Page 3 of Mated to the Monster God

ESME

H e's gone.

The moment Sagax is ripped from me, it feels like a thousand knives slice down my spine, straight through my bones. My knees hit the ground hard—mud splashes up and clings to my thighs, but I don't feel it. All I can feel is the hole inside me.

Like something vital’s been torn away.

One second he’s there—filling my head with calm, with that weird, steady rhythm that made everything just a little less terrifying—and the next, he’s gone . Ripped away by that cursed blast. My body goes cold. Numb. Like he took all the warmth with him.

I collapse into the underbrush, half blind, chest heaving.

“Sagax!” I scream. It explodes out of me, primal and raw. I’ve never said his name aloud until now, but it crashes from my throat like I was born screaming it.

No answer. Just the steady hum of alien machines. And footsteps.

Click-clack. Swik. Swik. Precision in every motion. A marching beat of death.

They’re coming.

I clutch the medkit—what’s left of it. Blood bags torn open, contents splattered across the mud and my hands. My pulse pounds against my skull like it’s trying to break free. I scramble to my feet, pain screaming through my hip where I landed, but I don’t care. I don’t care . I have to run.

But I don’t move.

There are too many.

Baragon soldiers fan out from the trees, sleek silver bodies gleaming under the canopy’s filtered light. Their armor glints like glass over muscle. No words. No sound. Just motion—like machines pre-programmed for slaughter. Their weapons are already raised.

They’ve got me.

Sagax is gone.

And I am alone .

“No,” I whisper, but my voice is too small, too fragile. “No, no, no…”

They close in. I back up until bark scrapes my shoulders. There’s nowhere left to go. No miracle. No last-minute escape plan. Just the taste of my own blood in my mouth from biting my tongue too hard, and a scream crawling up my throat.

I draw the plasma pistol—but I know it’s useless. I can’t even take one of them with me. The tremor in my fingers makes the barrel wobble. My eyes blur.

One steps forward, arm cocked to fire.

I squeeze the trigger.

But then the air explodes .

It’s like a star goes nova just behind them.

A body slams into the Baragon from the right—a green flash of muscle and scale. The nearest soldier goes flying—helmet cracking open like an egg as it smashes against a boulder with enough force to implode .

Another Baragon raises its weapon, but the green blur is already there. A tail—long, striped with black—sweeps out and scythes the soldier in half at the waist. There’s no blood. Just metal and a puff of blue gas. Like it’s not even human under there.

I duck down instinctively, heart trying to burst through my ribs. I don't breathe. I can't.

The thing is massive .

Seven feet tall, at least. Shoulders like a boulder rolled into a V, tapered waist, long limbs built for tearing apart lesser creatures. And every inch of him gleams with wet green scales that shimmer when he moves. They catch the light like oil—dark, iridescent, hungry.

Baragon soldiers swarm him.

He dances through them.

Graceful. Lethal. Nothing wasted. He doesn’t dodge—he flows . Every strike is calculated, brutal. One Baragon’s neck twists with a sickening crunch. Another is flung ten meters through the air, crashing into the ship’s outer ramp with a screech of buckling metal.

My mind can't keep up.

Is it a protector? A monster?

He turns.

His eyes meet mine.

Golden. Bright as a harvest sun, with irises that shift and shimmer, complex and alive . I can't breathe. He steps over the broken remains of one of the Baragon, chest rising and falling like a living furnace.

“Esme.”

My knees nearly buckle.

Because I know that voice.

I feel it.

Sagax.

He says my name like a prayer.

“Esme.”

His voice wraps around me like heat from a campfire, low and guttural, still laced with that same eerie calm that Sagax always had—but now there’s something else behind it. Weight . Resonance . Like it’s coming from a chest forged in steel and fire.

I blink up at him, mouth open, but nothing comes out. Words scatter like startled birds in my head. My legs go numb. My pistol hangs forgotten at my side.

He’s huge.

Not big. Not tall.

Colossal.

At least seven feet, probably more, all densely packed with muscle wrapped in a sheen of iridescent green scales. His shoulders are as broad as a doorway, chest rising like a living mountain. His jaw is angular, sharp—alien, yes, but... familiar.

The pattern of black stripes curling along his arms. The glint in his golden eyes. Even the way he tilts his head. I know him.

This is Sagax.

My parasite.

My partner.

What the hell even is he now?

I take a step forward, lips parting, and before I can say anything, he moves .

Fast.

His arms scoop around me like steel cables wrapped in velvet. I squeak— squeak —and then we’re airborne. My feet leave the ground. My stomach lurches. I grab onto his neck, fingers digging into warm, unyielding scales.

“Hey! What the hell are you doing?!”

“We are still in danger,” he says, voice calm like we’re chatting over breakfast. “I must remove you from it.”

Then he runs.

Not jogs. Not dashes.

He runs like a goddamn landslide down a mountain.

Trees blur into streaks of green and shadow. My hair snaps behind me like a banner. I cling to him with both arms, legs curling up against his chest, because otherwise I’m going to bounce right off him and go flying into a tree trunk at seventy kilometers an hour.

I should be terrified.

I should be yelling, biting, flailing, demanding he put me the hell down .

But instead... I’m quiet.

I’m watching him.

His body moves like poetry—graceful and brutal all at once.

Every stride eats up the terrain like he owns it.

His tail sways for balance, muscles rippling in perfect control.

And I can feel his heartbeat through his chest, a deep, steady thump-thump that matches the rhythm of mine like it’s always been there.

I don’t understand this.

I don’t want to understand this.

But I can’t stop staring.

I catch a glimpse of my reflection in one of his scales—wide green eyes, flushed cheeks, jaw slack.

Oh no.

“What the hell happened to you?” I manage to gasp, wind whipping against my face.

“The blood,” he answers without looking down. “Yours. Others. From the medkit. It accelerated my transformation.”

“Transformation?! You’re a leech , not a... a damn supermodel on steroids!”

“That is a crude but not inaccurate analogy.”

“Put me down!”

“In approximately thirty-six seconds. There is still one Baragon drone pursuing.”

I twist in his arms, looking back—and sure enough, one of those glass-headed freaks is barreling through the undergrowth behind us, running like some deranged freight train. No hesitation. No faltering. Just relentless death.

Sagax leaps over a fallen log like it’s a speed bump.

“You’re insane,” I mutter, gripping tighter. “You were a worm. A literal worm. Now you’re... hot . That’s not fair.”

I slap a hand over my own mouth the second the words come out.

He glances down at me, one brow arching.

“I’m what?”

“ Shut up! ” I hiss, face burning. “That wasn’t for you. That was just—ugh! Why do you have to look like... that ?”

“Would you prefer a different configuration?”

“I don’t know! Maybe something less like you were chiseled by a horny goddess with anger issues.”

He doesn’t respond, but I swear I feel the smirk ripple through our still-present connection.

This is too much.

My body is humming—adrenaline, fear, confusion, need . I don’t know whether I want to punch him, kiss him, or scream at the sky until it splits open and gives me a goddamn break.

“You’re really not dying?” I ask, quieter now. “You’re not gonna disappear on me again?”

“I am stable,” he says. “Stronger than I have ever been. And I will not leave you.”

A beat passes. I let my head fall against his chest, just for a second. Just long enough to feel the warmth. The strength. The truth of what he said.

“Okay,” I whisper. “Okay.”

He slows.

Trees thin. The light shifts.

We’re not safe. Not really. But for this moment, I’m not alone. And in the mess of everything—he’s still here.

He slows to a halt, his footfalls fading into the hush of the jungle, and I realize just how far we’ve come.

The forest here is dense, moss-draped, and thick with the scent of wet earth and life.

A hollow tree looms before us, massive, ancient—its trunk split open into a natural shelter, like a cave made of bark and shadow.

Sagax ducks inside, still carrying me like I’m a child—or something precious.

He finally lowers me onto a bed of dry leaf litter and curls in behind me, his massive form filling the hollow like he was made for it.

The filtered light turns his scales a dusky gold, gleaming at the edges like fire under the skin.

I stay on my knees, hands planted in the dirt, staring at him.

He stares back.

And suddenly, it’s too quiet.

“Okay,” I say, voice rough with nerves, “you’re gonna have to explain.”

Sagax tilts his head. “What would you like to know?”

“Everything,” I snap, then soften. “Start with... this. You.”

He nods once and places a clawed hand on his chest, fingers splayed. “The blood was rich. Yours most of all. It contained... not just sustenance, but intelligence . Emotion. Memory. It called to something inside me.”

I swallow hard. “You’re saying my blood made you hot?”

Sagax blinks, slow and reptilian. “I adapted to your subconscious expectations of a protector. The humanoid form... it is based on the species you find compelling. Combined with traits from others stored in the samples.”

“You custom-designed yourself to be sexy?”

“I designed myself to survive. The fact that you find it... pleasing... is a byproduct.”

A flush climbs my neck. I don’t want to admit how much of a byproduct it really is. But I can’t stop looking at him—at the way his muscles move under that thick hide, the gleam of his golden eyes that don’t miss a damn thing.

“You’re enormous.”

“I am like this to defend you.”

“Why defend me?”

His eyes narrow, and something like confusion flickers across his face. “Because you are mine to protect.”

My breath catches.

There’s no heat in his voice. No possessive growl. Just... certainty . Like it’s a scientific fact.

I sit back, crossing my arms even as goosebumps rise across them. “You can’t just say things like that. We’re not... this isn’t a thing.”

He crawls closer—slow, deliberate—and sits just in front of me, knees folded, tail curling around behind his legs like a python at rest.

“No,” he says. “But it could be.”

My pulse stutters. “That’s not helping.”

He tilts his head again, studying me like I’m a puzzle he wants to solve with his mouth.

I try to focus on anything else. The curve of his biceps. The ridged line of his collarbone. The way he smells—like ozone and wet stone, spiced with something animal.

“Your fear,” he says suddenly, eyes flicking to mine. “It’s fading.”

I flinch. “Stop reading me.”

“I don’t have to. Your heart rate is steadier. Your breath is deeper. You are not as afraid of me as you want to be.”

He’s not wrong.

That’s what terrifies me most.

I’m supposed to be freaked out. He’s a literal alien monster who lived in my bloodstream. But he’s sitting across from me now, so still, so powerful, and all I want to do is reach out and touch him.

So I do.

My fingers hover, hesitate, then graze his arm.

It’s warm. Solid. Rough like crocodile hide, but with a strange softness to the edges of each scale.

He watches me, silent.

When I don’t pull back, he leans in slightly. “May I?”

I nod before I know why.

His hand comes up and brushes my cheek. Gentle. So impossibly gentle. Like he’s afraid I’ll shatter.

His clawed thumb trails along my jaw. I suck in a breath, sharp and full of fire.

“Why?” I whisper. “Why me?”

Sagax’s voice is quiet but unflinching. “Because you were kind. Brave. And because you did not fear me when it mattered most. You treated me as a being, not a parasite. That moment changed me. I will never forget it.”

The jungle hums around us, but all I hear is his heartbeat.

“I will never let anyone hurt you again,” he vows, voice like thunder barely contained.

I believe him.