Page 27 of Mated to the Monster Under my Bed
"Yes,” I whispered. “Please…please come up and hold me.”
The bed creaked as a heavy weight settled beside me. Then arms—thick, strong arms covered in soft fur—slid around me and pulled me gently back against a massive chest. Heat poured off his body in waves. The scent of cedar and cinnamon wrapped around me like a blanket.
"Let it out, little witch," he murmured, his voice rumbling through my bones. One big hand stroked my back slowly. "I feel your grief. Let it out."
I did. I cried in a way I hadn’t since Craig had first been diagnosed.
The tears came fast and hard like bullets. My chest heaved with sobs I didn’t know I’d been holding in. The monster just held me, cradling me like something precious, stroking my back and whispering soft words…words of comfort and reassurance. I barely understood them, but I felt his meaning along with his steady, unshakable presence.
I cried for the loving marriage I had lost…for my fears for the future…for the horrible instability of everything around me. It all felt so scary and foreign and doomed. The whole world felt like a ticking time bomb about to explode at any minute. I couldn’t bear it anymore—couldn’t take the stress and grief and uncertainty. It had been building up inside me like a poison for months—for years…and now it was all coming out.
I wept until I was finally empty and when I had no tears left, I tilted my head up and looked at him through swollen eyes—or tried to. It was still so dark in the bedroom, I could barely make out the shape of him. He was massive—much bigger than a human man—tall and towering, with two curved shadows that might have been horns on his head.
"Why are you here?" I whispered.
The monster was quiet for a beat. Then he murmured,
"For you, little witch. To protect you. Don’t you remember the first time I came?"
I blinked, confused.
"I…almost remember," I confessed
His big hand cradled my cheek, swiping away my tears.
"I came because you needed me. Think…try harder."
Something stirred deep inside me. An old memory, fragile and sharp like a piece of glass that might cut me if I was foolish enough to handle it.
"I’ll try," I whispered. "But…it’s scary."
"Let the memory tea you drank work," he rumbled, stroking my cheek. "You’re safe with me. Let yourself remember the very first time we met."
And I did. I relaxed and let myself drift in the warmth of his arms wrapped around me. I closed my eyes and opened myself to the past, opening a door in my mind I had locked and barred and tried to forget about for years.
Finally, the memory came.
I was ten. Duke, my new stepfather, was furious. He’d picked me up from school that day and had started lecturing me immediately. He was a big man with buzz-cut hair and a cruel look in his squinty no-color eyes.
I hated him.
I wished my Mom wouldn’t let him pick me up. He always found something to complain about. My skirt was too short, or I wasn’t polite enough to the teachers. As if he could hear what I was saying from his big, stupid truck while I stood in the dismissal line.
That was his complaint now.
“I saw you sassing Mrs. Leady,” he snarled, the minute I climbed up into the truck. The interior always smelled like stale beer and cigarettes. I hated that stink!
I knew better than to contradict him—better than to say anything but, “Yes, Duke. Sorry, Duke.” But that day I was feeling rebellious.
He acted like I was some kind of discipline problem—like I got sent to the Principal’s office every day, which wasn’t true at all! I think, like the kids at school, he could sense there was something different about me. He didn’t know what it was but it made him hate me with a passion. So it was stupid to contradict him.
But I did it anyway.
“I wasn’t talking back to her,” I said in a low voice, looking down at my hands, which were clenched on top of my backpack. “She just asked if that was your truck coming to pick me up and I said it was. That’s all.”
It might seem like a harmless thing to say—but nothing was ever harmless with Duke.
His beefy face—which always had a five o’clock shadow no matter how often he shaved—went beet red. I knew because I could see it from the corner of my eye.
