Page 74 of For Fillies and Monsters

I want more—need more.If he doesn’t give me everything right this minute, I will surely die.

His tongue and teeth and lips assault my tender ones, but I meet them biting and sucking and clawing back. I pour every ounce of anger and frustration into his mouth, and he gladly swallows it whole. It only feeds his desire.

He rips at the strands of my hair once more, yanking my head back farther, breaking the searing kiss only to weld his lips to the column of my throat. He bites and sucks at my neck with the viciousness of a crazed man.

And I have never. Been. More. Turned. On.

“I want everyone to know. I want everyone to see. You are mine,” he growls into the crevice of my throat.

And then, as all good things in my life, this moment explodes into a million pieces ofwhat could have been.

The words pull me back through the alcohol and desire-induced haze. I shove at his chest frantically with all my strength, catching him off guard. He stumbles back just a step, his eyes snapping up to my face.

How could I have forgotten? How could I be so careless, so blind with alcohol—with lust?

He snarls and advances toward me again, but I instinctively snap out my hand, the palm connecting with his face. His expression doesn’t shift or change, but I watch his chest heave, his arms quivering with restrained anger. I don’t wait for him to say anything—if he advances on me again, I will surely melt into a puddle of need at his feet.

I rush to my room, slamming the door behind me, and fall to the floor in a blubbering mess. My lips feel swollen and sore against my rough hands, but I ignore them. It’s nothing compared to the pain swelling inside of me.

There are too many secrets, too many unresolved problems, too many forces against me, against him,against us.They sit like a thousand pound horse on my chest, crushing me. I feel them clawing at my skin, hear them screaming in my ears, taste them bleeding on my tongue. It’s a poison blooming between us, and not for the first time, I fear what will happen when we have to face them all.

Will we survive it? Will I want to?

THIRTY-TWO

AUGUSTUS

May 20th, 2024

Sitting on the porch,my old beat-up laptop resting on the makeshift table next to me, I begin doing more research. This is something I’ve become very familiar with—finding things about my girl and the people in her life—to keep her safe. And to keep her in line…but I’ll never admit to that part.

What she doesn’t know won’t hurt her.

I have to bury myself in distractions. Otherwise, I will hunt her down and fuck her senseless—voiced consent or not. And regardless of being the monster and reviling in the depraved things I do to her, I refuse to be the guy who forces the girl before she’s ready. That’s just not my style. It’s been two days since we kissed, two days since I tasted the insatiable need on her tongue that could only be rivaled by my own, two days since she completely and totally shut me out. It’s also been two days since Stetson has uttered a single word to me.

And I’m effectively starting to chafe.

It hasn’t been for lack of effort on my part; I’ve tried cornering her at every turn, but she has outsmarted me each time. She’s finally scared enough that her flight instincts are outmaneuvering my hunting ones—I know it won’t last forever,but it is fucking annoying. I don’t even know why she’s retreated so completely this time. I know she’s scared of intimacy and with good reason.

Her father was violent and cruel, abusing and destroying any possibly good child memory, her mother abandoned her, she’s never had a boyfriend, her friends consist of horses and one crazy woman who is also working on her own, very dark, demons. The only good influences she ever had were Bob and Linda, and they went and died in a boating accident when she was finally finding some semblance of normalcy in life. Oh, and she has a stalker prodding at her darkest desires—and insecurities—one she hides for fear of being seen as “messed up”. Her burdens are heavy at best, crushing at worst, and I know she won’t be able to carry on much longer alone.

Fuck, I need to tell her.

Instead of facing the reality of that, I do what I do best when I’m feeling desperate; I hunt down someone who is hurting my little filly.

The internet out here is unreliable, but I have to get something done while she’s gone. Stetson left before the sun rose this morning, taking Winston to trace the fence lines again. She’s getting more and more paranoid and withdrawn every day, and it’s starting to rub off on me.What is she so afraid of?

I’ve been so blindly focused on Stetson and burning down her walls that I’ve lost sight of the other wolves among us. The first problem I need to figure out how to deal with is her Uncle Craig. Between the threatening phone calls every day, and the stir of discontent with a few especially rotten people from town, he’s pushing her quickly to explode.

I still don’t know what leverage that prick thinks he has, but I plan to figure it out. I need to eliminate that threat for Stetson first, then the rest will come.

The other threat that I’ve kept my ear close to the groundfor is her father. Gibson has not been seen or heard from in months. Several weeks before Stetson claimed the ranch, he vanished overnight, albeit the same night he murdered his wife. Safe to say, lunatics like that often take themselves out after they murder their spouse, but then where is his body? Could that be what Craig knows?

The town initiated a half-hearted investigation into his disappearance, but according to the few reports I’ve found, they chalked it up to him running away. Still, that doesn’t sit right with me—doesn’t ring very true. And if I had to guess, it eats at Stetson, too. How often does she look over her shoulder, expecting him to be there, trying to kill her once more?

“Fuck, Gus,” I berate myself, feeling a rising panic bubbling in my stomach. How has my “stalking” affected her? Is that what stands between us? I don’t regret the ten years I watched her, helped her from afar—a monster does not feel bad for getting what they want, methods be damned. But I do wonder if actively stalking her now has brought too many ghosts out to play. Does she see Gibson when my texts come through?

The thought makes bile crawl up my throat. No, she’s turned on by the stalker, turned on by being stalked—even if she does hate it. But maybe that piece of our adventure has run its course, and the shadows finally need to come into the light. Consequences be damned. I’ll take whatever punishment she sees fit; I’ll gladly bathe in her retribution. Once she’s had her revenge when she’s regained her power, I will show her why I was forced to start our love story this way—why I refuse to live without her.

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