Page 19 of Monster's Obsessive Hunger
I stumble on a hidden root, and Thorrin’s arm is there instantly to steady me. I look up at Elira, who walks ahead of us, her gaze constantly scanning the trees. The question tumbles out of me, born of a naive, crumbling worldview.
“Weren’t they the good ones?”
Elira stops walking, turning to face me in the dim, snowy light. A humorless smile touches her lips. It is not a kind expression. It is the weary, cynical smile of someone who has been disabused of such simple notions long ago.
“There are no ‘good ones’ out here, Lyssa,” she says. “There are only predators, and prey, and those who are smart enough to be a little of both. You think because the dark elves build cities and write books that they are somehow less monstrous than a Waira?” She lets out a short, bitter laugh. “Their cruelty is just more refined. A Waira will kill you because it is hungry. An elf will kill you because you are an interesting puzzle, and they want to see how your pieces fit together when they pull you apart.”
Her words are a chilling, brutal lesson. I stare at her, trying to comprehend a world without clear lines between good and evil.
“But why?” I ask, my voice small. “Why try to restrain us? They were healing me.”
“They were,” she agrees, her gaze sharpening. “And then they realized what they had. A human who had been claimed by a Waira and survived. A Keeper’s Balm, in their archaic texts. Amagical anomaly. You stopped being a patient and became a specimen. They weren’t trying to hurt you for the sake of cruelty. They were trying tostudyyou. To take samples. To unlock the secret of your bond so they could weaponize it.”
The clinical, detached nature of it is somehow worse than simple malice. I was not a person to them. I was a resource. A key to a power they coveted. The world, which had already felt so dangerous, suddenly feels infinitely more so. It is not just the wild things in the forest I have to fear, but the civilized ones in their stone towers as well. My unique connection to Thorrin doesn’t just make me precious to him; it makes me a target for everyone else.
Kaerith leads us away from the familiar paths, his movements sure and silent in the deep snow. He guides us through a narrow, hidden pass between two sheer rock faces, a route I would never have found on my own. We emerge into a secluded, bowl-shaped valley, sheltered from the wind, where the entrance to another, much larger cave system is nestled at the base of the mountain.
The moment we step inside, my breath catches. This is not a lair. This is ahome. Soft, thick furs are laid across the stone floor, not as haphazard bedding, but as deliberate rugs. The main chamber is dominated by a large, well-constructed hearth where a warm fire crackles, its light casting a gentle, welcoming glow on the walls. There is furniture—a sturdy wooden table, two surprisingly elegant high-backed chairs, shelves carved directly into the stone holding clay pots and bundled herbs. It is a space built for living, not just for surviving. The sight of it fills me with a sense of awe and a powerful, aching hope. This is what is possible. This is what Thorrin and I could have.
I take in the impossible domesticity of the scene, my gaze sweeping over the details that speak of a life built together, oftwo souls, one human and one monster, forging a sanctuary in the heart of the wilderness. Then I notice Thorrin.
He has not followed me into the heart of the room. He hangs back in the shadows near the entrance, a looming silhouette of misery. His heart-light, which had been a steady, protective gold, is now a dim, pathetic green. He is watching me, his skull-face unreadable, but his posture is one of profound shame and distance. He looks at this beautiful, warm home that Kaerith has built for Elira, and then he looks at me, and I can almost hear him thinking of his own cold, bone-strewn cave. He feels unworthy.
I am still riding the wave of relief and wonder, of the impossible hope this place has ignited in me. In my own naive bliss, I am oblivious to the depth of his torment. I turn to him, my face breaking into the first genuine, uncomplicated smile I have felt in days.
“Isn’t this place kind of… cozy?” I ask, my voice full of a lighthearted wonder that, I will realize too late, is the cruelest thing I could have said.
30
THORRIN
Iam an outsider in this place of warmth and light. I stand in the shadows just inside the entrance of Kaerith’s cave, an outcast of the cold, dark forest unable to step into the domestic world he has built. The air here smells of woodsmoke, roasted meat, and dried herbs—the scents of a home. It is a profound and painful contrast to my own lair, which smells only of damp stone, old bones, and a loneliness so ancient it has become a part of the rock itself.
Lyssa’s innocent question from moments ago echoes in the hollow space inside me.“Isn’t this place kind of… cozy?”Each word is a fresh twist of the knife in a wound that is entirely of my own making. She sees this place, this sanctuary built by a Waira who learned control, and she sees a possibility. A future. She does not yet understand that she is with the wrong monster.
I watch as Elira gently tends to the last of her wounds by the firelight, her movements efficient and sure. Kaerith is a silent, protective presence at her side, his massive form a wall of quiet strength. They are a unit, a pack of two, a monster and his mate who have found a balance I cannot comprehend. They have built a life here. And I… I have only ever known how to takethem. The guilt is a gnawing beast in my gut. I can still feel the sickening grate of Lyssa’s ribs giving way beneath the force of my passion. I can still smell the sharp, metallic scent of her blood in the snow. I broke her. I brought her because I was too weak, too uncontrolled, to keep her safe. The shame of it is a heavier weight than any mountain.
I remain frozen in the shadows, a statue of misery, unable to move forward into the light, unable to retreat back into the darkness. I can only watch Lyssa, my heart-light a dim, pathetic green, a flickering beacon of my own failure. She is so beautiful in the warm firelight, the colors of the flames dancing on her skin. She is alive, and that is all that should matter, but all I can feel is the chasm that has opened between us. I am the source of her pain, the monster in her story. How can I ever stand beside her again without seeing the memory of her cry of pain, without feeling the ghost of her broken bones beneath my claws?
Elira looks up from her work, and her sharp, intelligent eyes find me in the gloom. Her expression is one of pure, unadulterated contempt. She sees me for what I am: a pathetic, guilt-ridden creature wallowing in its own failure. Her voice is a low, cutting murmur, meant only for me, but it strikes with the force of a physical blow.
“Waira guilt is useless,” she hisses, her words slicing through the comfortable silence around the fire. “Just make it right.”
Her words are a slap, a bucket of ice water to my fevered self-pity. She is right. My guilt does nothing for Lyssa. It is a selfish, indulgent emotion that centers my own pain rather than hers. It is the mewling of a weak and pathetic creature, not the action of a protector, not the resolve of a mate. The choice she presents is a stark and brutal one. I can either find a way to become the Waira that Lyssa deserves, a creature capable of control and true care, or I can do the only other honorable thing: remove myselffrom her life entirely, so that my monstrous nature can never harm her again. Both paths feel impossible.
As if to punctuate Elira’s ultimatum, a sound drifts from the fireside. Laughter. It is Lyssa. The sound is soft, a little weak, but it is genuine. She is teasing Kaerith about a large, comfortable-looking armchair, its frame clearly carved by hand, its cushions lined with the thick, white fur of a snowiypin. “Did you make this all by yourself?” she asks, her voice dancing with a light I have not heard since before I hurt her.
Kaerith grunts, an acknowledgment that makes Lyssa laugh again. The sound, which once filled the hollowness inside me with a painful, beautiful light, now only serves to highlight the impossible distance between us. She is in a world of warmth and gentle humor, a world I have no right to enter. To hear her laugh with him, in his home… it is a new and complex kind of agony. It is not jealousy. It is the profound, crushing weight of my own unworthiness. She is healing. She is finding moments of joy. And I am the shadow in the corner, the ghost of the pain she is trying to forget.
Elira’s words echo in my mind. For now, I can do neither. I can only watch from the darkness, a loving a girl I no longer believe I have the right to claim. My heart-light, which had been a sick green, settles into a low, steady, and aching gold—the color of a love that has become its own kind of torment. I do not join her by the fire. I do not step into the light. I remain in the shadows, my decision made in the silence of my own broken heart.
31
THORRIN
The warmth of the fire is a torment. The sound of Lyssa’s soft voice, even tinged with the weakness of her recovery, is a blade twisting in my gut. I cannot stay here. I cannot sit with my rival and pretend I belong in this world of comfort and gentle affection. My presence here is a lie, a monument to my own catastrophic failure. With a quiet that is born of shame rather than stealth, I slip away from the firelight, my form melting back into the shadows from which I came. I need the cold. I need the silence. I need to be alone with the gnawing beast of my own guilt.
I find my way to the frozen lake. It is a place I have seen before, from a distance, a landmark in Kaerith’s territory. The moon is high and full, its pale, indifferent light turning the vast sheet of ice into a scrying mirror of polished obsidian. I stand at its edge, staring at the distorted, monstrous reflection that stares back. A creature with a heart that pulses with a sick, green light of self-loathing. Is that what she sees when she looks at me? Or does her impossible human heart see something else, something I lost centuries ago?
