Page 6 of Mated to the Monster God

ESME

T he trees thin out faster than I expect.

One moment, I’m wading through knee-high jungle grass and dodging razor-vine tangles, and the next, I catch a glint of something metallic between the swaying branches.

That glint shreds my insides like broken glass.

I know what it means before my brain catches up.

I step forward and the treeline opens like a curtain, revealing the valley below.

Smoke.

Thick, curling tendrils of it spiral up from beyond the colony perimeter, smeared across the sky like charcoal strokes.

I smell it before I really see it—burned fuel, ionized ozone, and the bitter tang of scorched earth.

My pulse kicks like a startled bird in my throat.

That’s not cooking fire smoke. That’s ship smoke. Lots of them.

“Oh hell,” I whisper.

Sagax steps up behind me, casting a long shadow that falls across the backs of my boots. I feel the heat of him without turning. His gaze scans the valley, calculating and cold in a way mine can't be.

“There are three new ships,” he murmurs, voice low and steady, but I feel the shift in him, like the stillness of a predator before it lunges. “One is a Baragon battle crawler. The others are scout class. They’re reinforcing their presence.”

My stomach clenches. “Sweetwater’s right there. My family?—”

He cuts me off gently, but firmly. “We should not approach.”

My head snaps around, braid whipping against my shoulder. “What?”

“Not yet,” he says. His eyes don’t leave the skyline. “It’s too dangerous. You’re vulnerable in the open. They’ll be watching for movement. Scanning. You could be captured or?—”

“I don’t care!” My voice pitches up, raw and fierce. “That’s my family down there! My brother, my sister, my parents! You think I’m just gonna sit here and watch while the Baragon crawl all over Sweetwater?”

His jaw tightens. “I’m not suggesting you do nothing. I’m saying we need to be cautious. We’ll wait for nightfall. I can scout ahead alone?—”

“Don’t,” I snap, stepping back, practically shaking. “Don’t act like you get to make the call. You’re not in charge of me.”

Sagax tilts his head slightly, his posture still, his massive arms crossed over his chest. He doesn’t argue, which makes it worse somehow. Makes me feel childish and impulsive, like I’m the one being reckless.

But I am being reckless, and I know it. It just doesn't change what I have to do.

He exhales slowly, gold eyes narrowing. “You are... distressed. I feel it. I understand.”

“No,” I say, pacing a little now, heat rising under my skin.

“No, you don’t . You don’t get it. You weren’t raised here.

You don’t know what it’s like to build something from the dirt up and know you could lose it in a single solar cycle.

That colony is my whole life. My home . I’ve got to go back. ”

“I am trying to protect you,” he says, and there’s a roughness to it now, like gravel underfoot. “That is not control. That is instinct.”

I stop pacing and square off with him, fists clenched.

“Well maybe I don’t need a goddamn instinct watching over me,” I hiss. “Maybe I need a friend. Someone who trusts me to handle my own life!”

His expression doesn’t change, but something behind his eyes dims. The bond between us pulses with tension, like a cable stretched too tight. I feel his restraint like a wall. But I also feel the hurt. That’s new. It makes my throat ache worse than the shouting.

“Fine,” I mutter, shoving past him. “If you’re so dead set on lurking in the woods like some overgrown stalker, go ahead. I’m going home.”

His voice is quiet. “Esme…”

“Don’t,” I say, not looking back. “Just—don’t.”

The air between us fractures, filled with things unsaid. And then I’m moving, feet crunching over brittle twigs and moss, each step putting more distance between us. The trees close around me again, thick and humid and whispering with leaves.

I don’t cry. I don’t even look back. But my chest feels hollow, like something vital got ripped out and left behind in that clearing.

And the worst part? I know he’s still watching. Protecting. Even from the shadows.

He always will be.

I duck under a low-hanging vine and nearly trip. My lungs are heaving, my vision a scrub of blurred greens and browns—but a sharper, more terrifying sight snaps me erect: Sweetwater Colony, laid out below like a fortress under siege.

Smoke billows in rope-thick threads from the outer walls. Sharp echoes of shouts, the clang of shovels on rock, and the soft tremor of artillery blasts weave through the air. My heart pounds so hard I taste it in my mouth.

Tara is already there—commanding, authoritative.

Her red hair is plastered to her forehead with sweat as she dispatches colonists from one supply line to another, rallying them to load medbags and shift wounded toward the triage tents.

Blondie crouches beside a cluster of feverbloom plants—her botanist’s instincts morphing into desperation as she carefully harvests them for their antiseptic properties.

Rick stands atop a section of partially repaired wall, welding together pieces of salvaged metal with crackling sparks that hover like fallen fireflies. Every motion is frantic, every move a gamble.

The colony is fracturing under the pressure.

I can’t stay hidden.

I sprint onto the open ground, lungs screaming in protest as I race toward my family. Three shots ring out—plasma rounds arcing into the sky, a warning or a test. I ignore it. My focus narrows to two people: Dad and Jimmy.

“Dad!” I shout as I cross into the fray.

He’s helping haul a wounded colonist onto a gurney when he finally sees me.

“Esme—by the stars, what are you?—?”

“Ships are here,” I tell him. “Baragon. I saw them. Sagax told me. We need to evacuate or mount a defense?—”

He cuts me off with a steel-hard look. “Slow down. Take a breath.”

I keep going, voice cracking. “He’s not with me. He says it’s too dangerous. But that’s not good enough—I need to know we’re fucking safe.”

Tara’s eyes go wide as I approach the med tent, and Blondie drops her feverblooms, hands dripping crimson sap. Rick nearly falls off the wall.

“She’s here,” Tara says, voice shaking.

Their expressions shift between joy, relief, and confusion all in the same heartbeat.

“Esme?” Blondie says, taking my hand. “You look… like you saw a ghost.”

“Ships. Baragon ships.” I jab a finger upward. “At the treeline. I saw them. They’re coming in force.”

Tara frowns. “We’ve had hunches—Director Krewnshaw mentioned reinforcements. But ship movements overhead don’t respect phasing schedules.”

“How—how do you know it’s Baragon?” Rick asks, finally dropping the blowtorch and reaching for my shoulder.

“I was there,” I say, tears streaking down my dirt-smeared face. “I saw patrols. Shiny armor, mirrored helmets. I saw them—Sagax told me. He—” The words twist and stick in my throat.

My mother’s eyes pin me with a mercy that stuns me. “Sagax?”

I nod. “He saved me. He’s... an alien. But he helped. He told me what was coming.”

Silence swallows us.

Tara exhales. “An alien? Here? Esme, none of this makes sense.”

“It’s the truth,” I snap. “And I don’t need to explain more. We need to prepare for?—”

“I need to probe that intel.” Tara grabs her medical bag, but her voice is tight. “Where is he now?”

“He wouldn’t come back,” I say. “He said it’s not safe.”

Blondie looks at me like she’s waking from a dream. “You mean... you’ve been running around with a... a creature?”

“Yes,” I whisper, voice small and broken.

The panic around us surges. Rick calls for barricade reinforcements. Tara calls for more medigel. I’m left standing in the center of the chaos with disbelief on every face around me.

I realize then that the Colony will always believe what keeps them safe—or what they think they understand.

Because in Sweetwater, trust is currency. And right now, my words are bankrupt.

The night air tastes like static and fear—cold metal at the back of my throat, and beneath it, a bitter copper tang of adrenaline.

I press deeper into the clinging shadows of the jungle, my heartbeat thrumming beneath my ribs like an urgent drumbeat, urging me forward.

Every leaf underfoot is a whisper, every branch a potential betrayer.

But then I catch a heartbeat that steadies me—one measured, vast, and undeniably him.

Sagax sits on the ridge, a hulking silhouette carved against a tapestry of scattered stars.

His back is rigid, rigid with vigilance.

The moon pins highlights to the angles of his form, forging him into something both feral and statuesque.

He doesn’t acknowledge me when I ease beside him; he just breathes into the night, listening to the colony’s distant sob of panic.

I exhale, the motion fogging in the chill air. I should scold him. I should demand he come home. But the words stick, tangled in the haze of longing.

“Hey,” I whisper, quiet as falling ash. “You’re out late.”

He shifts, just a fraction, and I feel the brush of scaled shoulder under my fingers. He doesn't look at me, but the tension loosens in his spine.

I watch him breathe. Every exhale echoes in moonsilver around us.

I run a finger along the ridge of his forearm—the scales are cool, firm, strangely soothing through my glove.

They catch moonlight and glow dimly, like embers buried in coal.

The texture is not smooth, but ridged in a way that makes it feel ancient, like worn metal from a bygone civilization.

The jungle around us hums. Crickets tick in synchronized pulses, frogs croak in thick voices, and above it all, the distant hum of repair engines and frantic voices from below filter up.

The scent of starfire smoke drifts up from Sweetwater: burned fuel, scorched earth, and the acrid sting of ozone.

Sagax’s voice coils around the silence, precise yet gentle. “This is not just your home now, Esme.”

I breathe in hollowly. His words stretch across the night, wrapping around me.

“It’s mine too,” he continues. “I will defend it with my life.”

His voice dangles between us, hung by the thread of moonlight. Every syllable pulses: protect—claim—bond.

My throat tightens. The earth beneath me thrums, root and rock alive with tension. I dare to look at him. His jawline is a shadowed cliff. His eyes—gold and molten—finally swing toward mine and soften.

“I know,” I whisper, barely more than a breeze. “I know.”

The air warms where he shifts closer, and something feral stirs in my veins. Not fear. Not lust, exactly—but something jagged and raw. A question. Do you trust me? If yes, I’ll let it show.

I lean into him, enough that our arms brush.

When his hand finds mine, there’s a spark—a charge that razes across my skin from palm to spine.

His fingers close around mine, deliberate pressure that speaks louder than words.

The strength in his grip is not iron. It’s something subtler, rooted in certainty, in territory, in promise.

We don’t speak again.

We don’t need to.

We watch the distant flicker of lights—mostly lamplight, some faint sparks of welding, a barrier’s glow rising, built by trembling hands in a stand of desperation. The colony pulses with life, with movement, with unyielding hope.

Below, Tara’s voice cuts through the hum. Sharp. Directed. Protective, like a knife scraping against stone—but warm enough to let me know she’s still there, still fighting.

I rest my head lightly against Sagax’s shoulder. His warmth suffuses into me, radiating through coat and skin. Our shadows merge, pressed against the stone, anchored by the shared heartbeat of a world under threat.

“I should go back,” I murmur.

He turns his head, and for a moment, I see exactly how much he aches to follow me back, to cross the boundary and be seen in the light of our home. But he turns back to the colony, the stars, my home.

“Go,” he says, voice low. “You are needed there. This is your life.”

My eyes sting—not from tears or regret, but because being seen meant something raw and beautiful.

I nod, though I want to whisper that he’s needed here too.

We stay like that.

The night coats us with its dark, electric hush.

I squeeze his hand and stand, breath rising in a plume. “Stay sharp,” I say.

His shoulders flex. “Always.”

I step away, swallowed by the moss and roots, but I carry him with me—in the steady burn beneath my skin, in the way his scent lingers on mine, in the knowledge that I can never untangle what we’ve become.