I had met too many dark, ugly, twisted humans for me to trust them.
They’d smile to your face to placate you, whispering the words you wanted to hear, all while taking what they wanted before leaving behind a husk of a person.
The ones who stole.
The ones who raped.
The ones who thought they deserved everything simply because they breathed.
In my fantasy world, my monsters and I snuffed the arrogance and entitlement out of every single one of those fuckers. Sometimes discretion was needed, so, in addition to their monster forms, they had a human form so they could blend in with society and be at my side.
Which brought me to the task at hand. Opening my eyes, I thought of where I wanted to begin with this one. Today’s chapter was about the Dean of Students who had lifted my skirt this afternoon and told me he’d forget the claims of me cheating on my essay if I helped him.
I hadn’t cheated.
There was no need to when academics were a natural gift of my mind. The only way I was even able to attend this college was due to the academic scholarship I’d been awarded. Without it, I’d be on the streets without a penny to my name, like most kids after they aged out of the system.
There was definitely no way I’d risk any of that by cheating on a dumb creative writing essay that I could ace without struggling.
The problem was that Chloe Blufount didn’t like that I continuously ranked above her for the top spot in the undergraduate class for English majors. Our creative writing professor instituted a public ranking board to encourage excellence, and with my talent for writing, I edged Chloe out every year. But Chloe was a girl who was used to getting her way, especially since her father’s money usually got her everything else she wanted. He could buy her lip injections, lash extensions, a constant fake spray tan, and her continuously revolving hair colors, but he'd never be able to buy her top rank in our class.
I was proud of that.
So this was how she got me out of the way instead. Feeding the skeevy dean lies, knowing full well what his reputation was. Chloe was one of the monsters beneath a pretty human skin suit, offering me on a silver platter to a man who took what wasn’t freely given, knowing I had no one to help me fight my battles other than myself.
In reality, I had smacked his hand away lightly, told him I’d take the zero on the assignment, and quietly left his office, not wanting to ignite the temper I’d heard about many times.
It finally came to me, how I wanted this scene to go. The specific way I wanted the dean to suffer. I let the ink glide on the page, closing my eyes and summoning my bloodthirsty monster to reenact the scene in the manner I truly wanted.
Lucien.
He’d slaughter for those he loved without blinking. Touch what was his and die a painful death as a result. It was that simple to him.
The scene was finally set. There I was, sitting with my legs crossed in the chair in front of the dean’s oak desk, with the dean standing and leaning against the corner of it, eyeing me like a pig.
As Lucien stepped from the shadows in the corner of the office, his fingertips gleamed like freshly sharpened obsidian daggers. His form shifted as he approached slowly and intentionally, like a predator stalking his prey, confidence and danger radiating off of him in waves. His blood-red eyes with black slits were pinned on his target with unwavering intensity.
Truly, he embodied the creature of nightmares kids would fear coming from the shadowed corners of their rooms.
Just as the perv put his hand on my exposed leg and drew it up toward my skirt, as he had in reality, Lucien tutted at him. “That simply won’t do. The only person allowed to touch my angel is me.”
The dean stood, frozen in fear of my monster, and I smiled wickedly when his beige dress pants darkened and the scent of urine permeated the air. All it took was Lucien’s talons touching his skin in the faintest whisper of a touch.
The dean knew he had just become the prey.
The shadows on Lucien’s face parted to reveal his lips as he smiled at the dean, putting his rows of sharp teeth on display. The dean screamed, begging for mercy, in the seconds before his hands were swiftly cleaved from his wrists.
Maybe that act should have scared me—it was what I truly wanted, and craving that type of violence wasn’t normal. But instead, it unfurled a sense of justice and satisfaction within me, perhaps even a hint of desire towards Lucien for the vicious move.
Alright, it was more than a hint of desire.
It wouldn’t be the first time their possessive and sometimes barbaric actions had turned me on. But it wasn’t a surprise because I had written them to be exactly like that.
The thing was—my creations weren’t just monsters. They were my soul mates, and I had created them to be extremely protective and territorial over me. Something I’d lacked in my life growing up. They all had distinctively different personalities, but their underlying love and need to keep me safe shone brightly through their shadowy depths.
The dean’s screams echoed through the expanse of his office, but no one came to his rescue. No one could save him—he was damned from the start of my story.
He fell to his knees as blood poured in rivulets from his severed wrists, pooling beneath him in an ever-expanding crimson lake. Snot poured from his nose as he sobbed and begged, “Please, spare me. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
