Page 17 of Mated to the Monster God

SAGAX

I descend from the canopy like a vengeful burst of rain—silent until I land, and then every breath of forest screams.

The trees shudder under my weight. Rain arcs from my scales. Every droplet pulses with rage. Below me, Krenshaw’s guards fall backward in terror; bodies crumple after my claws shred metal like it's paper. The air roars with snapping limbs and grinding armor.

“Stand down,” I roar, voice rumbling thunder through the forest’s bones.

Esme’s scent is broken grief and trembling fire weaving through the rain-drenched air. She’s slumped against a crate, half-hidden and poisoned: pale, trembling, but my anchor all the same.

Krenshaw’s cronies had closed in on her—predatory. Now they lie broken. Their weapons clang against the wet ground, echoing in the charged silence between the trees.

Esme’s breath comes sharp and shuddering. Her eyes are wide—white flecked with green—and there’s a raw vulnerability I want to swallow whole.

A twitch at the edge of the clearing diverts my attention.

Krenshaw.

Swollen eyes flick between me and Esme. His mechanical legs flare with powered boosters—metallic agony echoing in my core. In one tortured motion, he rockets upward, jet thrust flaring in the rain like a wicked starburst.

I launch after him without thought—muscle and scale lithe with lethal intent.

I catch him midair: fingers clenching through reinforced bone and bio-metal. I slam him down so hard it cracks the earth. Wet mud sprays up. Lightning cracks overhead.

He skids across the forest floor, teeth bared in panic through stretched skin. Rain hangs him in a hurricane of noise—I taste the tang of ozone and fear burning on my tongue.

Krenshaw scrabbles to push himself up—ebony boots skidding on dirt, unnatural eyes hunting for escape. He steadies, dripping resin-stained sweat.

“You can’t—” his insult gurgles out, skin mask tearing with mechanical shriek.

I lean in, close enough for rain to course down my snout. My eyes glow molten. “Leave,” I growl. “And never come back.”

Esme crawls upright, legs weak but body trembling with that fierce spark that makes me believe she’s fire-wrought. “Sagax?—”

She stumbles forward, fear and relief entwined. I tighten my tail around her waist, anchoring us both to the ruin I’ve created.

Krenshaw laughs—a brittle, lifeless chime in the storm. “You destroyed them. What will you do with me?”

I push him—hammer down, fists turning the ground to dust.

Krenshaw vaporizes from sight—snatched into the shimmer of a Baragon relay. The forest hushes abruptly, like it’s holding its breath. I don’t waste a second. With Esme clutched to my chest, I pivot, crashing through underbrush, letting branches crack like bone beneath my stride.

Her body sags in my arms. Rain rivulets mingling with sweat trace pale trails down her temple. She convulses, twisting like she’s woven from pain. That poison—he injected her with something feral. Something that’s melting her strength from the inside.

I can’t think. I can only do.

I crash into the shelter of the forest where moss clings to everything like promised home. I collapse on my haunches and lay Esme gently against the damp earth. Rain rattles through the canopy above us. My scales prickle with fear and primal need.

Her breath is ragged. Eyes fluttering. She’s conscious, but slipping. The poison—whatever it is—is consuming her blood, her life, draining color away.

I press my palm to her cheek. Fingertips ice and trembling. “Hang on,” I murmur. Yet even as I say it, I feel my resolve harden like armor.

Desperation surges. I reach into my chest—someway, somehow. Not metaphoric—I know where strength lies. My veins pulse with life and sacrifice.

The bone blade I carry slices into my thigh. Pain blooms, white-hot, and every cell fires awake. My blood pours—rubied rivulets against pale skin. I don’t flinch. Each drop is precious. I tread carefully, scooping the blood up in a makeshift vial I carry for emergencies—this is the emergency.

I steady myself. Each breath a promise. Every heartbeat a vow. I draw it closer to Esme’s arm, fingering the needle.

“Stay with me, Esme,” I whisper.

Her fingers flutter, reaching for me.

I stab gently. The sting is nothing compared to what I imagine she’s feeling—the spiral of envenomation stealing her away.

The blood floods in. It’s hot, too hot, a fever. But I embrace it. I pulse it through her veins—life itself.

Her body shudders. Eyes snap open. The pallor drains. Her breath steadies and color blooms in her cheeks like dawn after a long darkness.

I watch, mesmerized, as life returns. Tears streak her face—rain mingled with relief.

“Sagax?” she gasps—voice cracked gold.

I’m burning from the inside out with relief and love.

I release the vial and wrap her close. Her heartbeat pulses against me—strong.

In that sacred silence, rain still hammering above, something seismic shifts between us. Not just survival. Something deeper. Love forged in betrayal, pain, blood. Now reborn in shared strength.

Her pulse matches mine.

Her eyes lock on me.

New life—our life—leans into being.

I carry Esme into the crevasse, the cave’s entrance narrow and jagged, carved by ancient water and bone.

It’s narrow enough that the rain can’t wet us here.

Inside, it’s silent, except for the distant drip of water pooling into subterranean hollows—tiny rhythms that echo like memory.

Stone walls press in, cool to the touch, slick with moss and condensation.

Earth smells ancient, a testament to time beyond human reckoning.

I lay Esme down, her body exhausted but alive.

She’s wet, her skin flush and trembling, chest rising on soft, ragged breaths.

Her lashes rest against her cheek where blood and rain have mingled.

I taste iron when my mind conjures what Krenshaw injected her with.

Poison. He tried to steal her from me. But I delivered her back to life with my own blood.

Beneath me, the rock rattles under my weight. I am a creature of strength, but in this hollow, I feel brittle.

“I—” My voice rattles like the pebbles echoing in the darkness. I can’t sit. Every part of me hums with guilt and relief and something darker—obsession, fear, pride. “If I had been a second slower…”

Esme lifts her head. Her fingers, still slick, trace the moisture on my scaled jaw. She’s alive. In that touch, she offers forgiveness and demand. “You were fast,” she says softly, voice cracking on the word fast.

I let her warmth seep in. My body shudders—rain melting into memory.

“I don’t know how to be…” I start, and the words twist. What am I without her fear tethering me? Without her survival humming through me?

She reaches up, pressing both hands against my face. Her palms are cool, trembling. “You are my protector.”

I inhale the scent of her—the scent of resilience and earth and wildflowers crushed under rain.

Without a word, she leans forward and kisses me.

Not soft, not hesitant—but raw, fierce, claiming.

It’s fire in the wet cave, lightning between flesh and scale.

Every nerve wakes. Desire thrums in my chest. She tastes like rain and fear turned to strength.

I hold her like she’s fragile glass—and somehow infinite.

When we break apart, the cave echoes with our ragged breathing. My arms wrap around her as though she might vanish if I loosen my grip.

She presses her forehead against my chest, her breath tinny against my heart armor. “I’m here,” she whispers. Exhaustion, relief, love bleeding through her voice. I can feel her pulse jump beneath my palm—wild, strong, tethered to mine.

“I won’t let go,” I promise, voice low, shaking. I taste tears in the back of my throat.

She pulls back, eyes shining brighter than any star. “Not because I need you—but because I choose you.” Her words land like prayers, jagged and perfect.

I trace her jawline, fingertips slick with rain and tears. “Then I vow,” I whisper, “to choose you back for all time.”

We stay wrapped in that silent hymn of shared breath, rain drumming above us, wet stone giving in to our heat, storm outside met by storm within.

Seconds stretch into worth more than lifetimes. I tune into every tremor beneath her skin. I want to know each fear she’s buried, each hope she’s dared to breathe. Not to own them, but to walk beside her.

“I thought loving you would scare me,” I admit—voice small in the vast hush of rock.

She smiles, soft and sure. “It does. But I’d rather be terrified with you than safe anywhere else.”

Her leg collapses. Our bodies align—scales and flesh. The cave holds us, cradle of stone, water, and new beginnings.

Rain begins to trickle through a fissure in the rock above, ghost droplets landing on my hair, my neck. It’s as if the storm is blessing us—washing away pieces of the world that tried to break her, trying to break us.

We kiss again, this time not desperate, but tendered with new understanding. Her lips are wet warmth in the cold.

I murmur against her mouth, “I will not let anyone—no one—touch you.”

She pulls back enough to meet my eyes. “I know.”

My heart lodges in an avalanche of relief. The promise is sacred, and we’ve cast it under the rain, carved it into stone, sealed it with breath and blood.

In that dark crevasse, with rain sounds like lullaby and our blood pulsing in harmony, the fire begins to burn again.