Page 19 of Fate & Monsters
“He… he… he saw…” I gasped.
“Fuck,” he snarled. “You’re trembling.”
“He saw me… he… he—” The words crumbled apart in my mouth. My knees gave out.
The beast caught me before I hit the ground. The last thing I saw before the darkness took me was the flicker of red in the garden’s edge, swallowed by his shadow.
Then nothing.
Chapter 7
The demolished state of the dining roomgrated on my nerves. Once my heart and mind settled, I hastened to my office in search of solace. Sconces on the corridor walls bullied the shadows in the corners, yet the darkness overcame the light. Always hungry, always whispering, always watching. I moved at a languid pace, regardless of the dark. I welcomed it. I was home in it.
Secured and blissfully in my study, I settled into the chair at my desk. The swirls and grooves in the wood grain followed senseless patterns, and I tracked them, memorizing them. I palmed the edge of the desk where a chip in the wood provoked memories of accidents and forgiveness. My father’s voice echoed in my mind, a ghost whispering consolations and confidence.
The pain in my chest tightened. A weakness that clung to every sinew and vein in my body. It was an echo of loneliness that mocked my current predicament. That despicable grief did nothing tosway the restlessness poisoning my body, urging me to move, to hunt. An itching under the skin that made me impatient, aggrieved by the feeling of want burning in my core.
I blinked, and I was suddenly pacing in front of a cold hearth. Eachthump thump thumpof my paws on the floor magnified the troubled thing burrowing between my ribs and mutilating my insides. Hazy grey lights slanted through the window, casting long, uncanny shadows across the office.
She disrespected me. That damn fragile creature doesn’t understand gratitude. I showed her mercy by allowing her to keep her life, allowing her to stay here, and what do I get in return? Frustration and blatant disregard. To defy a command so contemptuously—she was… she was maddening!
I paused mid-step. Static muddled my brain, and my tail whipped back and forth as the restlessness mutated into prickling anxiety. My internal impulses begged me to seek her out. A frantic and borderline feral necessity billowing into an agonizing affliction.
She had stormed out of the dining room. Fleeing from me.
I winced and returned to pacing.
Where had she gone? Where was she?
Inferni weren’t known for mercy. Devious, deranged, and depraved, surely. That disposition reflected in my current state of mind.
The idea of her being caught and cornered by a subject of my land struck me so brutally I was propelled into motion. Wood screamed in complaint when I tore the office door open, the sound of rattling and creaking hinges following me down the halls. Disheveled and barreling along the night-drenched corridors, I would have been a startling sight for any wayward Inferni.
The vastness of my hunger repulsed me, but I was a beast possessed.
Why put myself through this for a human woman with no name and no answers to crucial questions? She was, in her entirety, a captivating puzzle. Every facet of her was a piece meant to be unraveled and discovered. She didn’t belong here. But she had come to me, paradox or not, so she was mine. As the lord of Infernus, I had every right to claim her.
Air whistled through my fur, amorphous shadows teased at my limbs as I rushed by, and tapestries billowed behind me as I tore down the halls on all four. Resentment surged in me upon realizing she had me behaving as unprincipled as the lowest Inferni imaginable. It didn’t stop me from chasing her scent from the dining hall to the garden.
I hadn’t expected to find her quivering on the verge of a panic attack in the garden. Hadn’t expected her prey animal fear or the tears rimming her eyes. And hadn’t expected how I’d wanted to hold her until all was right in the worldagain. Or how I’d wanted to keep her for myself when she passed out.
Instead, I reluctantly, hesitantly, summoned Thayer to take her to her room. My arms had tightened around her, and I snarled before finally convincing myself to hand her over to the gloomthreader.
She was mine. Under my protection. But as much as I wanted to stay by her side, I needed to investigate. A palpable trail of dark magic drifted through the garden, and I remained on high alert.
Sniffing, digging, prowling around the castle grounds turned up nothing. No sign of what had frightened her or tracks of any wayward creature on my land. But her fear, her words, had been real.
Something of a magical nature was tormenting her.
Minutes melded into hours as my rage and concern cooled to a manageable simmer. I patrolled the garden, chest heaving, blood still racing. It had barely been two full days since the woman appeared in my life, upending my rational senses.
A woman with no name. Perfect circumstances befitting the mystery that surrounded her. Even her human nature was an enigma. She didn’t behave like one, not entirely. Her hesitation with which utensil to use could be explained away, but she had also grabbed at food with her bare hands and stuffed her face like a starving animal.
Fuck if that didn’t intrigue me. She was so odd—yet compelling.
And maddeningly infuriating. The woman induced an insatiable appetite within me. The scent of her roused intense and sudden flashes of lust. My body temperature rose to a fever pitch, simply recalling the shimmering dress clinging to the luscious curves of her slender form.
As much as I’d practiced self-control, something about her caused my Inferni instincts to blow through my logic. She was fresh and new, a glowing flower begging to be plucked. The force of my desire was appalling, horrifying to the extent her presence overrode my discipline. I couldn’t understand this compulsion or the obsessive thoughts that followed. Only when she wasn’t around, clouding my mind, could I recognize the absurdity of my reactions to her. It was wholly disproportionate to anything I’d experienced in my entire life.
