Page 44 of Monsters Within (The Creatures We Crave 1)
“Deal,” Lucien agreed, a bit too easily if you asked me. As soon as the food was placed in front of him, he tacked on, “Mommy.”
We all fell into laughter again, and my heart felt so full to have us all here together, doing such a normal task, and it still somehow felt like the best moment of my life.
Elwin grumbled, grabbing the last plate and walking around the counter to sit in the other seat next to Alexandra. “I’m never cooking again.”
“Would you rather be Daddy?” Alexandra asked, voice slightly husky as she batted her eyes.
“What!?” Lucien exclaimed, slamming his fork down and standing up straight. “No, if anyone is Daddy, it’s going to be me.”
A coy smile crossed her face before she innocently said, “If you want to be Daddy with Elwin as Mommy, I’m not going to judge you, but incest is frowned upon, no matter what realm you’re in, so maybe keep that a secret?”
Man, I loved this playful side of our girl. We didn’t see it as often in our reality, and it was quickly becoming my favorite part about her.
Lucien and Elwin were quick to voice how that was absolutely not a thing and that they vowed to never bring up this topic again.
After we all finished eating, I grabbed the plates and tossed them into the dishwasher. Meanwhile, the others made their way to the couch, waiting for me to join them and begin the discussion about what we saw with Alexandra while she was unconscious and how it tied into what happened in the bathroom.
Making my way over to them, I smiled at how cozy she looked. She lay with her head in Elwin’s lap as he ran his fingers through her hair, her feet in Lucien’s lap as he rubbed them.
This was why I was happy to share her love with my brothers. She’d come first, always.
“Okay, let’s get this conversation wrapped up so we can get to bed,” I announced as I sank down into the other side of the sectional near Elwin.
She sat up and groggily rubbed her eyes like she was fighting off sleep right now. Leaning her head against Elwin’s shoulder, she mumbled, “No need to make it a big thing. I can handle whatever it is.”
Rubbing my hands together, I conceded. “Alright. I think that the reason you felt that immense energy consuming you is because you absorbed all of the emotions we’ve fed on in your stories in one go.”
“H—how?” she stammered out in confusion, looking more alert than the moment prior.
Recalling the scene, I tried my best to explain. “The second your face connected with Elwin’s soul, it was like a magnet drew Lucien and me into our true forms and to you, until you were trapped between us and we couldn’t move. You weren’t responding to us at all.”
Elwin smoothed the top of her hair down and placed a kiss on it. “I looked into your eyes, and it was like you weren’t there. It was just the shell of your body standing there.”
A shiver ran through him as he spoke, and she snuggled in further, wrapping an arm around his waist.
“Our souls were glowing brighter than ever before, and they came out of our chest and swirled together until we were all held within a glowing orb,” Lucien tacked on.
Her mouth dropped open in shock. “Damn, that sounds beautiful. Crazy, but definitely beautiful. I’m sad I don’t remember it.”
Leave it to her to find the positive in this story.
Leaning forward, I rested my forearms against my legs and continued. “Then it suddenly stopped and fed directly into you. You were absorbing every last ounce of it, and as soon as you did, the hold on us all broke and our chests glowed once more, like our souls had never been removed.”
“But you were still in a trance,” Elwin explained, taking over the story. “After we were released and you had absorbed whatever it was, your hair was glowing a purple that matched your eyes, but your eyes were milky white and shadows were licking at your skin.”
This caused her to sit up straight and cross her legs beneath her, the crease between her brows furrowing deeply. “I absorbed all three of your powers?” she questioned. Not waiting for an answer, she fired off two more questions. “How is it possible that I was displaying the same traits you three do when you feed? Are you saying I’m the same type of monster as you?”
With a small shake of my head and a sigh, I answered truthfully. “At first I thought it was the same as our powers and you were just siphoning from us instead of humans, but after I had a taste of the energy you were holding in the bathroom and the new features displaying again at that moment…” I trailed off, trying to pinpoint the words to describe the euphoria it had filled me with.
Giving it my best shot, I pushed on. “I think you absorbed all of the emotions that we held within us after our feedings, like a conduit of sorts. Your body isn’t used to holding that, so I think you expelled some of it back to me, lightening the load you were carrying. But it wasn’t any certain emotion. It was like raw power I’ve never felt before. I still feel like I could run a marathon right now. It’s like it’s simmering beneath my skin.”
Mirror looks of shock reflected back at me from all three of them.
“So, she took everything we fed off of and converted it, but it was too much for her body to handle,” Elwin mused, talking it through out loud. “How did she expel it to you, Kylo?”
Flicking my eyes to her for permission to share the intimate details, she groaned and clapped her hands over her face. Sighing, she relented. “Tell them.”
Knowing this was the perfect moment to give Lucien payback for the shirt, I smirked at him and announced, “I made her orgasm, and it was like her body was able to release the energy at that moment, and I absorbed it.”
