Page 61 of Mated to the Monster God
The air vibrates with fear and iron. Someone hammers down barbed wire—fractured steel singing in damp morning. The smell is electric—ozone and rain-touched earth and latent fear. Every inhaled breath is both fuel and warning.
Sagax never leaves my side. His shadow follows me, tail coiled protectively around my ankles, presence tethering meto courage when I teeter on exhaustion. His eyes—steely and golden—scan the horizon, always calculating, always ready.
Blondie scuttles past with a satchel of extra medigel—those small vials of shimmering resin mixed for long-term healing, now a constant ritual.
I grate out instructions, “Keep them chilled with ice-synth! Don’t let the heat ruin the compound!”
Tara, hair plastered to her face with rain, calls out for more feverbloom resin. “Esme! We can’t keep up with demand! People are going down fast!”
“I’m on it,” I yell back, handing her a fresh batch. My spine aches—every muscle trembles—but adrenaline ignores exhaustion.
The sky is pregnant with thunder, thick and heavy. In between ordering supplies, I steal a glance at Sagax. His chest rises and falls with steady certainty—a reminder everything we’ve sworn to protect.
At midday, the colony huddles as rain drums lessons into grit. I move through trenches, checking splintered barricades, comforting the frightened, administering medigel vials. The smell of antiseptic mingles with wet earth as I smooth another bandage. Rick staggers by, rattling gun stocks, sweat and blood on his brow. I grip his shoulder. “Hold fast. You’re our line,” I say. His nod is tight with love and fatigue.
Later, I find Sagax and pull him aside. Mud slicks our boots. Hammering rain hisses on our heads. I lean into him—the scent of rain and resin and his pulse grounding me.
“Tomorrow…” I begin, voice soft between the storms.
He presses his fingertips to my cheek. “Tomorrow we face them.”
I swallow the tremor. “I want… once this is over, I?—”
Before the words spill, I catch a spark in his eyes. The rain stalls—like the world’s holding its breath.
I close the distance between us, pressing my lips to his chest. His heartbeats ripple under scale—the cradle of all I’ve fought for. He swallows, breath brushing into rage and tenderness.
“When it’s done,” I murmur against him, “we’ll—go away. For real.”
He places a hand at the nape of my neck. Thunder rolls overhead. He tilts me up until I’m on my toes, then kisses me—deep, urgent, fragile with promise.
Rain drifts into my hair, into his hair.
His mouth ghosts every ache in me—fear, exhaustion, longing—all melting into a single vow.
I step closer, pressing into the beat of his chest. “I love you,” I whisper, not needing curtain or limit.
In the steel-hushed chaos of our war-forged world, our lips meet, a silent covenant. I taste dawn and hope and the promise of home.
When we finally part, the rain picks up, wind lashing us, world roaring again—but here, in this stolen moment, I am anchored.
“Hold me,” I breathe.
He does.
The biolab’s ruins smell of antiseptic ghosts, damp metal, and cold stone—but in this moment, it’s our sanctuary. We slip through the shattered doorway, wet boots slapping on the cracked tile. Sagax presses his scale-warm hand to my back, guiding me deeper into the ruined med bay. Instruments lie scattered and inert; rusted trays, cracked vials, everything abandoned when war uprooted our routine—but now it cradles us.
We strip without words, clothing slithering away like memories we no longer carry. Each piece falls to the tile with sound muted by the storm outside. My bare skin prickles with chilled adrenaline, yet, with every shift closer to him, warmthblooms, fierce as wildfire. Rain slashes the broken windows, drumming relentlessly.
The air tastes metallic and electric. And with him—scale against skin, bone, breath—I feel alive in a way neither battlefield nor barricade ever awakened. My pulse smacks in my ears like a war drum, calling me home.
Sagax’s fingers trail along my spine—light, deliberate, as if memorizing the paths of memory and desire. I shudder, tipping into him. His arms sweep around my waist—A fortress. His breath brushes my ear, voice low, nearly a rumble. I can almost hear it in my mind—his thoughts echoing: You are mine. The promise vibrates through my skull, my heart, my blood.
His hands travel urgent paths—up the curve of my thigh, rising, commanding—no hesitation, only devotion sketched in heat and hunger. I gasp, shudder under the weight of how thoroughly he knows me, commands me, cherishes me.
“You feel like fire,” he murmurs again, voice thick with reverence.
He’s not just speaking. He’s channeling need, wrapping me in force of his will and love. In his eyes, my fear has cracked. He replaces it with gratitude, devotion.
