Page 35 of Monstrous Heat
Another red flag. Gently, I nudged the bottom of the water bottle, encouraging her to drink more. She took a few more swallows but had to rest again.
She studied me openly, without the same fear as when I first found her. Though I didn’t think she was ready for me to shift in front of her. “You’re definitely bigger. Wow. You’re showing your T-rex side.”
There was so much I wanted to say. I wanted to crush her against me with gratitude. Relief. Joy. Admiration. Adoration.
She’d jumped out of a helicopter with complete trust that I would catch her. Me. She trusted me. Just last night, she’d flinched away from me and ran as soon as I turned my back. Today, she’d touched me and even rested her head against me. She’d been in my mouth. Her entire body.
Ecstasy rolled through me at the memory of her skin on my tongue. Not that I wanted her to take such a risk again, but oh, the memory would replay in my mind every time I closed my eyes. The taste of her skin. The softness of her luscious body. The delicate scrap of my teeth on her tender abdomen. It was all I could do not to crank my jaws wide again and see if she’d take another jump on my tongue.
Crazy. Stupid.
She was alive. That’s all I needed.
Though I wouldn’t ever forget.
NATALIE
A monster crouched beside me. A creature that I’d seen tear men apart like they were toys and turn them into bloody chunks. That same creature crouched close beside me. Close enough to seize me in one big gulp.
Instead, all he did was remind me to take another drink of water.
I could still feel the leathery texture of his skin—hide—against my cheek. Distinct knobs of his scales. The rich, musky scent that had been so terrifyingly strange but now…
It made me feel safe. Because it meant that he was close.
Maybe it was shock, or the bump to the head, but I had the feeling it was the mating instinct he’d mentioned earlier, because I really wanted to cuddle against him. I wanted to show him that I wasn’t afraid.
Because I wasn’t. He’d held me in vicious teeth that I’d seen rip a man apart just moments before, and I didn’t have a mark on me. Though would he welcome that kind of touch from me? Was it too… intimate? When he was in his monster form?
Shivers raced up my spine and my stomach wobbled around the water. I didn’t feel good at all, and I just wanted comfort. His comfort. His protection. So fuck it.
I tipped forward, letting my entire body fall against him. Knowing that he would catch me.
Surprisingly dexterous claws—hands—pulled me up against his broad chest. He made several short coughs, his nose bumping against my shoulder. Worry vibrated through him, his heart pounding like a timpani drum against my ear. “I’m okay. Just hold me. Please? I’m so tired. I just want to rest.”
He nudged me again with his snout, until I turned my head and looked into his nearest eye. He blinked, circles flaring in the glowing red orb. I wasn’t sure what he was looking at.
The tip of his tongue touched the knot on my head, testing to see how tender it was. It was sore, but not bad. Was he trying to clean the wound? Or was he drawn to the dried blood? I wasn’t sure. He’d licked my knee too last night.
And today, my knee was completely healed, the bloody scrape gone.
I wanted to tell him, but I couldn’t seem to get my brain to communicate with my tongue. He was so warm. Heat rolled off him. Weren’t reptiles cold blooded? How did he shift back? Did it hurt?
I had so many questions, but all I could manage to get my mouth to say was a few garbled syllables. “Kroktl.”
20
KROKTL
The grid stretched out in my mind like a vast universe of twinkling stars. Only these stars were connected by super-fast neural pathways. Masking my presence on the grid was easy. Making contact with one of the glowing stars—which represented another squad—without anyone else knowing was the difficult part.
Dyni squads were so psychically connected on the grid that it was nearly impossible to distinguish an individual from the rest of their squad. What one member knew, we all knew.
And there was a fucking traitor on my squad.
Shutting down our individual access to the grid allowed us to move separately without sharing our location or plans with Axxol. But that also meant we were unable to track each other or coordinate our movements. We were bred to function as a complete and cohesive team, communicating our plans effortlessly without thought. Denying ourselves access to the grid had taken away one of our greatest advantages, especially in the field, stranded on an inhospitable planet.
Despite the expansive grid that flowed in all directions across the multiverse, I would normally have been able to pinpoint my squad’s twinkling star with ease. Since we were all shut down, I had to improvise.
