Page 69 of Mated to the Monster God
His smile sharpens. “Soon, you won’t *need* to feel. No despair, no want. You’ll be so much more than flesh and hope. You’ll be certainty.”
“And happiness?” I snap. “Where does that go?”
He shrugs. “We all must make sacrifices.”
“You’re not sacrificing anything.”
“I gave up my body for progress,” he says, tapping the side of his head where veins of steel pulse under skin too tight to be real. “I gave up identity for purpose. My name, my legacy—are in every cell of what we are becoming.”
“What you are becoming is a cautionary tale.”
He chuckles. “You think defiance is strength. It’s not. It’s chaos. Emotion is wasteful. It clouds judgment. Look around—these people you grieve? They clung to old instincts. That’s why they failed.”
“They didn’t fail. You failed them. You betrayed everything you promised.”
“I delivered exactly what I promised—transcendence.”
“Through torture.”
“Through necessity.”
I shake my head, voice trembling. “You keep talking about evolution like it’s inevitable. But this? This is perversion. This is war on the soul.”
Krenshaw narrows his eyes. “You’re afraid of greatness. That’s the real tragedy. You could have been the mother of the new age. Instead, you choose to be a martyr.”
“I choose to feel. That’s humanity. That’s life.”
He watches me, silent, for a long breath.
“We’ll see how loudly you preach when your blood sings with alloy. When your spine fuses into something better. When your memories melt into obedience.”
I take a step forward. “I will not be your prototype.”
“You already are.”
“I will burn this entire ship down before I let you turn me into one of those things.”
Krenshaw sighs, mock-regretful. “Then you’ll die. And someone else will take your place. Science does not halt for sentiment.”
Heat blooms in my eyes. Rage, fierce and blinding. “Do it,” I grit. “Use me. Try. Because love isn’t weakness. It’s all I’ve got.”
His grin falters. “Love, how quaint.”
Behind me, the colony’s stolen breaths echo. I’m tethered not by hyaline fear, but by the raw devotion of every colonist depending on what I’m doing now.
I turn, refusing to face him any longer. I hiss out, “You’ll never get them—all of them.”
He snaps, metal echoing. “We shall see.”
I don’t wait for his reply.
I walk out—not as prey but as prophecy.
My voice hangs in the corridor as I go: “I’m not afraid.”
CHAPTER 22
SAGAX
