Page 24 of Monster's Obsessive Hunger
The admission is tender. He has spent the entire night in a state of perfect, still vigilance, simply watching me breathe. His restless, eternal hunger, has found a new kind of stillness in my presence. It is the most beautiful, romantic, and terrifying thing I have ever known.
A comfortable, domestic silence settles between us as we prepare our morning meal. Or rather, as I prepare it, Thorrin attempts to help with a clumsy, endearing gravity that is a stark contrast to his usual monstrous grace. He is a vassel of immense power, capable of tearing a dark elf limb from limb, but faced with the simple task of slicing a piece of dried meat, he is utterly lost. His massive, clawed hands, which can rend stone, are comically oversized for the small knife I give him. He holds it with a delicate, painstaking care, as if he is afraid it might shatter in his grip.
I watch him, a smile playing on my lips. The tension that has defined our every interaction is gone, replaced by a new, fragile ease. He is trying so hard, his every movement a testament to his vow to never hurt me again. When he tries to fetch the heavy iron pot from the high ledge where he stores it, he misjudges his own size and sends a cascade of smaller clay bowls crashing to the floor.
He freezes instantly, his entire body going rigid, the pot held aloft in his hand. His light flickers with a familiar, anxious green. Waiting for me to flinch, to scream, to be afraid of the loud noise,of the sudden, violent movement. A week ago, I would have. My body would have reacted with a jolt of pure, instinctual terror.
But now, I just look at the shattered pottery on the floor, then up at his massive, mortified form, and I laugh. It is not the watery, uncertain laugh from the clearing. It is a full, easy sound, born of pure amusement. “It’s alright, Thorrin,” I say. “They were ugly bowls anyway.”
He slowly lowers the pot, the green in his chest softening back to a hesitant gold. “I am… not made for this,” he rumbles.
“No,” I agree, moving to his side to take the pot from him. “You’re made for tearing down fortresses and fighting monsters. But you could probably learn to cook.” I pat his massive arm. “Maybe we should start by building a proper table, so we don’t have to eat on the floor like savages.”
The empty caverns in his skull seem to brighten. “I have already begun,” he says. “In the back of the cave. I am carving one. For you.” The admission is a sweet, tangible proof of his commitment, a promise of a future built by his own monstrous, gentle hands.
He insists on helping me clean up the mess of broken pottery, his large hands surprisingly deft as he gathers the larger shards. As he reaches for the iron pan to set it by the fire, his grip slips for a fraction of a second. It clatters to the stone floor with a deafening, echoing clang that makes the whole cave ring.
He freezes again, a statue of absolute stillness, his skull-face turned to me, waiting. The silence that follows the crash is profound. And in that silence, I look at him—this terrifying, magnificent, clumsy creature who is trying so hard to learn a new way of being—and I feel a wave of affection so powerful it is a physical force.
I start to laugh. It is not a small, polite sound. It is a full, unrestrained peal of genuine, heartfelt laughter, the kind I havenot known since I was a child, safe in my mother’s home. It is the sound of a joy so pure it feels like a release.
I watch him, and a new miracle happens. He does not flinch. He does not turn away in pained confusion. His massive frame, which has been so full of a tense, coiled restraint, seems to relax. His skull-face tilts, and the rigid line of his jaw softens in a way that is not quite a human smile, but is so clearly his own version of one that my heart seems to swell in my chest.
The light within him is not a chaotic storm or a hungry fire. It is a brilliant, steady, and unwavering gold, the color of a sunrise, of pure, uncomplicated happiness. In this moment, we are not a monster and his human mate. We are just two souls, finding a strange and beautiful humor in the simple, messy act of building a life together.
As I watch him, a piece of his own clumsy attempt at a smile reflected in my own, I understand what Elira meant. The hunger is still there; I can feel its low, constant thrum in the steady crimson that now burns at the very center of his golden light. It is a part of him, an eternal, burning core. It burnswithhim now, not against him. It is not a force of destruction. It is simply the fire in the heart of the man I love.
39
THORRIN
The peace we have built is a fragile, beautiful thing. For weeks, the cave has been a home, the silence filled not with emptiness, but with the soft sounds of Lyssa’s life. Her humming as she works, the scratch of her knife as she carves figures into scraps of wood, the quiet rustle of pages as she reads to me from her mother’s book by the firelight. These are the new rhythms of my world, and they have been enough. I have been content.
But the curse is a patient and insidious thing. Today, the old hunger returns. It is not the sharp, desperate craving for her that I have come to know. It is the original ache, the deep, cold gnawing in my core that I have carried for centuries. It is a slow, creeping chill, a reminder of the physical need for blood that I have been willfully ignoring, sustained only by the warmth of her presence.
I try to ignore it. I watch her as she mends my old, tattered cloak with a steady, practiced hand, her brow furrowed in concentration. The sight of her, so focused and so beautifully domestic in my monstrous lair, should be enough to quiet any ache. But it is not. The hunger is a cold presence in my gut, a slow, insistent pressure behind my ribs.
I cannot let her see this. I cannot let her see the return of the beast she has worked so hard to soothe. I need to hunt. I need to sate this physical craving with the blood of some forest creature, to prove to myself that I can still control it, that my existence does not depend entirely on her.
I stand, my movement causing her to look up from her work, her eyes full of a soft, trusting light that is a fresh torment. “I am going on patrol,” I say, the lie a rough, unfamiliar stone in my throat. “To check the borders.”
She nods, her smile so full of unblemished faith in me that it is a physical pain. “Be safe,” she says, as if I am the one who needs protection. I am. But not from the dangers of the forest. I need protection from myself.
The forest welcomes me with its familiar, brutal silence. I move through my territory with a grim purpose, my senses, which have been softened by domesticity, sharpening once again to the hunt. The need for a kill is a cold, hard knot in my belly. This is not for pleasure, not for the thrill of the chase. This is a grim necessity, a maintenance of the monstrous machine that is my body.
The hunt is quick. I find a lonebatlaz, a vicious, fox-like pack hunter, separated from its kin. It is a worthy kill, its muscles coiled with a feral strength that would challenge any lesser predator. It snarls at my approach, its fangs bared, and pure, simple aggression. I feel a flicker of something that might be kinship. We are both predators, bound by our nature.
I do not play with it. I do not savor its fear. The kill is a swift, mechanical act, my claws finding its throat with a practiced efficiency that feels like a memory from another life. I feed, the warm, coppery taste of its blood a familiar sensation on my tongue. I drink deeply, waiting for the familiar, fleeting relief to wash over me, for the cold ache in my gut to subside, for the light inside me to hush. To let me be.
But the relief does not come. The blood is… hollow. It is a dead, tasteless thing on my tongue, like drinking dust and ash. It provides no warmth, no strength, no satisfaction. A cold dread, far more terrifying than the hunger itself, begins to seep into my bones. The curse has changed. It is no longer just hungry; it is specific.
I pull back from the carcass, a growl of horrified disbelief tearing from my throat. My body, which should be absorbing the life force of my kill, rejects it. A wave of nausea, a sensation I have not felt in centuries, convulses through me. I stumble to my knees in the snow and retch, a thick, black bile pouring from my mouth, the taste of ash and my own failure burning my throat. The curse no longer accepts substitutes. My body will not take sustenance from any source but one. It only wants her.
I stumble back to the cave, my body weak, my mind reeling with a new and terrible understanding. The physical hunger is a raging, unsatisfied fire now, stoked by the failed feeding. I am a starving man who has just been shown that the only food he can eat is the one thing he has sworn never to touch.
I crash through the entrance of the lair, a creature undone, a monster brought to its knees not by a hunter’s blade, but by the cruel, elegant design of its own curse. Then I see her.
She is standing by the fire, humming a soft tune as she stirs the stew she was making for our meal. She looks up at my sudden, violent entrance, her expression shifting from surprise to a deep, immediate concern. She sees the state of me—the weakness in my limbs, the chaotic, furious light in my chest—and she takes a step toward me, her hand outstretched.
