Page 16 of Monstrous Rampage
Saliva dripped down my jaws. So hungry. So long since I’d feasted. I cracked my mouth open, letting the molecules of her scent land on my sensors. So good.
Warm. Alive. Soft.
I stretched my neck out slowly, extending my muzzle closer. I wanted. Just a taste. A little touch. So tempting.
She didn’t pull away. Foolish creature. Though she flinched when I breathed on her. Perhaps her vision was so weak she didn’t even see me.
I could see her perfectly in the darkness.
Even better, I could smell her. The complex scents of her body were intoxicating. Faint salty trace on her skin. Sweat. Tears, perhaps. She sobbed quietly, her shoulders shaking, but she endured the stroke of my tongue. Thin, delicate skin with a fragile sweetness. Surely artificial. No prey had ever smelled quite so enticing. I could almost forget my will to starve and thwart DSC of their most dangerous creation.
“Please don’t eat me,” she whispered frantically, her teeth chattering in desperate clicks. “I can help.”
I snorted with derision, though I couldn’t quite bring myself to back away. A pair of soft curves on her chest and the pale skin of her belly gleamed with a pearly glow. As if I could open her up and find Sirian crystals shining beneath her skin. Energy hummed in my tongue every time I licked her. More than friction. A hint of crackling power that might stoke higher if I touched her longer. Enough power to destroy this ship and end my suffering.
Nudging her harder against the wall with my snout, I flicked my tongue along her thighs. Her knees. I told myself I was looking for a chip DSC might have embedded in her. Something for me to ingest that might short out my own cells. But Isensed nothing but more intriguing scents, other than a small, innocuous looking band wrapped around her left wrist.
Certainly a trap, some kind of planted technology to put me into stasis.
“I don’t know how much they can hear,” she whispered. “I’m assuming everything, especially as long as that band’s on my arm. Snyder promised it would transport me out of here if you started to hurt me.”
I didn’t know who Snyder might be. Didn’t fucking care. No DSC agent could be trusted. Promises were only pretty lies used to convince you to play along a little longer. She seemed smart for prey, though. I’d give her that. Of course they were listening. Everything in this place was wired to provide what they needed to control and subdue me.
Holding her breath, she lifted her small hand toward my head. Her right arm—not the one with the band—or I would have simply bit off the offending item before it could touch me. I trusted nothing. Nothing was safe here. I knew that lesson all too well.
Her shaking fingertips dotted over my upper jaw. Perilously close to my teeth. With a flick of my head, I’d devour her. Not just the arm. One gulp, and she’d be inside me.
A new hunger shook me to my core. Touch. Without pain. A sensation other than air or metal on my scales.
Faint, barely intelligible words despite my nearness, as if she whispered into my bones. “Ready for all hell to break loose?”
Keeping her hands in my line of sight, she ever so slowly inched her fingers up to the band. Eyes slitted with suspicion, I bared my teeth. Every muscle braced to pounce. Rend. Tear. Without hesitation, I’d protect myself against even this soft, delicate creature that smelled so divine.
With a soft click, she opened the band. As it slowly slipped off her wrist, she flung herself.
At me.
HOLLY
My teeth chattered so hardthey ached. The rank smell of predator burned my nostrils, choking me. Tears streamed down my cheeks, not just from the acrid odors but pure terror. Thank god I couldn’t really see much in the absolute darkness.
His sheer size made every muscle in my body quiver with the urge to run. The only thing that might save me was the fact he could barely move inside the tiny cell.
A calculated risk, for sure, but I had to show him where I stood. I had to have skin in the game. Literally. The bracelet was my only way out of here—unless I could free him.
His hide moved beneath me, writhing like a giant snake. I clutched at him, trying to stay close. Too close for him to bite. In close quarters, he couldn’t rear back away from me, but he swiped at me with one of his shorter arms. Burning pain stole my breath but I pressed closer to him, hugging my entire body against him. His chest, evidently. I could feel the reverberation of his heartbeat like a tympani drum beneath his skin.
Hopefully a little blood got on his scales—as long as I wasn’t too injured. I didn’t think so.
I focused on the mrions inside my head.:Try to contact him. Make a grid for us to silently communicate without DSC knowing.:
I still couldn’t feel them doing anything, but I imagined soldier ants marching through my body—into his.
His claws tangled in my hair. He peeled me away from him, shaking me like a rag doll. My scalp burned and throbbed, but a little hair was a small price to pay if this worked.
Bellowing out a T-rex growl that almost made me panic pee, he shoved his snout into my midsection so hard I grunted. Lost my breath. My head thumped back against the wall, an explosion of color behind my eyelids. My ribs creaked, my spine ached, but hopefully Snyder was right and the mrions had reinforced my bones enough to hold.
I didn’t fight or try to defend myself. I didn’t want to antagonize him further. Something like sandpaper roughed across my flank where I’d felt pain. Hot, moist breath. The sandpaper rubbed again, making me whimper. Probing.
