Page 30 of Mated to the Monster God
When one of the Baragon raises a rifle, the world fractures into bone and adrenaline. Esme fires lumbar-shaking bursts. I launch myself forward, claws tearing through laminate plating and synthetic padding. Metal crumples. Flesh yields.
I feel her scream piercing the night. Not out of fear—but rage, urgency, survival.
We move as one. She crouches, reloads. I shift the fallen Baragon’s body into the dirt. Root and blood mix underfoot.
Emptied shells fall from her pistol. She pulls me down beside the cache box, panic and triumph intermingled in her breath.
“We have to keep moving,” she steers, fierce.
I nod and push her toward the supply box for quick rations and water. She gulps, jaw clenched.
I realize then—this unity is more than strategy. It is trust. It is bond.
I feel both that prickle of pride and the dull ache of terror—terrified of a world where I lose her.
But tonight, we survived because wearea unit.
The air tastes metallic, sharp with the iron of spilled blood and copper-hot adrenaline. Warm night mist coils between our forms in the narrow clearing by the supply cache. Esme’s breathing rattles against my skin. Every ragged intake tells me how close we came to losing everything.
My hands still glow with bio-energy as I gently press damp cloth against her wound—there, just above her collarbone. Her shirt is torn, dirt-smudged, forgotten during the fight. Blood beads up at the corner of her wound, dark and urgent.
“You don’t have to do this,” she says, voice cracked but defiant.
Silence. She inhales. I press harder, careful not to bruise the tissue further.
“Ishouldbe helping,” she protests. “But?—”
I whisper, watching the scar tissue knit under my touch, “You don’t need to fight this alone.” My fingers pound a rhythm that reshapes flesh and reminds me how fragile she still is.
She shivers. Her scent—smoky from sweat, sweet from fear—floods my nerves.
“Es?” I don’t dare ask more.
She swallows. Her eyes close. She leans against me, trusting too easily.
“I’m sorry,” I say, my voice husky. “For exposing you.”
Her fingers unglitch from tensed fists, nestling into my scaled skin. “I chose to stay.” She breathes out. “I chose you.”
I catch the soft tremor in her voice. My chest tightens like overwrought circuits.
I finish stitching; the wound seals. The faint glow in my palm dies. I press a palm against hers—brushed by pulse and warmth.
Our faces are inches apart.
Her breath is raspy, fractured by exertion, alarm, closeness.
I can hear her mind—threaded with exhaustion, exhilaration, trust. Desire? Her hunger for connection crackles in my skull like electricity.
I feel that hunger too. Raw and echoing.
I lean toward her, a silent motion driven by instinct and longing.
She breathes one word: “Sagax...”
Heat flares in my control systems. My jaw tenses. Lips brush hers.
I hesitate—not pulling back, but holding the space.
