Page 118 of Monsters in Love

Curse it all. She twisted the heavy fabric of her skirts between her fingers and stared at her map. At the solution she didn’t want. “If the bishop does not listen—which I’m sure isn’t a worry, his commitment to punishing the demons is unmatched—I know how to stop the monsters from overwhelming the town. At least, I have an idea…”

One that will put both creatures I care for in danger.

“Go on.” Talos ran a finger down her spine.

“We should know,” Emmi said softly. “In case he doesn’t listen to us.”

Her sister’s face was pale, yet she wore an expression more mature than her fifteen summers. If Emmi could stand firm in the face of such a threat, Isabelle could do no less.

Straightening her back, she pointed to three locations on her map in turn. “There is access to the tunnels through small grates. Here, beside the miller, in the eastern corner of the town. In the south, through the low grate beside the butcher. And near the blacksmith to the west.”

“What good is that?” Emmi scrunched her nose. “We can’t fit through those grates.”

“These locations aren’t about an exit,” Isabelle said softly, tracing the triangle the points formed, the perfect cage in which to trap the majority of the demons. “It’s about what we can put down, after we escape…”

Something awful.

Something Belle didn’t want to think about.

“If we run out of options, I have an idea. But I hope it won’t be necessary and honestly I’d rather not…” She glanced at her sister and gave a quiet sigh. Emmi wasn’t even looking at the map anymore. Instead, she’d returned to staring at Tarn—something she’d been doing almost non-stop since learning who he’d been before the change. Any other moment, Belle would have been endlessly entertained. But today they had to face a challenge greater than both of them.

A threat that could swallow all they’d known.

“It’s all right, Belle. You don’t have to tell us.”

She lifted her eyes to Talos.

The heat in his gaze made her knees weak. His bite burned on her shoulder, a brand she’d wear more proudly than any ring—and a promise fiercer than any Chastry ceremony.

Gods, it was so unfair.

She’d just found her love again, just taken him as hers. And now she had to leave him. Because her town and every soul she knew in Windhaven was in terrible danger.

The bishop will listen.

He will not risk all of Windhaven.

Isabelle’s stomach twisted into a knot. There was so much risk—and she had so much more to lose.

But no matter how much her heart protested, her sister’s safety had to come first. They had to get out of the tunnels. Belle could warn the bishop while Emmi escaped to the forest.

“You’re sure I’m right?” she asked for the hundredth time. She tried to commit the lines of her map to memory, hoping that knowledge, combined with Talos and Tarn’s understanding of the tunnels, would be enough. “There is an exit beneath the Keep?”

“We’re certain there’s an exit. It is small.” Talos rolled his massive shoulders.

Her fingers ached to trace the lines of muscle. Her body crying out to climb into his arms and demand he take her back to the ceiling and—

“I do not know if the exit lies beneath the Keep,” he continued, apparently oblivious to her now burning cheeks. “We found it while searching for supplies—and fighting other demons. We lost track of the location in the struggle.”

“But it’s there.” Tarn bobbed his head. “I could almost fit.”

Emmi gasped. “You’d haveleftthe tunnels?”

His ears flushed. “Not to do anything terrible. But I was too big, and I couldn’t leave Talos to face the others alone, anyway.”

“Yeah. Because you’re the muscle.” Talos lightly punched his shoulder.

Tarn grinned up at him.

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