Page 64 of Aberrant Monsters
“Telarion, I know you can hear me.”
He might be free of my body, but we were still bound.Telarion.I thought his name, injecting my annoyance into the word.Get back here, we have work to do.
He appeared a moment later, bristling with indignation. “I’m not a pet to be summoned.”
His tone grated but I held on to my reasoning voice. “Do you want to be free or not?”
He glared at me from the shadows, emerald eyes glowing eerily. “Don’t ask stupid questions.”
“It’s not a stupid question. If we’re going to be free of each other, we have to work together to find the eldritch.”
“Maybe you should have remembered that before almost getting yourself killed.” He approached me, his body vibrating with anger. “You could have ruined this for me. Died and sent me back to that place.” He spat the words. “You selfish, arrogant, pathetic—”
My hand whipped out and connected to his cheek with a crack.
He didn’t flinch but my hand stung like a bitch.
His lip curled. “Feel better?”
I blinked back hot tears. “Quentin was right, you are a fucking monster.”
He leaned in, his breath hot on my face. “And don’t you forget it.”
He strode for the door. “The quicker we get these jobs done, the better. I tire of being bound to you.”
His words hurt more than a slap, but they were just what I needed to banish any delusions I’d been developing about him being less beast and more person. I straightened my spine, lifted my chin, and followed him out of the room and toward Quentin’s study.
The handler looked up from the book he was reading as I entered. His gaze flicked to Telarion, lingering for a moment before coming to rest on me.
“You look much better, August.” His smile was warm and comforting, and the knots Telarion’s behavior had spawned melted away.
I returned his smile. “Thank you. Look, I know I didn’t succeed in bagging the eldritch the other day. I’ll continue to search for it, but I was hoping that tonight I could see where my mother died.”
“No,” Telarion said. “We need to focus on the eldritch.”
I gritted my teeth, keeping my attention on my handler. “You don’t get to call the shots, Telarion.”
I felt his burning regard on the side of my face. “This is my existence on the line,” he growled. “We do the tasks required to be free. Your dead mother isn’t my problem.”
My chest ached with betrayal, which only served to aggravate me further because why the fuck did I expect anything else from him?
“Nandi and Archie came to see me earlier,” Quentin said. “They found several cases of unexplained, unsolved maulings and attacks in our area of interest. They’re liaising with the Night Guild to view the case files. I said I’d drive you over once you were ready. We work on that tonight, but mapping is still part of the job. It can’t be done at night, though, remember.”
Yes, the rules. Still, hope bloomed in my chest. “You’ll take me to the rift in the morning?”
He nodded and pushed back his chair. “Yes.”
“This is a waste of time,” Telarion snapped. “What do you expect to find, hmmm? Your mother died over a decade ago.”
I stared at him, eyes hot with anger and disappointment at his callousness. “Fuck you, Telarion. Just fuck you. Go do whatever you want. I don’t need you tonight.”
For a moment I thought he’d argue, say that he was sticking with me tonight, but he whirled away and flew out of the room.
Why was I stunned by that?
“August?” Quentin was tentative.
I smiled tightly up at Quentin. “Let’s go.”
