Page 7 of Monster's Obsession

“Hold on, we’re going to move fast.”

She lowered her head against my chest, and I took off, moving like the wind with the ease of stepping over it. For me, it was a breeze, and once I landed on the other side, I hurried as I felt her weaken in my arms.

Time was running out, and there was only one place that I knew of where I could extract the venom from her body.

CHAPTER 2

STEELE

“Just kill him already,” Seven growled, his words booming through the thick air of Wyld city. A place I hadn’t called home for a long time, and if these idiotic bastards had anything to do with it, I’d never call it home again.

Creed held me by the throat, my feet dangling off the floor, and I eyed the blade on his belt seeing the way his hand lingered over the hilt. For a split second, I contemplated playing weak, showing them I’d be willing to surrender if it meant we could talk like a fucking family.

Huge mistake on my part because Seven, in his usual style, was out for blood. Ash lingered in the background like a hellish guard dog ready to rip into me the moment he got a chance, and Creed was the big chief, all puffy chest and fangs on show. Nothing had changed all these years I’d been away from my home, right down to that asshole, Tempest, vanishing during every fucking important event.

I slammed my hand into Creed’s arm, over and over, but he was stone and unmovable. His body was already shifting into his monstrous form, growing to his eight-foot height, horns pushing out from his temples, his tail whipping behind him, side to side, showing his growing agitation, like a wolf about to attack.

“How could you?” he spat in my face, speaking in our native Wyld language, and I wasn’t sure if he was referring to me returning home or supposedly killing the Red Queen. Either way, nothing I said would make him less stabby toward me.

“He’s ready to die. What’s the damn hold up?” Seven whined, all worked up. It almost felt like I’d stepped back in time because so little had changed. Well, except for Creed going and bringing my baby girl to Wyld City. Of course I’d followed her to collect what belonged to me.

I never made a sound, not that I could speak while he practically suffocated me. But hey, I’d been tortured enough times during my miserable life to know that a bit of choking would tickle my dick before it killed me.

“Let me do it already,” Seven snapped, coming at me like a shadow, still dressed in all black, including his hook, and covering the bottom half of his face. Those eyes carried pure hostility. “I’ll cut off his head, just as he did to our queen.”

Creed’s blood-red eyes narrowed on me.

Irritation slid down my spine, wrapping around me like barbed wire, and I threw my arm out, my fist smashing into the idiot’s face. Then I kicked Creed in the fucking balls because I wasn’t above fighting dirty.

A slip in his grip was all I needed, and he gave me that. I threw all my weight behind me and slammed my fists into his arm, then ripped away from his grasp.

Ash flew at me, but I leapt up and over him. He was running at me like a fucking bull, but that also made him slower to react. I spun instantly behind him and kicked him in the back, then recoiled, just as Creed rose toward me, Seven at his side.

I had my hands out in front of me, in some form of semi-peace offering…if one could call it that. “Let’s talk,” I proposed, gasping for air. “Maybe it’s time you finally listen to my side of the story before you automatically assume my guilt.”

I stumbled back, quickly taking stock of the three monsters in front of me, the castle to my left and the city to my right. I was in a tight squeeze, but I did love a challenge.

“You’re still spinning lies,” Seven crowed, his nose creasing with disgust.

Ash snarled to my left, hot air misting from the corners of his mouth, his sharp teeth bared.

“I was once your brother. We were unstoppable. Creed, you know me better than anyone; what reason would I have to kill the queen? It’s fucking common sense… none of us would benefit. I never killed her… if you knew me at all, you’d know this.”

Ash grunted, his head shaking, those curled horns that protruded from the sides of his head, absolutely huge with sharpened tips, casting shadows over us. His lipless mouth with too many teeth stretched the width of his face into a frightening frown. He might have no eyes, but he knew exactly where everyone was, and even their emotional state, better than those with sight. The bastard was a fighter, and rarely missed his mark.

“You were the last one with the queen the night she was butchered,” Ash growled. “And you just happened to conveniently run away afterward. Why run if you weren’t guilty?”

I grizzled, keeping my cool because I’d gone over this in my head hundreds of times, with the decisions I made and how quickly everything had escalated. “Because I found her dead, and when her guards came and discovered me over her body, blood on my hands from trying to help her, what do you think it looked like? They came at me with aggression, with accusations.”

“Stop fucking lying,” Seven snarled. “Really, I’ve had enough of listening to his voice. He disgraces us.”

“You’ve had years to convince us, but instead you hid on earth. That screams guilty to me,” Ash chided. His eyeless face turned my way like he could see more than the others.

I tensed, my patience thinning because I’d lived for years hiding on earth after losing my home. What had fucked me up the worst though was that the monsters I’d once called brothers…they’d turned their back on me without a second thought.

I’d made an attempt to connect with them and explain my side of the story a long time ago, but they wouldn’t listen. It turned into a witch hunt for me. They blamed me for her death, for the city starving, for the chaos that spread afterward.

I guessed they needed a scapegoat while the real killer still lingered somewhere in the realm, getting away with it, while I got all the damn blame. One day I’d find that fucker and skin him alive.

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