Page 23 of Mated to the Monster God

SAGAX

T he comm crystal blinks to life in my hand, its red glow bleeding into my claws. I don’t need to hear the message again. I feel it in the tremor of wind rattling the jungle canopy, in the shift of threat slipping through my bones. Esme’s voice—fragile, final—cracks against the storm.

“Sagax… please, don’t follow. I’ll do this. I love you.”

My vision coils red-hot. My world narrows.

I swing my fist—scale crashing against steel wall. Metal splinters explode. My fist sinks through girders, coring through steel like dark honey through air. Sparks shower, detritus explodes. My roar roars out—thunder incarnate—the jungle answers, birds exploding skyward with startled cries.

No contemplation. Only one truth pulses through me: rescue.

I burst out of the barrier, rain drumming the world into chaos, heartbeat like artillery. I sniff the air—her scent is a scorch. Resin and fear, salt and tremor—it tethers me.

Baragon drones sweep near the trench. I flatten into jungle overgrowth, muscle memory riding adrenaline. I’ve hunted with her. I’ve stalked the wild. Now I blend into shadow. Leaves ration silver across my chest. My breath slows. Every movement economized, silent.

Find her.

My claws glide through underbrush. I recall her steps the night before. I chart the decoy trail. I sense where she didn’t turn, where her resolve displaced her steps.

My limbs pump, trees blur. I slip between Baragon patrols—heavy footfalls thunder against my lungs, but I am stalking lightning. Their mirrored helmets sweep for targets. My presence skirts the edge of recognition, but fear is their lens—fear of me or of what I protect.

I taste storm in my throat. I chase her scent across mud, across broken logs and fuse-wire.

My bond hums—her heartbeat, faint but faithful, ratcheting into heartbeat mine. I slow, listen.

Footsteps—bare, wet—from the breach. I curl behind rubble. I see her form—thin, soaked through, every inch trembling with resolve.

She steps onto the ramp leading to the command ship.

Rage clamps over me like steel. My tail lashes. Every creature in me awakens.

A drone hisses past with a missile launcher. I leap—my arm arcs, bone-slasher claws shatter its sensor head. The drone plummets, metallic wailing.

I scramble after her, every sense sliding to single-focus.

She ducks into the ship’s maw. I roar—a challenge and a vow.

Inside, I strip armor on the run, careful not to slow. Resin-glowing in my pack.

Corridors reek of sterility and betrayal. Flashing red lights warn of locks. I pause—fist clenches, chewing air.

Her scent whispers—closer. I recharge, muscles primed.

The crystal in my pocket burns with the echo of her voice. “Don’t follow. I love you.” Everything inside me fractures, folds into jagged, twin truths—my heart could never obey. I need to be where she is.

I cloak. My scales ripple, draining into muted tones that match damp steel and jungle gloom. Cloaking isn’t camouflage—it’s unmaking. I become shadow.

Baragon guards prowl the corridors with mechanical precision. Their booted steps click sharp against the metal floor. Their mirrored helmets reflect nothing but fear—or they would, if they could reflect me.

I edge forward, inching through vent shafts. The world narrows to breath and pulse and the scent of her. I can taste it—rain-soaked determination and fear and so many unsaid words.

A guard rounds the corner, pulse rifle drawn. I time his footfall. My fist coils into bone-blade claws and snaps. No noise. One movement—but the dull, internal crack echoes in the steel. The guard goes slack. I drop him like broken driftwood. His rifled helmet tilts open. No scream.

I move on.

My muscles ripple beneath cloaks of stealth. I vault over obstacles in silence, flattening my ribs against ceilings or walls wherever sonar sweeps through emptiness. Each breath I swallow is sacred.

The corridors twist, the ship hums, the rain distantly hammers.

I kill two more guards in darkness: one’s head snaps back, rain water pouring from his broken helmet; the other’s pulse stops mid-step as I snap his spine.

Stilling my heartbeat, I navigate further. I smell sterilization gas. The corridor glows pale and clinical. The doors to the Conversion Chamber sit ajar.

My tail curls, a living tether of fury. I push through.

Lights blaze red. The Conversion Chamber opens onto everything I feared.

Esme lies strapped to a stainless slab. Pale flesh glazed in silver fluid.

The line between flesh and machine blurs where the tubing enters her vein.

The residue of the activation—the hiss of pressurized serum and the hum of nanowires—makes my skin crawl.

Her eyes flutter open. Fear. Relief. Recognition.

She tries to whisper. Sagax.

Her voice trembles with life and love. “Knew you’d come.”

My control snaps. Muscle and scale surge through my veins like molten gold. I strike.

One blow—bone to machine—collapses the conversion device. Sparks roil as circuits fry. Fluid vats crack. The machinery shudders and dies.

Esme convulses slightly as the silver fluid drains into her veins. I drop to my knees beside her, prying straps. My claws, bleeding and shaking, undo the bonds. She breathes ragged, shaking out fog and survival.

My arms wrap around her, trembling scales and beating heart. The world is none of this chamber—the steel walls, the hum of life-support—when she’s in my arms.

I whisper a vow: “I vowed I’d come.”

She catches my gaze. Her lips curve into a fragile, radiant smile. “I knew.”

The hiss of the storm fades. My world is narrowed to her warmth in my arms, the wet thrum of life, the distance closing between promise and reality.

Holding her close, I rise. Breaks in steel echo behind us as I carry her toward darkness and sanctuary.

The chamber’s steel girded bones thrust upward as though it’s the heart of a dying planet. Sparks rattling from shattered wiring mix with rainwater seeping through cracked panels. It’s vast, oppressive—oversized for a fight, perfect for war.

Krenshaw stands at its center, reanimated and hyper-evolved. His form is skyscraper tall, broader in his torso, limbs engineered to cut. Red circuitry pulses beneath stretched synthetic dermis, illuminated as though Commodore bolts had been embedded in flesh. He’s sleek, deadly—predator perfected.

Esme stands close, trembling, soaked in that silver resin—but alive. My heart aches with danger, radiating acid heat.

He smiles—half man, half hallucination: “You both defied expectation.”

I bare my claws, voice low: “He touches her—he dies.”

We collide.

My first strike is thunder and motion. Claw meets plated limb. Ringing metal gives way like copper. Sparks spray. Red-blue circuitry fractures.

He counters, telepathic pulse hammering my gut. Pain blooms, white and hot, burning into bone. Breath whips out. I stagger, a bruise on reality.

He smirks, advancing. “Impressive, but insufficient.”

I charge with fury lacing my limbs. My scales shift—dark jaguar patterns pulsing, then roaring back to patrol black. My senses feed me—metal smell, ozone hum, the tightening thread of Esme’s pulse trembling through my mind.

I crash into him—shoulder against synthetic bone—crude physics and trembling faith. His blood-less flesh groans; I feel satisfaction, but something long and cold snaps inside me.

He telepathically flares again—the wave tears across my vision, knocks me to my knees. Dizziness, disorientation, the world is falling apart.

He reaches Esme—but I don't watch. I block the grab, steel shoulder crashing into cyber limb. He snarls.

Esme gasps. I’m rising, trying to focus. Pain is everywhere. But nothing is stronger than gravity of my love for her.

I lunge again. Bone blade claws flash. I tear into metal plating. Sparks bloom and rain down like Scarlet fireworks. Acrid burn licks my nose.

He collapses forward, caught off guard by primal savagery. I slam knee into spine. He splats face-first on the slab next to Esme. Circuit cracks under weight.

He snarls, shifting—eyes blazing red. He lunges, something liquid and cruel dripping from his servos.

I dodge, lunging upward with weight of every stolen moment of peace. My claws shred through the synthetic collar where brain meets stem. Wires bloom and snap. I feel weight pull me back—then release. His head topples.

Bloodless red fluid dribbles from the stump—yet there’s a tragic hush. Everything spikes into silence. The hum stops.

Esme scrambles to me. Her face streaked with resin, ash, pain, unwavering devotion. Her eyes bore right into mine when she says, breath trembling: “Knew you’d come.”

I gather her close, body trembling from sheer gravity of what we’ve done. I taste violence, but sweeter is her safety in my arms. I cradle her head against my chest—her breath trembling against scale.

Around us, the Baragon go silent. Armored bodies freeze, drones fall still.

The rumble of the world’s heartbeat wobbles—but we remain, exhaling together, guilty survivors of our own rescue.