furious, blazing white.
“We have to go. Now.” Elira’s voice is a sharp, practical blade that cuts through the shock. She pulls away from Kaerith’s protective embrace, her expression already shifting from victim to commander. “More will come. They’ll have sentries on the walls, and they won’t be as unprepared this time.”
Thorrin’s arms tighten around me, a silent agreement. We move as a strange, monstrous unit, a family forged in a crucible of violence. The two Waira flank us, their massive forms a terrifying, protective escort as Elira and I hurry through the outpost’s now-shattered gate. The falling snow is a clean, white blanket, a futile attempt to cover the ugliness of what just happened.
As we plunge back into the concealing darkness of the forest, a profound confusion begins to war with my relief. My body still aches, but the pain is a distant echo. My mind is a whirlwind. The elves in the outpost were healers. They represented a kind of civilization, a pocket of order in the wild, brutal world of the Ridge. I had thought they were, if not good, then at least a known quantity, governed by rules and logic. But their eyes held a cold, clinical cruelty that was somehow more terrifying than Thorrin’s primal hunger.
