Page 23 of Monster's Obsessive Hunger
His voice is a low, gravelly rasp, a sound scraped from the very bedrock of his memory, full of an ancient, weary pain. “I was human once,” he says. “A long time ago.”
The words fall into the silence, each one a stone dropping into a deep, still well. I stop breathing. Human. I try to imagine it, to picture this massive, skeletal creature as a man of flesh and blood. With skin that could feel the sun, a face that could smile, eyes that could weep. The image is impossible to conjure, yet the knowledge of it changes everything. He is not just a monster born of a curse. He is a man who was stolen from himself.
“I think…” he continues, his voice strained with the effort of reaching back across the abyss of centuries, “I think I hada sister. I can’t remember her name. Only… the color of her hair. Like firelight. And the sound of her laughter.” The words are fragmented, ghosts of a memory so old they have lost their shape. But the grief they carry is as fresh and as sharp as my own.
A forgotten sister. A lost name. A stolen life. The terrible, beautiful symmetry of our sorrows connects us in a new and deeper way. We are two souls haunted by the ghosts of a family we can no longer touch. My own grief, a constant, familiar ache in my chest, now has an echo in his. We are not just monster and human. We are two orphans, lost in the same dark wood.
My hand covers his, my small, warm fingers a stark contrast to his massive, clawed ones. His light pulses, a soft, aching blue. “We’ll remember her together,” I whisper, and the words are a vow.
He closes his eyes, a strange, human-like gesture for a creature with a skull. He leans into my touch, a slow, heavy surrender, the full weight of his ancient loneliness finally finding a place to rest. He is silent for a long moment, and then he speaks again, his voice a raw, vulnerable murmur against my skin.
“When you touch me,” he says, “the hunger listens.”
The words are a profound admission of the power I now hold, a confession of the terrifying, beautiful truth of our bond. The beast inside him, the ravenous curse that has driven him for centuries, is now tethered to me. I look at him, at the monster who is remembering how to be a man, at the predator who is learning how to be a partner. He has given me his vulnerability, his trust. I must give him something in return.
I lean closer, my lips brushing against the cold, smooth bone of his temple. My voice is a soft, determined whisper, a promise that redefines everything between us.
“Then let me teach it what to crave.”
37
THORRIN
Her promise is new law that governs my cursed existence.Then let me teach it what to crave.The words are an invitation, a challenge, and a trust so profound it makes the very bones of my frame ache with the weight of it. The fire has burned down to a bed of glowing, orange embers, casting the cave in a soft, intimate light. The tension in the air is no longer one of fear or uncertainty. It is the thick, heavy silence of two souls standing on a precipice, a breath held before a willing fall.
She rises from the furs, her movements a fluid, deliberate grace. She comes to me where I sit, a statue of stone and shadow, my entire being a coiled spring of restraint. I do not move. I do not breathe. I wait. My vow to never hurt her again is a brand on my soul, a sacred oath I will die before I break.
She stops before me, her small, human form silhouetted against the fire's glow. She raises a hand, not to my chest this time, but to my face. Her fingers, so impossibly soft, trace the hard, cold line of my jaw, the sharp edge of my cheekbone. Her touch is not one of curiosity now. It is one of ownership. A gentle, loving claim.
She leans in, and I remain perfectly still, a mountain willing itself not to tremble. She initiates the kiss. It is nothing like the brutal, desperate claiming in the forest. This is a slow, intentional press of her soft, warm lips against the cold, dead bone of my own. It is a question, an offering. And with a control that costs me every shred of my will, I answer. I do not crush, I do not take. I yield, allowing her to lead, to teach. This is not hunger. This is worship.
“I trust you,” she whispers against my mouth, and the words are both my salvation and my sentence. “I want this. I wantyou.” The simple, honest desire in her voice is a more powerful force than the curse has ever been. It is the anchor I have been missing for a thousand years.
With a slowness that is a physical agony, I rise, lifting her into my arms. She is a weightless thing, a creation of starlight and breath, and I hold her as if she might shatter at a single, careless movement. I carry her to my sleeping furs, a makeshift bed of pelts that now feels like the most sacred altar in the world. I lay her down gently, my reverence a stark, terrifying contrast to the violence I unleashed upon her in the snow. Her trust is a physical weight, a constant, burning reminder of my vow.
I begin to undress her, but not with the frantic, tearing claws of before. My movements are painstaking, my talons retracted as I work the simple fastenings of her tunic. Each inch of her pale, luminous skin that is revealed is a new kind of miracle, a new verse in a prayer I am just learning how to speak. I memorize her with my glowing gaze: the delicate curve of her collarbone, the gentle swell of her breasts, the soft, vulnerable line of her throat. This is an act of worship. The beauty of her human form, the sheer, impossible life of it, is a sight so overwhelming it makes my sockets burn with a light that is not hunger, but awe.
The craving is there, of course. It is a deep, primal thrum in my blood, a low, steady burn. But it is different now. It is not themindless need to consume. It is the desperate, soul-deep need to cherish, to protect, to prove myself worthy of the impossible gift she is offering me. When she is finally bare before me, a masterpiece of soft curves and pale skin against the dark furs, I can only stare, my ancient, gravelly voice a broken whisper. “Lyssa…”
Our joining is a slow, deliberate miracle. It is a dance of control and surrender, of a monster learning gentleness and a woman teaching him how. I move with a restraint that is a constant, agonizing effort, every muscle in my body screaming for release. But the look on her face—the soft, trusting haze in her eyes, the way her lips part on a breathless gasp of pure pleasure—is a reward greater than any satiation I have ever known.
When she cries out, the sound is not one of pain. It is a sharp, clear note of ecstasy, a symphony that fills the hollow spaces inside me and turns my thoughts into a blazing star. The beautiful, perfect sound of her pleasure is the final key, unlocking the last of my own restraint, but in a new and different way. Her release triggers my own, but it is not the violent, all-consuming explosion from before. It is a deep, resonant wave of completion, a sense of rightness, of two souls finally finding their anchor in a storm.
In the breathless quiet that follows, I hold her, my arms a protective cage around her, my face buried in the soft, fragrant silk of her hair. I hold her as if she is my tether to the world, the only thing keeping me from drifting away into the cold, gray abyss of my own monstrous nature. The hunger is still there, a distant, quiet hum beneath the overwhelming peace. But it is quiet. It is listening. It is learning a new language. The language of her pleasure, the grammar of her trust. And in this moment, held in the arms of the woman who chose to teach a monster how to love, I feel, no longer like a curse, but like a blessing.
38
LYSSA
Iwake to a soft, golden light and the feeling of being utterly, completely safe. The first sensation upon waking is not a jolt of fear or a heavy weight of grief, but a profound and gentle peace. I am warm, tangled in a cocoon of soft furs, the lingering ache in my side a distant, fading memory. The air in the cave is still and quiet, filled with the scent of dying embers and the clean, cold smell of the mountain.
My eyes flutter open, and the first thing I see is him. He is lying on his side, propped up on one elbow against the dim light of the cave mouth. He has not been sleeping. He has been watching me. The chaotic, frightening storm of light in his chest is gone. In its place is a soft, steady glow, the color of warm honey, pulsing in a slow, even rhythm that seems to match the beat of my own heart. His sockets now are not the blazing fires of a predator, but the soft, watchful lights of a guardian.
The sheer, unwavering intensity of his gaze should be unnerving, but it is not. It is a look of such profound, reverent attention that it makes my breath catch in my throat. He is looking at me as if I am a miracle, a fragile, impossible treasure that he is terrified might vanish with the morning mist. A slowwarmth spreads through my chest, a feeling so full and bright it almost hurts.
“Have you been awake all night?” I whisper, my voice a soft, sleepy thing in the quiet of the cave.
His skull-face tilts, a gesture I am coming to recognize as a sign of deep contemplation. “I did not want to miss a second,” he says.
