Page 40 of Monster Whisperer
I wanted to pitch a tantrum when I hardly got any time with her at all. Hades came in to get me for my fight. Fuck. She came in here just for me, and now I hardly had the chance to get to know her. There was so much we didn’t know about our monster whisperer.
I hated the guards Demeter sent with him. They always put a leash on my collar like I was a pet and not a Black Widow spider. One day, I would kill them. One day. They led me out of the cell and into the waiting area for the area. Hades disappeared with River. I knew she would watch from Hades’ box, and I had every intention of showing off.
I could hear the roar of the crowd from my cage. It didn’t get my adrenaline pumping. I know some people who came to this arena to fight got off on it, but I didn’t. Sure, I liked battle, but I wanted to eat every single person who sat there and bet on my life. I would kill her and eat her. I hated her, but Aello’s life was worth more than a few drachmas in a fighting pit.
Apparently, Demeter already had time to plan for a schedule change. I wasn’t booed when I was let into the arena. Aello flew out and screeched.
“You? Why did it have you be you?”she asked.
“Bitter I will be the one to kill you, bitch?”I asked, slinging a web at her.
She wasn’t attacking me. Why wasn’t she fighting back? She was dodging my webs, and that was about it. She shocked the shit out of me when she flew down and perched right in front of me.
“I never made things right with you. I was wrong for what I did to you. I loved you. I was just jealous of your job and thought you loved Persephone more than me. Make it quick.”
Oh, shit, was she straight up giving up? And what the fuck was she talking about?
“Get up and fight, Aello!”
“No. We are all doomed, and this is pointless. Just do it, Pavlina. If you ever loved me, do it and make it quick.”
If I didn’t, Demeter would send that dog out and burn us both. One of us had to die. The Aello I knew wouldn’t have given up like this. Demeter had broken her. So, I did what she asked. I shot out a web and snapped her neck. Quick, just like she asked.
The audience usually got off on watching me spin a body into a web and bringing it back to my cell to eat, but I wasn’t doing that this time. I wouldn’t do that to Aello. I was looking forward to eating her, but I’d lost my appetite. This was the worst kill I’d ever done, and I’d killed plenty of friends in this arena.
They threw rotted fruit at me when I turned to walk back inside, but I held my head high. They might be able to force us to do this, but Demos was out there somewhere getting intel.
And something told me River would figure out how to end this. And then I would have my revenge.
Chapter 30
River
S
omething must have gone horrifically wrong during the fight. I listened while Pavlina killed the man that was brought for her to eat. She took her time, and he was screaming for a long time. She was a predator, and she had a personal vendetta against the harpy she was fighting. To be honest, the way she was talking about the fight before they took her, I wasn’t sure if I would have the stomach to watch it. Both fighters sounded like they loathed each other.
I knew Pavlina’s fights rarely happened that fast because they booed her, and they threw things at her. I had to find out if she was okay. I rushed back to the jail, but by the time I got there, Pavlina had covered the entire front wall of her cell with webs. I couldn’t exactly knock without getting cut, and I didn’t know her well enough to know if she needed space.
“Pavlina? Are you okay?”
“One day, I will get out of this collar and have my revenge on Demeter and her army.”
“Do you want to talk about it?”
“Aello and I met right after Hades conscripted me as Persephone’s bodyguard. It was soon after I ended up in the Underworld. We burned bright, and I fell hard. I loved that harpy, and I thought everything was perfect. I thought I was doing everything right. Then, she just started becoming distant, and I found out she was cheating on me.
“It hurt a lot, and it took me a long time to get over it. I don’t think she was expecting to face me in the fighting ring. The monsters in the pit are broken. She knew one of us would die, and she wanted it to be her. She had no hope we could turn this around. Before she just laid down and asked me to end it for her, she confessed she always loved me. She was just jealous of the time I spent around Persephone. I think it was because Persephone is a Goddess, and she was a harpy. It gave her some sort of complex, so she pushed me away. I’ve killed many people, but that one was by far the worst.”
How horrible. I needed to find out more about those collars. I needed to visit the monsters in the pit to give them hope. I’d only visited the ones in the cell. I’d tried to make life better for them, but what about those sleeping in the pit of this jail? For now, I needed to worry about Pavlina.
“Did you want me to just come in there and sit with you? We don’t have to talk. We can just sit there in silence.”
I watched as one of her pinchers started pulling her web down. It must not cut her like it did me. Pavlina climbed up a web in the corner and snapped her pinchers at me.
“I made a chair for you out of webs in case you visited me. It’s made of a softer web.”
I could see it in the corner. It looked like some sort of hammock swing but from crystalline web. I didn’t want to insult her, so I sat down. It was surprisingly comfortable.
