Page 7 of Mated to the Monster God
Eight legs. Transparent talons. Camouflaged skin that ripples with every movement.
Esme doesn’t see it.
“Left!” I shout in her mind.
She pivots without hesitation—trusts—just as the creature uncoils and launches.
The Lashcat’s claws swipe empty air behind her, snatching at nothing but dangling vines. It lands with a thud that shakes the underbrush, letting out a wet, throatycluckof frustration.
She doesn’t scream. She doesn’t even slow down.
“Holyhell, that thing was almost on me!” she pants, voice ragged but giddy with adrenaline.
“You would not have survived the venom,” I inform her evenly. “Its fangs would have liquified your insides.”
“Oh, great. Iloveknowing that.”
But her pulse isn’t panicked now—it’s electric. Excited. She’sthrivingin the chaos. Her thoughts are wild and strange: metaphors, memories, emotional impressions tangled like jungle roots.
I sift through the noise, fascinated.
She remembers a birthday where her cake caught fire. A prank involving a bio-luminescent lizard. A kiss from a boy named Jano who smelled like engine grease and regret. Her memories feel like taste and music—intoxicating.
She is not like the other humans I’ve observed from a distance. She is…more.
Curious. Reckless. Radiant.
There is a moment when the sunlight pierces the canopy just enough to catch her face. Sweat slicks her brow. Her braid iscoming loose, wild curls sticking to her cheeks. Dirt streaks her jaw, and her green eyes burn with determination.
She is beautiful.
Not in the sterile, biological symmetry that defines reproductive health. Not in the way her hips sway with practiced balance, or the toned flex of her legs as she leaps over a rotting log.
But in herfury. Herwill. Herflame.
She charges through the dense underbrush, jumping over a ravine filled with writhing burrowbugs. I give her another burst of stamina, lacing her synapses with precise signals. She lands clean.
She’s breathing heavy again, but not from fatigue anymore. Her thoughts shift—stray towardme. Toward the voice in her head. She doesn’t know what to make of me.
“You’re too calm,” she mutters aloud. “For something that’s stuck to my arm like a cursed friendship bracelet.”
“I do not possess fear the way you do.”
“No shit. You’re basically a psychic tapeworm.”
“That is… not inaccurate.”
A laugh bubbles out of her before she can stop it. She’s startled by the sound, and so am I.
Emotions ripple from her like scent trails—fear laced with amusement, curiosity with caution. I feel her trying to categorize me. File me somewhere safe in her understanding of the world.
But there’s no box that fits. Not for what we are.
The terrain levels briefly, moss giving way to spongy ground that glows faintly in the shade. She slows, checking the scanner. Nothing yet. Just us.
Her pulse steadies. Her breathing softens.
For a moment, we exist only in the breath between heartbeats.
