Page 9 of Mated to the Monster God
“Move!” I scream into her mind.
Too late.
The blast hits.
Agony erupts through me like being set on fire and crushed at once. My connectionsnaps. Light, sound, sensation—all unravels in a single second of unbearable white.
And then I’m flying.
She’s nowhere.
The forest spins wildly around me. The leaves blur into a smear of green. Gravity forgets what to do. I hit something wet and spongy—no, notsomething.
Blood.
A pool of it.
The ground smacks my awareness like a boot to the skull. I can’t see in the human way anymore. I am back to my natural form, scattered tendrils and pulsing tissue, but Ifeeleverything.
Blood. Dozens of samples. Different species. Her medkit. It burst when I hit.
The nutrients flood into me involuntarily. The hunger is instinctive. I don’tfeedso much asabsorb. Every drop a code to unravel. Every scent a language to learn.
My mind sharpens.
Myselfreforms.
But Esme is gone.
The last thing I feel before I go dark is the echo of her panic.
And the scream she never has time to finish.
CHAPTER 3
ESME
He's gone.
The moment Sagax is ripped from me, it feels like a thousand knives slice down my spine, straight through my bones. My knees hit the ground hard—mud splashes up and clings to my thighs, but I don't feel it. All I can feel is the hole inside me.
Like something vital’s been torn away.
One second he’s there—filling my head with calm, with that weird, steady rhythm that made everything just a little less terrifying—and the next, he’sgone. Ripped away by that cursed blast. My body goes cold. Numb. Like he took all the warmth with him.
I collapse into the underbrush, half blind, chest heaving.
“Sagax!” I scream. It explodes out of me, primal and raw. I’ve never said his name aloud until now, but it crashes from my throat like I was born screaming it.
No answer. Just the steady hum of alien machines. And footsteps.
Click-clack. Swik. Swik.Precision in every motion. A marching beat of death.
They’re coming.
I clutch the medkit—what’s left of it. Blood bags torn open, contents splattered across the mud and my hands. My pulse pounds against my skull like it’s trying to break free. I scramble to my feet, pain screaming through my hip where I landed, but I don’t care. I don’tcare. I have to run.
But I don’t move.
