Page 85 of Mated to the Monster God
Because there’s nowhere else in the galaxy I’d rather be than with him… right here, right now, on Pwarra.
CHAPTER 26
ESME
Two years pass like water under the roots—slow and steady, reshaping everything in silence.
Sweetwater grows.
We get a few dozen new colonists every season now. Some are scrappy survivors from other settlements. Others are brave idealists who heard whispers of hope in the stars and came chasing rumors. We take them all. We teach them the soil, the sky, the silence of this place. We make room. We make family.
And so far? The Combine hasn’t so much as twitched in our direction. Not a scout, not a drone. Just blessed silence and enough time to build something real.
Sagax and I built a hanging garden along the inner wall, a tangle of vines and flowering crops that catch dew at dawn and bloom wide by noon. It was his idea—some symbiosis logic tied to vertical space and nutrient cycles—but I just love how damn pretty it looks.
This morning, I’m up early, checking the irrigation lines while the air still smells like jasmine and sun-warmed stone. The sun’s barely broken the trees, but the heat’s already climbing, wrapping around me like a lazy hug. Birds trill somewhereoverhead. The sky’s a thousand shades of blue, and everything feels almost too perfect.
That’s when I hear the footsteps. Big, heavy, pissed-off footsteps.
I glance up, squinting toward the hill outside the wall.
And there he is.
Sagax, cresting the rise with a storm cloud stamped across his face—and dangling from his massive hands?
Two upside-down little troublemakers.
“Steven,” I groan, dragging the name out like it tastes sour.
Sagax stalks toward me, expression blank in that very specificI’m-about-to-lecture-someone-into-the-dirtway. One hand grips the ankle of our son—green-scaled, sharp-eyed, and currently wearing a look of pure guilt and zero regret. The other? Morty. Wild-eyed, red-faced, and cackling like a goblin.
“This,” Sagax announces, voice deadpan, “is the result of your DNA.”
I cross my arms. “Iknewthis had Morty written all over it.”
“Incorrect,” Sagax replies, not missing a beat. “Steven masterminded the operation. Morty claims to have only ‘tagged along for moral support.’”
“Tagged alongwhereexactly?”
“The women’s bathhouse.”
My jaw drops.
Steven shifts in Sagax’s grip, trying to look innocent. It’s not working. “It was purely scientific observation,” he chirps, voice too high for his age but already laced with that damn charisma he inherited fromme.“Thermal readings, mother. Comparative anatomy. Strictly academic.”
“Oh myGod,” I mutter, covering my face.
“I warned you,” Sagax adds, “that his mental development was accelerated. Chronologically, he is only two. Intellectually, he is fourteen. Biologically… questionable.”
“Questionable,” I echo, shooting our child a look.
Steven grins. “Dad said curiosity was natural.”
Sagax blinks. “Intellectualcuriosity. Not voyeurism.”
Morty, still upside-down and giggling, pipes up. “We didn’tseeanything! That tall fence is a menace. Almost fell off the barrel.”
I stare at them. My kid and my nephew. Future menaces to society. Possibly the galaxy.
