Page 60 of Captured By the Monsters
Now that I knew there was a reason for what I had been feeling, I understood the roaring desire in me that had overridden all logic. It didn’t care what was going on or where we were—it demanded I be satisfied.
To deny it, even for just the short time that I had been, I had felt my grip on my mind slipping as I spiraled into a frenzy of need and frustration.
There was no choice but to succumb, right? Why did that feel like a prison sentence?
I couldn’t escape this. A voice in the back of my head asked: Do you want to escape it, knowing all of this information?
The truth was that no, I didn’t want to escape my monsters or their touch, but I wouldn’t change my mind on not wanting a baby. They should have told me this before I had agreed to the claiming. It seemed like pertinent information to withhold.
Yes, I had been struggling to accept all the changes to my body, such as when I realized I needed their cum as sustenance, so I couldn’t blame them for being concerned about what my reaction would be to this…
But it didn’t mean that they still shouldn’t have told me.
This heat would drive me mad until I begged my mates to take me, over and over, until eventually I was with child. Which was clearly something they wanted. They wouldn’t deny their primal needs.
I wanted to cry, hating that once more my choice was being taken from me.
Hugging my arms to my body, I glanced over all three of them and asked, “Will I ever get to make my own decisions?
I had learned how to be adaptable—I had to be if I wanted to survive—but I was sick of having all my choices taken from me. Everything was either out of my hands or was another person’s decision. As much as I craved my monsters’ touch, I craved independence more.
The slumping of their large shoulders and remorseful eyes made it obvious they did feel bad. And they should.
“I’m sorry, Sera,” Sylan whispered, glancing at the floor. “If we wouldn’t have completed the claiming, then we could have lost you here today. You could have gone to another Trifecta who might not have cherished you or cared about you in any way. We couldn’t take that risk.”
I was sensible enough to understand the dire situation we were all put in—especially after what had occurred at this castle today—and there was no way I would have ever allowed myself to be given to another Trifecta. These were my monsters. But the withholding of information had broken the tentative trust we had only just managed to build.
It wouldn’t be something I’d forget easily. There would always be doubt in the back of my head now, wondering if they were telling me the truth or the full scope of a situation.
Taking a deep breath as a wave of desire sucker-punched me, I blew it out and focused on where we would go from here.
“Are you sure there’s nothing we can do?” I asked, trying to remain calm but failing as the gravity of this hit me. “What if the True Queen is never found? What then? We watch our son die alongside uswhen this land perishes? Is that something you can live with in the back of your head as he grows up—because I can’t.”
My three monsters remained silent, and I was unsure if they didn’t know how to respond or if they truly hadn’t thought about this, but within seconds of being told I would get pregnant, this became my paramount concern.
“Just like you can’t avoid the feelings of your heat, we can’t escape the overwhelming need to impregnate you, gem,” Rowen explained as he closed the space between us and glanced down at me. “It is wired into our DNA in the same way your body screams to be impregnated with the heat.”
My eyes bulged. “Are you saying that even after the situation I just described, you still want a child?”
He smiled softly as his hand came up to brush my cheek with the back of his knuckles, avoiding his claws making contact. Electric sparks simmered beneath the skin he touched, and my legs rubbed together at the need building between them despite my mounting frustration.
“Yes. I still want you to be the mother to my children,” he admitted, “because look at how you already care about protecting them from hypothetical situations. You would be an amazing mother.”
My mouth dropped as I struggled to compute his words. I spluttered, “This isn’t a hypothetical situation. That is the exact trajectory this land is on.”
Axton crowded in on my right and ran a claw gently down my arm as he asked, “But what if it isn’t?”
“What do you mean?” I snapped, exhausted by this conversation and frustrated that no matter my agitation right now, this heat still had me picturing myself being fucked by them.
He dragged his claw up my shoulder and to my chin, tipping it up. “What if we do find the True Queen? What if our lands are restored and we prosper? It could be a magical place to raise a family.”
Before I could answer him, Sylan boxed me in on my left as my back hit a wall. Their presence was overwhelming as I glanced between them all and felt their intensity. I managed to force out a trembling question. “What if your ‘what ifs’ don’t happen?”
Sylan ran his claws through my hair as he parried for Axton. “But what if they do? None of us know the future and what will come of it.”
Their hope for the future was beautiful, but for such an important decision, it wasn’t enough to convince me otherwise. When the day came that the land was restored and I saw a change in the way their species treated others, then we could talk.
They must have seen my unwavering stance on this topic, for they all nodded at the same time, as if finally accepting it.
