Page 33 of Monstrous Heat
The soldier reached down and hauled me up by my arm, his grip vicious. Blinking furiously, I stared at the thing I’d tripped over. A lumpy sack. Stained in red. A sack of meat?
No. A body.
Horrifically fascinated, I couldn’t look away. The head and shoulders were mostly gone, leaving a midsection that looked like a sack rather than a once-living body. One boot was gone, along with most of the lower leg.
Kroktl had done that. His creature. He’d ripped a man apart like he was just a side of meat.
I hoped he did the same to this asshole dragging me along.
Everyone was shouting, or bombs were going off. Clamor in my head. Dizzy and sick, I couldn’t get my feet to work together. Snyder came back and grabbed my other arm, jerking on my shoulder, his mouth moving. But I couldn’t hear his words over the thunderous din in my head.
Something brushed against me. Turning my head, I watched the scene unfold like a slow-motion movie. A dark shape. Scales. So close that I could see the pattern. Mottled dark green and black with specs of bright red like blood. Red Raptor Rex. A tail slithered by, thick and long, very much like an alligator. Someone screamed. Teeth crunched. I heard the splinter of bones like gravel crunching underfoot. Hot, wet blood splattered my face.
The creature. Kroktl. I tried to reconcile the man I’d fucked all night and this beast. He was so much bigger than I’d thought. Huge. Towering over the soldiers. Legs hung out of his mouth. One was bandaged. Still kicking. The monster pinned another man to the ground with one massive hind leg, digging claws into the soldier’s abdomen. I remembered how long those claws were. How sharp.
The soldier screamed and kicked, tangled up in his own intestines. The monster’s tail slashed hard to the side, catching the other soldier in the face. His head exploded. It was like an Internet video of a watermelon blowing up. Only with teeth and scales and claws coated in blood and brains and guts.
I swayed. Unable to look away. Unable to move.
Someone jerked on my arm. Heaved me over a shoulder. Jolting my throbbing head so much it was all I could do not to throw up. A gray haze settled over me like cobwebs. Distantly, I realized that I was sliding into shock, but I didn’t know what to do to stop it. I couldn’t think with my head splitting open.
Dumped down on the ground like a sack of potatoes. Not the ground—something hard. Metal. Snyder climbed up beside me. Whirring sounds, wind rushing around. The ground started to move away.
Helicopter. He’d asked the man to get him to the helicopter.
Oh my god. Someone was trying to pull me up off the floor. Belt me into a harness.
Trap me. Carry me away from Kroktl.
I could see him now in all his monstrous glory. Red eyes burning, he glared up at the helicopter. Huge mouth gaping open with impossibly huge teeth. Thick, powerful thighs. Vicious talons raking the ground. He crouched and exploded upward, razor claws extending. So close, I could almost smell his scent. I stared into those awful eyes and tried to see the man.
Not the monster. Not the creature that’d turned a person into a meat sack. Or pulled out a man’s intestines or bit another soldier in half.
He landed hard, shaking the ground. Jostling the torn apart bodies that littered the ground all around him. Dead. They were all dead. Every man who hadn’t made it to the helicopter. Ten? Twenty? I wasn’t sure.
Throwing his head back he bellowed so loudly that I could hear it even over the helicopter’s blades. Fury and agony, he screamed, tail lashing, claws raking the ground. I could almost hear his voice in my head.I’ll find you. I’ll follow you.
He stilled. Lowered his head. His tail curled up around his legs.
Shame? Acceptance? Sacrifice?
I wasn’t sure. But all the fight seemed to go out of him. Maybe he thought I’d be better off without him. Or worse, maybe he thought Iwantedto get away. Maybe he thought I was so scared of his creature that I’d rather be on this helicopter with the sleezy professor who’d been secretly working with drug smugglers than stay behind with a horrible creature like him.
My vision blurred again, but this time it was tears. I couldn’t bear the thought of him being alone. Convinced that I’d fled him. That I feared him. Especially after all the care he’d shown me already.
In one night, he’d given me more passion and care than any man in my entire life. Granted, the bar was on the ground in that regard. The men I knew were all trash. But he’d done his best to give me a choice, even when his own instincts drove him to mate. Yes, my human brain still cringed at that word. I didn’t know what the future held with an alien creature like him.
His life was dangerous. Complex in ways I couldn’t even comprehend. He had enemies in his own squad, trapped on a planet that was just as alien to him as he was to me. Yet no one had ever touched me with more tenderness and devotion in my entire life.
Before I could tell myself that I was crazy, I moved closer to the door, gripping the metal frame for dear life. How fast were we flying? How far away was the ground? It looked like twenty feet or more. But it didn’t matter.
Hewas down there.
“Kroktl!”
He jerked his head up, red eyes locked on me. Leaping into a dead run, he quickly caught up, keeping pace with the helicopter. My stomach quivered. The fall was probably going to kill me, but I could almost hear his voice in my head.
I got you.
