Page 15 of The Monster's Daughter
She murmured my name once before slipping fully into dreams. Just a ghost of a sound, her lips brushing my skin when she breathed it. I tightened my arms around her then, protective and possessive in the same motion, and I haven’t loosened them since.
I should feel triumphant. Victorious. I should revel in the bond’s deepening. We kissed. The jalshagar sings in my blood now, stronger than ever, a steady thrum in my bones that no war or storm can smother.
But I don’t feel victorious.
I feel anxious. Unsteady.
If she rejects me now, I’ll unravel. I’ll break in a way no enemy, no weapon, no firestorm could ever manage.
I close my eyes, jaw clenching hard enough to ache. I tell myself I don’t need her. That I can bury the bond, like the deadbeneath these mountains. That if she wakes and spits venom, I’ll turn cold again, armor sealing me whole.
But she doesn’t.
She shifts in her sleep instead, curls tighter against me, fingers brushing over my ribs like she belongs there.
And gods help me, she does.
Morning claws its way through the cave mouth, pale light spilling over the stone. She wakes groggy, hair wild, eyes blinking against the glare. I don’t tell her I spent the night memorizing the curve of her lips, the sound of her breathing. I just grunt, shift my pack over my shoulder, and lead us back out into the wind.
The climb worsens. The shale bites deeper, the sandstorms spit harder. Each gust carries grit into my eyes, my mouth, beneath my scales. She curses the mountain every ten steps, voice raw, but she keeps moving. Stubborn. Fierce.
Then the sound comes.
A buzz, faint at first. A whining, mechanical pitch tangled with something organic—wet clicks, like an insect’s mandibles.
“Drones,” I snarl.
They rise from the ash like carrion birds, three of them, half-metal husks patched with sinew and bone. Their eyes glow red, their limbs twitch with jerky hunger, and the stench of oil mixed with rotting flesh slams into me like a wall.
Bella pulls her sidearm instantly, stance sharp. “Those are?—”
“Nulegion’s scraps.” My frills flare, rage boiling. “Scavengers.”
The first lunges, claws sparking as they scrape stone. Bella fires, shot slamming through its head, but it keeps coming until I catch it by the neck and crush. Bone and wire snap, fluids spraying hot over my arm.
The second scrambles low, fast. Bella turns, fires again, cursing when the shot only shreds its shoulder. It slams into herand I roar, tearing it off before it can bite. My claws sink through its chest, ripping out its core.
The third catches me off guard. It slashes low, claws slicing between my scales at my side. Pain sears white-hot, blood flooding beneath my armor. I crush it anyway, rage drowning the wound, but when the last of them falls twitching, my knees almost buckle.
Bella is at my side instantly. “You’re bleeding.”
“It’s nothing,” I growl, though my vision flickers.
“Nothing?” She shoves me back against the cave wall, fumbling with her medkit. “You’re leaking like a busted coolant pipe, you stubborn bastard. Sit still.”
Her hands shake as she works, fumbling with the dermal regenerator. Blood stains her fingers, slick and hot. Her face is pale, jaw tight. “You’re not allowed to die, asshole,” she mutters, voice breaking despite the venom.
I grunt, half a laugh, half a growl. But her touch anchors me. Each press of her hand, each muttered curse—it holds me here, steadies me in a way no command ever did.
The bond hums, bright and fierce, threading through the pain like fire in my veins.
When the bleeding slows, when my scales knit enough to hold me upright, we move again. Not far—a collapsed overpass hollow enough for shelter.
We sit close, exhaustion thick. My blood still dampens the stone beneath me. She leans against me without words, too tired to keep distance, too stubborn to admit she wants to.
I tilt my head, press my forehead to hers. My voice comes rough, low. “We’re close.”
She nods, but her eyes are clouded, shadowed with thoughts she won’t voice. I feel it in the bond, the swirl of her doubt and desire and fear.
