Page 25 of Mated to the Monster God

SAGAX

T he stars are the same as they were on the first day I fell to this world—silent, eternal, watching.

But I am not the same.

She is beneath me now. Beside me. Around me.

Esme.

That name echoes in my skull like sacred fire.

I whisper it again, tasting it with every tongue I’ve ever known.

I speak it in the language of my birth and in the lost dialects of the void colonies.

I say it in the guttural tones of the Vakutan hunters and in the crystalline clicks of the Terralith priests.

Every syllable, every sound, I carve into the air like it will bind me to her soul.

“Esme,” I murmur, again and again, as my hands slide over the curve of her waist.

We have left the colony behind—left the grief and the weight and the watching eyes.

We have come to the jungle's edge, where the ground is soft with moss that glows faintly beneath our feet, like the world itself is holding its breath for us.

Fireflies blink between vines thick with bloom.

The air is heavy with spice and nectar and the earthy scent of wet stone.

She looks at me like I am holy. I feel unworthy.

“You’re shaking,” she whispers, fingers trailing the lines of my jaw.

“I do not want to harm you,” I confess, voice hushed with reverence.

“You won’t,” she says, and leans in until her breath warms my lips. “You can’t .”

Her hands move to my armor. Clumsy, human fingers against alien plating. I still her with a touch.

“No,” I whisper. “Let me.”

She nods, heart pounding under her skin like a drumbeat in my bones.

I start at her throat, brushing my knuckles along the soft ridge of her collarbone. I unfasten the clasp of her jacket with care, as if it’s sacred cloth. I peel back layers—cotton, sweat, warmth—until her skin is bare to the stars and I can see the goosebumps rise under the weight of my gaze.

“You are made of light,” I breathe, pressing my mouth to the hollow of her throat.

She moans my name—not just Sagax , but a raw, broken sound that trembles through the jungle canopy like thunder. It cuts through the air, sinks into my marrow.

I touch her like she is the first thing I’ve ever touched. I map every curve with my hands, my mouth, my mind. Her scent is wild—salt and skin and something unnameable that drives me mad.

She arches into me, whispering, gasping, her nails dragging down my back as I shed my armor piece by piece, revealing flesh that is not wholly human, not wholly anything. My body—engineered for war, adapted for survival—has never known softness like this.

She looks at me, eyes wide, lips parted. Not afraid.

Never afraid.

“I want all of you,” she says. “Every broken, beautiful, impossible part.”

I kiss her like a vow.

My hands shake when I touch her. Not from fear, but from awe. Her breath hitches when I slide my palm down her belly, over her hip, into the heat of her. She is fire and silk and defiance.

She pulls me down, wraps her legs around me, opens herself like a temple.

“Please,” she whispers, “Sagax—please.”

I enter her slowly, reverently, as if I am stepping into the sun. Her breath catches, her fingers grip my arms, and her body welcomes me like it was made for nothing else.

Her voice breaks as she says my name again—once, twice—until it becomes a chant, a tether, a storm.

And I lose myself.

The moss glows brighter, pulsing with the rhythm of our joining. The jungle sings around us, crickets and night birds and wind all echoing the truth of this moment.

This is home .

We move together like gravity and flame, like orbit and collision. Her hands never leave me. My mouth never stops whispering her name.

Esme.

My purpose.

When we fall apart, gasping and tangled, the stars burn low above us and the moss dims beneath.

She rests her head against my chest, her fingers tracing the lines of my ribs. “That… wasn’t what I expected.”

I smile, teeth bared in something like wonder. “Nor I.”

We lie in the glow, skin slick, hearts thunderous. I feel complete.

I am not a weapon anymore.

I am hers.

Her skin glows in the moonlight, kissed by sweat and starlight, chest rising and falling like the tide beneath me. I don’t know how long we lie there, tangled in silence, the moss beneath us still pulsing soft and warm.

She shifts. Just slightly. But it’s enough to pull me back into the gravity of her.

“I’m not done with you,” she says, voice rough with something deeper than lust.

I don't answer with words. I slide my hand along the curve of her thigh, the velvet of her skin vibrating with anticipation. She’s already pulling me in again, her mouth on my neck, her nails raking down my back like she’s carving her name into me.

We make love again—not fast or urgent like some last gasp of passion, but slow. Devotional. Every movement deliberate. Every breath sacred.

Her fingers tangle in my hair, tugging when I sink my teeth into her shoulder—not enough to hurt, but enough to say you’re mine.

And she moans, arching up, legs tightening around my waist like she never wants to let go.

This time, I do not hesitate.

I kiss her—deep, consuming—until she’s gasping into my mouth. My hands know every inch of her now, but I treat each curve like a mystery I’ve never solved.

“You’re worshipping me,” she whispers, breath hitching as my tongue follows the line of her ribs.

“I am.” I press a kiss between her breasts, right over her heart. “You are my temple.”

She lets out a sound that’s part sob, part laughter.

Her body undulates beneath me, soft and hot and trembling. She cries out when I move inside her again, slow and sure, burying myself to the hilt.

And then there’s nothing but the rhythm of us—rocking, breathing, clutching, whispering.

She claws at my shoulders, her nails scraping my scales, and I shudder with pleasure.

Her eyes lock on mine, dark and endless. “You feel everything now, don’t you?”

“Yes,” I pant. “Everything.”

She kisses me again and it’s not just lips. It’s teeth and tongue and need. It’s heat and salt and stardust. It’s forever in a single breath.

I grip her hip, slow my thrusts until her moans grow frantic. Her walls clench around me like she’s pulling the soul out of my chest.

She throws her head back and screams my name.

And I come undone.

My voice is guttural, primal, as I cry out with her, thrusting one last time and spilling myself into her, claiming her, marking her—not with pain, not with teeth or claws, but with the depth of what I feel.

I collapse over her, still inside, still trembling.

She strokes my back, her legs still wrapped tight around my hips, anchoring me to her body like I might drift away.

The stars blur overhead.

“I…” My voice breaks.

She pulls back, cups my face, eyes soft and shining. “What is it?”

I swallow hard. The words cling to the walls of my throat. Ancient things, things I never thought I’d be capable of.

“I love you, Esme.”

The moment the words leave me, they burn. They brand. Not from pain—but from truth.

She stares at me, wide-eyed, lips parted.

“I’ve loved you since I woke in the dark and you didn’t run,” I say. “Since you touched me like I wasn’t a monster.”

Her eyes fill. She presses her forehead to mine, breath shaky.

“I love you too,” she whispers. “God, Sagax. I think I’ve loved you since you tore that drone in half and called me by name like it meant something.”

I kiss her again, desperate and tender, and she wraps around me like I am home.

We stay like that, bathed in sweat and light and the sound of two hearts beating as one.

I am not a weapon. I am not a thing.

I am Sagax.

The jungle hums with a sound older than time—wet leaves rustling, night insects singing in chorus, distant beasts calling to one another like spirits in the dark.

We drift.

The spring we found lies hidden beneath an outcrop of stone, a shallow basin fed by a small waterfall that trickles down smooth black rock like liquid moonlight.

The water glows faintly, phosphorescent with the minerals that seep from the mountain, illuminating Esme’s skin like she’s carved from starlight and blood.

I float on my back, body weightless, the heated spring soothing sore muscles and old scars. Esme lies atop me, her head resting against my chest, her limbs tangled with mine beneath the water. Her breath ghosts against my ribs.

I do not speak.

I do not move.

Even my thoughts seem to still in her presence.

Her hair drapes across my chest like silk, fanning over my shoulder, damp and fragrant. She smells like rain and salt and something entirely her own. I inhale, slow and deliberate, and hold it until my lungs ache from wanting more.

I listen to her heartbeat, tucked beneath the wet velvet of her skin. And beneath it… my own. Two hearts. Two rhythms. Not quite the same, not quite different. Sometimes in sync, sometimes in echo. They don’t compete. They harmonize.

We are one now.

Protean and human. Weapon and woman. Alien and wild, and impossibly— irreversibly —entwined.

The water slips over us like silk, warm and living, cupping our bodies in silence. Her legs shift, curling tighter around mine, and I shift my hand beneath the surface to cradle the back of her head.

She sighs. Not from fatigue. From contentment.

I let myself feel every inch of her—her weight, her heat, the subtle rise and fall of her chest as she breathes. The small, almost imperceptible flutter of her fingers against my side. A gesture. A reassurance. A claim.

She doesn’t speak. Neither do I.

There are no words adequate for this moment.

The jungle sings for us. That’s enough.

Time does not pass here—not the way it does in the colony, measured by pain and survival and loss. Here, there is only now. The now where she is mine and I am hers and nothing else matters.

I feel her shift slightly, and the water ripples. Her lips brush my chest, just over my heart, and she hums—a low, lazy sound that melts into the dark.

I crack one eye open. “You are content.”

She hums again. “Beyond.”

Her voice is raspy, worn thin from use, but there’s a smile in it. She stretches a little, pressing her cheek tighter against my skin.

“You hear that?” she asks after a while.

I tilt my head.

The jungle answers with its eternal lullaby. Frogs croak in rhythm. Cicadas thrum like background static. Wind hisses through ferns, carrying the scent of wild ginger and wet bark.

“I hear it.”

She nods against me. “I always wondered if you could. If it felt like music to you too.”

I consider this. “I hear you.”

She laughs—a soft, slow chuckle that vibrates through her chest into mine.

“Sap,” she murmurs.

“Truth,” I reply.

She snorts and splashes me gently with one hand. I let her.

Then she stills again. And for a long while, we drift.

Stars blink overhead, caught in the canopy above, and the moss that lines the spring pulses faint blue beneath the surface like a living heartbeat. I watch it flicker across her spine. A thousand tiny constellations dancing over her damp, flushed skin.

I could die here. If death had any kindness, it would come like this—silent, warm, wrapped in her.

But I am not dying.

I am living.

And for the first time since awakening in this half-made body, I understand what that means.

We are not defined by what we’ve survived.

We are shaped by who we survive with.

And she is mine.

Forever, if this world allows.

Or even if it doesn’t.