Page 62 of Mated to the Monster Under my Bed
I stepped through the bedroom window of the cottage, not bothering with the door. The night air met me with a cold kiss, but it helped… steadied the edges of my body, gave my form more solidity. At least there was no sun overhead to melt me—the darkness was my ally.
So was the heat still inside me from the night before.
That first deep intimacy—our first true joining when Danni had allowed me to fill her with my tail—had filled me with her light. It clung to me even now, bolstering the shredded strands of my essence. Without it, I would have unraveled the moment I stepped out into the open. But as it was, I felt solid enough to go on, though I knew it couldn’t last forever. I needed to find her and get back to the cottage quickly or I risked dissolving completely.
I ran through the yard, my feet skimming over the grass, following the raw pulse of her terror. It led me straight to the edge of the town’s protective bubble.
The shimmer of it met my eyes like an enormous soap bubble stretched across the world—rainbow-tinted and delicate. I saw where it had grown thin. It needed reinforcing.
But there was no time for that now.
I pushed through, the magic resisting me for the briefest moment before accepting my passage. Maybe because I carried part of my little witch with me now—her scent…her warmth…her need.
But even so, pieces of me began to… slip.
My left hand went translucent. My shoulder blurred at the edges.
I gritted my teeth. Hurry. I have to hurry!
The forest loomed ahead and trees crowded close. My breath fogged in the air. The night deepened and thickened.
Then everything around me changed. The shadows ahead weren’t just darkness—they were wrong.
I knew at once what had happened—my little witch had crossed through another magical boundary. But not one of protection like the bubble that surrounded Hidden Hollow—one of malice.
It was old magic I was feeling—hungry magic.
I plunged into it anyway. I didn’t care where I had to go to get to her.
Branches clawed at me, slipping through my insubstantial fur as though they weren’t sure I was real. But I was still real enough—still solid enough—to keep going.
Danni’s panic screamed through the connection between us—her horror, her helplessness.
I’m coming, I thought at her silently, wishing rather than hoping she might hear me. Just hold on, little witch—I’ll be there soon!
I hoped.
The dark deepened into a void. And then, finally, the forest broke open. All at once, I saw her.
She was standing in a clearing, facing something no living soul should ever have to face.
A corpse stood before her, its body draped in a broken noose, its skin gray and sagging. But that was just its disguise.
I saw its true form—a Soul-Sucker.
A being born of the deepest pit, filled with malice and anger…and most of all, hunger. It lived by sucking out the souls of mortals to feed its own empty depths. And this one clearly had its sights set on Danni.
It was a heaving, shifting thing made entirely of shadows with no form unless it wore one that was stolen, as it did now. But behind the human skin, I saw its wings—huge and bat-like—spreading across the night. Its eyes burned red.
And it was hungry—ravenous, in fact.
The corpse it wore like an ill-fitting suit leaned toward Danni, the dead mouth open, inhaling.
Sucking.
I knew what it was doing—it was trying to draw her soul out of her body. If it succeeded, it would devour her essence. Rip her apart from the inside-out and turn her into nothing.
And I… I wouldn’t survive the loss of her.
