Page 41 of Aberrant Monsters
“I don’t think so.”
He smiled. “Then yes, you have to get inside that thing. I’ll email the Order about your contract tonight.”
“Okay. Good. Thank you.” A cool blast of air sent a shiver through me. Fuck, this part of the house was cold. “You should grab your stuff and come with me. The east wing is warmer. There’s an empty room opposite mine.”
“You want me close to you?”
“Huh?” Wait, did he think I fancied him?
He leaned in, a slight smirk playing on his lips. “You don’t trust me, do you? You want to keep me close so you can keep an eye on me.”
I relaxed. “No. It’s not that. I was being nice. The north wing sucks.”
“And yet your friends put me here.” He smiled knowingly. “Have I passed their test now? Is that why you’re happy to have me in the same wing as you and your friends?”
When he put it like that, we sounded petty. I didn’t like coming across as petty. “Look, we were upset with the Order and the way they drugged me and stuff. And then there’s the whole psi-witch being energy suckers thing.” My gaze dropped to the band on his wrist. “We shouldn’t have taken it out on you.”
He nodded. “I appreciate that. And I’m fine here. The cold doesn’t bother me, and I like the quiet and the space.” He smiled warmly. “I’ll see you in the morning for our training session, August. Sleep well.”
This time when he made to close the door, I let him.
* * *
I wasn’tsure what time I fell asleep, but Telarion woke me just before dawn.
“Tiny human, open your eyes.”
I felt the brush of his gloved fingers on my cheek.
“I do have a name, you know.”
“August.” He said it softly, cradling it in his mouth.
I opened my eyes to find him floating in the air a few inches above my body. The whole scene probably looked horrifyingly creepy to an outside viewer, but this had become normal for me.
“Why’d you wake me?” I rubbed my eyes and looked at him again, noting the pinpricks of crimson in his eyes. The tell-tale sign of hunger gone unsatisfied. Ice trickled through my veins. “Did you go to Silent Hill Trail?”
“It wasn’t enough.” He sounded agitated, angry almost. The gloves melted from his hands, leaving them bare, monstrous, with talon-tipped fingers created for tearing and shredding. “You think I enjoy coming to you like this?”
I blinked sharply. “You get to feed on my blood; of course you enjoy it.”
He made a sound of exasperation. “Being this. Needing…” He pressed the tip of his talon to my jugular and my breath hitched. “This…” He licked his lips. “I want. I need, and yet there is a part of me that abhors it.”
And he couldn’t reconcile it. At least I understood my sudden hunger, could explain it and accept it, knowing it was being forced on me by an unwanted connection. Knowing it didn’t have to be a permanent situation also helped, but Telarion had no such assurances.
Fuck, he didn’t even know who he was or how he’d become an aberrant.
I scanned the regal planes of his face, gaze lingering on the edge of his mask. “Why the mask?”
The question had been circling my mind for the longest time, and for some reason now felt like the right time to air it.
His eyes flinched. “Why does anyone wear a mask, August.”
Maybe asking him to call me by name had been a mistake, because it suddenly made the encounter seem more intimate than it was.
“Answer me.” His demand was a hot breath skating over my lips. “Why wear a mask?”
“To hide something, or to frighten someone.”
