Page 66 of Mated to the Monster God
In the plasma flame’s glow, victory is ours—claimed by fire, scale and pulse.
The ground quakes again—Baragons brutally smashing into the outer wall. Earth splits, logs burst, and the trembling skies rain dust and desperation. My roar cuts through the chaos like a blade, but for a moment, it feels as though their tide is uncontainable.
I leap onto the parapet, claws scraping against charcoal-burned wood. My wings flare, fists tight around the hilts of bone-blade claws. The Baragons press in, unstoppable—horn-skinnedwarriors forged for annihilation. I don’t fear for myself. I fear for Sweetwater. For her.
Screams echo inside the trench. I twist, breath ragged, seeing Esme and Tara—still standing, fear blocked behind determination—pressing medigel into injured arms, pulling colonists upright, breathing life back into them.
Their strength steadies me.
Silence rips the sky.
A distant transmission—the crackle of cold, calm inevitability.
Krenshaw’s voice, hollow and synthetic, booms through every speaker, every comm link:
“The resin will be mine. And your precious Esme will be my prototype.”
A plug of fury detonates in my chest. My vision floods red—blood, flame, and raw weight of promise.
I twist around the battlement, heart twin-thrust by red-hot rage and savage protection. The Baragons hesitate—metallic heads twitching, instinct stiffening.
I roar back, low and lethal:“He willnottouch what is mine.”
The night bursts.
I spring into battle anew. With ruthless grace, I launch through that breach, tearing Baragons from one another with claws slicing in arcs of vengeance and love. Every strike hammers my pledge to her into flesh and bone.
They retreat—not in terror, but calculation. Baragons adapt fast… but not fast enough for rage unbound.
I drive them back, pushing them from wall to earth, show them who owns this ground. Each time they pivot in armor, I meet them with steel, rain-soaked fury, and abandon fear for purpose.
Rain streaks my scales. Echoes of Krenshaw’s phrase haunt the air, but his words have become fuel.
I bellow again:“This is ours!”
The world bends to that roar.
And buried beneath the roar, sand, and fire—I think I taste dawn.
They will never touch her. Not on my watch.
CHAPTER 21
ESME
Itaste copper in the air—fear, blood, and something deeper, something branded into the marrow of my marrow. Krenshaw’s threat isn’t vague anymore. It’s precise and corrosive.
I stare at the broken med station—satchel tossed open, vials scattered, blue resin spilled in tarnished trails across the metal floor. My hands tremble, chest aching with cold awareness: this isn’t just about the resin. It’s about me.
My blood runs different now—enslaved to Sagax’s bond, spun by years of terrestrial adaptation, woven into alien loops. I’ve known this—an unspoken truth I’ve buried in memory and motion. But Krenshaw… his words cut through me like acid:
"Your precious Esme will be my prototype."
The word “prototype” loops inside me—her, not resource; test subject, not warrior. I reel, but clarity comes. This is personal.
I stand, rain-beat hair plastered to my face, inhaling the antiseptic sting of the biolab. Every scent in the air connects: resin, sweat, fear, urgency. The colony is bleeding into chaos, but this moment burrows into me with crystalline purpose.
I stride toward the shattered window, rain sluicing over my lashes. Beyond, trenches glow with fusion blocks, colonists fight with desperation carved into bones—but even there, I see the fear reflected in their eyes. I recognize it. I can’t let it claim more souls, not while I can stand.
