Page 25 of Devilishly Hers (Monster Mountain Romance #1)
Chapter Twenty-Two
D ante
The map of the mountain spreads before us in the war room, each defensive position marked with glowing indicators that pulse in rhythm with the sanctuary’s heartbeat.
Though tension still lingers between us after Blair’s revelations about her hunter background, we’ve found an uneasy alliance in our shared purpose of protecting the sanctuary.
The tactical planning has given us neutral ground where our expertise complements each other, even while personal trust remains fragile.
I stand across from Blair, my wings partially extended as I study the terrain model she’s created. I can’t stop my skin from shifting between crimson and darker shades as I absorb the tactical information she presents.
“I believe my father’s teams will approach from these three vectors,” she explains, fingers tracing the likely paths. “Based on his standard protocols, he’ll establish observation posts here, here, and here before committing to a full approach.”
“How can you be so certai n?” Marina asks, her scales rippling with barely concealed skepticism.
“Because I’ve run these drills with him since I was twelve.” Blair’s admission seems to come easier now, days after revealing her past. “He believes in predictable patterns, controlled variables. It’s both his strength and his weakness.”
My tail lashes thoughtfully against the stone floor. “So we exploit the predictability.”
“Exactly.” She adjusts a nearby crystal to put more light on the detail of the southwestern approach. “If we position countermeasures based on where he expects us to be, we can create strategic advantages here and here.”
For the past three days, we’ve worked together improving the sanctuary’s defenses.
The hunters’ retreat after our last encounter bought us more time than we expected, but we all know they’ll return, and next time they’ll be better equipped and better prepared.
Her father never abandons a target, a trait she’s explained with a mixture of respect and resignation.
Volt’s massive form shifts, electricity crackling between his golden feathers. “These adjustments to the crystal arrays require precise calibration. Particularly the ones designed to disrupt their tracking equipment.”
“I can handle the technical aspects,” Blair offers, her eyes already taking on that focused look I’ve come to recognize when she’s calculating something complex. “My father’s tracking systems operate on specific frequency ranges I’m familiar with.”
As the meeting continues, I can’t help but watch her—the confidence in her movements, the precise way she explains technical details, the slight furrow between her brows when she’s thinking deeply.
The mate bond feels like a silken cord between us, responsive to our proximity despite the emotional distance we’ve maintained since my revelation about Kieran and her confession about her father.
When the council adjourns, cryptids disperse to implement our defensive strategies. Blair gathers her tablet and notes, preparing to begin work on the crystal calibrations. Before I can second-guess myself, I approach her.
“I’ll help you with the eastern array,” I offer, my voice steadier than I feel.
She looks up, surprise evident in her expression as she finds me standing closer than I’ve been in days. I have to focus to keep my tail from reaching for her ankle, a habit that formed so naturally before everything changed.
“The calibration requires precise adjustments,” she warns. “It’s delicate work.”
“Good thing I have steady hands.” I extend my claws, then retract them with practiced control. “Besides, two people working will cut the time in half.”
Her logical mind can’t argue with the efficiency, though her expression tells me my sudden willingness to work closely with her has caught her off guard.
We’ve been professionally cordial since my revelation about Kieran, but our personal connection has remained in limbo—neither fully broken nor properly mended.
As we walk through crystal- lined corridors toward the eastern ridge, silence stretches between us.
Not uncomfortable, exactly, but heavy with unspoken words that press against my tongue.
The mate bond pulses with each step we take together, making it harder to maintain the careful distance I’ve enforced since learning about her past.
“You’re different,” I say finally, breaking the quiet as we reach the first crystal array. “When you talk about tactical operations. More confident. Decisive.”
“Old training,” she admits, kneeling before the crystal formation. “My father believed hesitation was weakness. In tactical situations, I learned not to show it.”
My tail curls thoughtfully as I observe how easily she shifts between scientist and tactician. “It’s not just that. You seem more… integrated. The scientist and the tactician working together rather than one hiding the other.”
She pauses in her adjustments, though she doesn’t look up at me.
“I spent most of my life keeping parts of myself hidden. First, from colleagues who would have questioned my objectivity if they knew my background. Then from the sanctuary residents who would have feared me if they knew who raised me.”
“And now?” My wings shift restlessly, casting shadows across the stone walls as I struggle to articulate what I’m seeing in her.
“Now there’s no point in pretending.” Her hands tremble slightly as she adjusts the crystal alignment. “Everyone knows exactly who and what I am.”
“Do they? Do you? I think you are evolving, melding your past and present and have been trying very hard to prove to us, to me, that who you are now is more than who you were raised to be.”
Her eyes meet mine with a startled mix of vulnerability and relief. I see the weight of judgment she’s placed on herself—heavier than anything I or the sanctuary residents could impose.
“They know I’m the hunter’s daughter,” she says quietly. “That I grew up learning how to track and capture beings like you.”
“And they know you’ve used that knowledge to strengthen our defenses instead.” My tail moves closer to her ankle, not quite touching but needing the proximity I’ve denied us both for days. “That you’ve stood with us against the very hunters who trained you.”
Working together, we calibrate the crystal array, our movements finding unexpected synchronicity.
She calculates frequencies while I adjust the physical alignment, each of us playing to our strengths without needing discussion.
Through it all, the mate bond resonates between us, growing stronger with each moment of cooperation, each shared purpose.
My skin keeps betraying me, shifting to warmer crimson whenever she explains something with that passionate precision that first drew me to her.
The scientist in her is fascinating, but this hybrid creature—tactical and analytical, passionate and calculating—is mesmerizing in ways I wasn’t prepared for.
As afternoon turns to evening, we move from one defensive position to the next. Each successful calibration improves the sanctuary’s protection—her knowledge of hunter technology paired with my understanding of cryptid energy creating something neither could achieve alone.
At the final array, high on the eastern ridge where crystal formations jut from the mountainside like frozen flames, she struggles with a particularly stubborn alignment. The crystal refuses to lock into position, slipping from the frequency she’s trying to establish.
“Let me,” I say, moving closer without considering the implications. My chest brushes her back as I reach around her, carefully extending my claws to grasp the crystal without scratching it.
The contact—the first deliberate touch in days—sends fire racing through my veins. The mate bond flares with recognition, with relief so profound it momentarily steals my breath. My skin shifts involuntarily to that iridescent shade I can never seem to control around her.
“Guide my hands,” I murmur, my voice dropping lower than intended as her scent surrounds me. “Tell me what you need.”
“Thirty degrees clockwise, then stabilize at the central axis,” she instructs, her voice impressively steady despite the rapid increase in her heart rate that I can feel through our contact.
Together, we manipulate the crystal into alignment.
When it finally locks into place, glowing with completed connection, I can’t bring myself to move away.
My chest remains pressed against her back, my wings partially curling around us both in a protective gesture that feels as natural as breathing.
“I’ve missed you,” I admit, the words scraping raw against my throat. “Even when you’ve been right beside me, I’ve missed what was growing between us before…”
“Before you learned who I really am.” Her voice carries resignation that makes my chest ache with regret for how quickly I judged her.
“No.” I need her to understand that it wasn’t her past that frightened me, but my own reaction to it. “Before I let fear make me forget what I already knew about who you are.”
She turns to face me, uncertainty and hope warring in her expression. It strikes me how brave she is—always facing truths head-on, even painful ones.
“I’ve spent years defining myself by what I’m not,” she says, scientific precision failing to mask the vulnerability beneath. “Not my father’s willing apprentice. Not Apex’s obedient researcher. Always running from what I was instead of embracing what I could be.”
“And now?” My tail finally makes contact, curling gently around her ankle in a tentative touch I’ve denied us both for too long.
“Now I’m trying to integrate all the pieces instead of denying them.
” The simplicity of her answer strikes me with its honesty.
“Using what I learned from my father to protect instead of hunt. Applying scientific methods to understand mate bonds and sanctuary defenses rather than cryptid weaknesses.”
“That integration suits you.” The words come easily, genuine appreciation warming my voice. “The hunter’s daughter and the brilliant scientist. Both real. Both valuable.”
As evening light bathes the ridge in amber, her expression shifts toward something both resolute and vulnerable.
“I thought I could treat your wing without having to tell you, but he changed the formula and added the virus. I should have told you about my background sooner. About my father. About recognizing components of his toxin in your wing.”
“Yes,” I agree without rancor, knowing honesty serves us better than false comfort. “You should have.”
“I was afraid.” The admission seems to cost her more than any scientific analysis or tactical assessment ever could.
“Not just of how others would react, but of acknowledging that part of myself. Of accepting that I’ll always carry pieces of the world that shaped me, even as I reject what it stands for. ”
Her words mirror my own journey so precisely that my skin ripples with recognition. “We’re all shaped by our origins, Blair. Even when we fight against them.”
“You’ve been fighting yours too,” she observes quietly. “Carrying Kieran’s horn like a punishment rather than honoring his memory.”
My skin shifts to obsidian at the direct reference, the familiar shame rising before I can stop it. But I don’t retreat as I once would have. “It’s easier to focus on failure than to accept that some things lie beyond our control.”
“Like a mate bond forming between a Jersey Devil and a hunter’s daughter?” The unexpected lightness in her tone catches me off guard, warmth spreading through my chest at her willingness to acknowledge what still pulses between us.
My tail tightens fractionally around her ankle. “Statistically improbable, according to your research.”
“Highly improbable,” sh e corrects, that delightful scientific precision returning. “Yet empirically undeniable based on documented physiological responses.”
A laugh escapes me, genuine and unguarded for the first time in days. “Always the scientist.”
“It’s how I make sense of things that feel too big for words.” Her hand rises tentatively, hovering near my face without quite touching. “Like how much I’ve missed you, too.”
The crystal array pulses with completed connection, bathing us in soft light as dusk settles over the mountain.
In this moment of fragile rebuilding, I resist the urge to pull her closer, to reclaim everything we’d begun to build before secrets and revelations complicated our path.
This tentative new understanding feels too precious to rush, too important to risk with impatience.
“We should head back,” I say finally, though my tail refuses to release her ankle. “The others will be wondering if the calibration was successful.”
“It was.” Her eyes meet mine with an understanding that transcends the technical achievement. “More successful than I anticipated.”
As we make our way back toward the sanctuary’s main caverns, our steps find natural synchronicity. The mate bond hums between us, steady and present despite the caution that remains in both our hearts.
My wing occasionally brushes her shoulder as we walk, each casual contact sending ripples of warmth through my skin.
I no longer try to hide these reactions, letting her see how she affects me.
Her scientific mind has undoubtedly catalogued every chromatic shift, every temperature fluctuation, but there’s som ething different in the way she observes me now—less clinical, more connected.
“Your color just changed again,” she notes, her voice warm. “That particular shade appears when you’re feeling contemplative.”
I can’t help but smile. “And here I thought I was being inscrutable.”
“Hardly.” The quick quirk of her lips makes my heart race. “Though I will need to update my documentation with these new observations.”
As we reach the corridor leading to the library, our pace slows by mutual, unspoken agreement. Neither of us seems ready to rejoin the others just yet.
“We still have work to do,” I say quietly, acknowledging the fragile new understanding between us. “Trust doesn’t rebuild overnight.”
“No,” she agrees. “But we’ve established a foundation for progress. A starting point.”
Her practical assessment of our emotional state makes me chuckle. “Only you could make reconciliation sound like a scientific experiment.”
“Isn’t it, though?” Her gaze meets mine with unexpected warmth. “Hypothesis, variables, careful observation—seeing what works and what doesn’t?”
“When you put it that way…” My tail reaches for her wrist, hesitating just shy of contact until she closes the distance herself.
As her fingers brush against my tail, I feel a sense of cautious hope settle between us. Not perfect resolution, trust not completely restored, but a path forward we’ll navigate together—one step, one day at a time.