Page 24 of Monster’s Obsessive Hunger

ELIRA

T he elven outpost materializes through the swirling snow, a collection of sharp, dark spires that jut from the mountainside like broken teeth.

It’s a place I know, a festering little settlement on the fringe of Kaerith’s territory that he suffers to exist only because wiping it out would be more trouble than it’s worth.

The dark elf guards on the ramparts spot us immediately, their violet eyes widening first in alarm, then in a kind of horrified disbelief.

Two Waira, walking in truce, approaching their gates.

One of them, my Kaerith, is a figure of legend to these elves, a ghost story made flesh.

The other is a trembling, pathetic creature cradling a broken human.

“Stay back,” I command, my voice sharp. Kaerith stops instantly, a silent, menacing shadow at my back. Thorrin follows my lead, his desperation a palpable scent on the frigid air. This negotiation is my burden to bear.

I approach the gate alone, my human face the only thing that keeps their archers from loosing a volley. “We need your healer,” I call up to the captain on the wall, my voice carrying easily in the still, heavy air.

His gaze flicks from me to the two monsters waiting behind me, his hand resting on the hilt of his sword. “The beast of the Ridge brings us a gift?” he sneers, his eyes lingering on Lyssa’s limp form. “We do not treat his table scraps.”

A growl, low and threatening as an avalanche, rumbles from Kaerith’s chest. I shoot him a look over my shoulder, a silent command to remain still.

“The girl is human,” I say. “She is dying. Your outpost has a trained magus. You will heal her. This is not a request.”

The captain laughs, a sound like breaking glass. “And why would we do that, little human pet? What do we get in return for helping the creature that hunts our patrols for sport?”

“You get to keep your outpost,” I reply, letting the threat hang in the air. “And I will owe you a favor. You know who I am. You know my word is good.”

He hesitates, his eyes narrowing as he weighs his options.

He knows my story. The human who survived Kaerith, who bonded with him.

A favor from me is a rare and valuable currency.

Finally, with a grimace, he gives a curt nod.

The gate groans open. “The girl and you may enter,” he calls down.

“The beasts stay outside. That is the only deal you will get.” I turn to Thorrin.

The desperation in his glowing sockets is a painful thing to witness.

To hand her over, to trust his rival’s mate and a pack of hostile elves with the one thing he values—it is an agony I understand all too well.

With a reluctance that is almost a physical tremor, he kneels and places Lyssa in my waiting arms. Her weight is slight, her body alarmingly cold.

As I take her, our eyes meet, and for a moment, the hatred between us is eclipsed by a shared, desperate purpose.

The healing chamber is as cold and sterile as the elves who inhabit it.

Glimmering crystals hang from the ceiling, casting a sharp, blue-white light on the stone table where Lyssa lies.

An elven magus, an old creature with eyes like chips of obsidian, moves around her, his long, delicate fingers tracing glowing runes in the air above her broken body.

The air crackles with contained power, the scent of ozone sharp in my nostrils.

Lyssa is unconscious, her face a pale, sweat-sheened mask of pain.

I stand in the corner, a silent sentinel, my arms crossed over my chest. The healers ignore me, their movements efficient, precise, and utterly devoid of compassion.

They are mending her body as a carpenter might mend a broken chair, with a professional detachment that sets my teeth on edge.

As the magus chants, the runes he’s drawn settle onto Lyssa’s skin, glowing with a fierce, hot light.

Her body arches on the table, a silent scream frozen on her lips as the magic knits bone and expels the dark blood from her lungs.

It is a brutal, violent form of healing, and I watch, my hands clenched into fists, feeling a ghost of my own past pains.

I see myself in this girl. I see the terror, the impossible hope, the reckless courage it takes to love something like a Waira.

I look at her pale, still face, and I remember the early days with Kaerith, the constant, humming fear that lived beneath my skin, the terror that his monstrous strength would one day shatter me by accident.

Thorrin is a fool. A weak, sentimental fool who let his hunger be twisted into an obsession he could not control.

But he did this. He swallowed his pride, violated the sacred laws of his kind, and carried her here, begging for the help of his enemies.

That level of devotion… I understand it.

I respect it, even as I despise the creature who feels it.

He may be a monster, but he is her monster.

And he is trying, in his own broken way, to save her.

The magus finishes his work, the last of the glowing runes fading from Lyssa’s skin.

Her breathing is deeper now, more even. The immediate danger has passed.

I move to her side, brushing a damp strand of hair from her forehead.

Her skin is still too cool, but the color is slowly returning to her cheeks.

She stirs, her eyelids fluttering. Her gaze, hazy with pain and confusion, finds mine.

My voice is harder than I intend it to be, a rough, unvarnished truth. “You’re lucky he brought you here.”

Lyssa winces, a small, pained movement. Her own voice is a fragile whisper, but it is laced with a stubborn, familiar defiance. “He didn’t mean to hurt me.”

Her need to defend him, the fierce loyalty of a creature who has found her protector, is so achingly familiar it makes my own old scars throb in sympathy.

I remember making the same excuses for Kaerith, whispering the same desperate reassurances to myself in the dark.

I pause, looking down at her, at the mix of pain and fierce love in her eyes.

She does not need my pity. She needs the truth.

“That doesn’t mean he won’t again.”

The words are cold, brutal, and I see them land.

Her expression flickers, a shadow of doubt crossing her features before the loyalty reasserts itself.

I press on, my voice low, relentless. “Listen to me. You need to understand what you have bound yourself to. They are not men. They are predators. Their strength, the very thing that makes you feel safe, is a weapon that is always loaded and always pointed at you. They don’t know how to be gentle.

They have to learn, and their lessons will be written in your bruises and your broken bones. ”

I lean closer, forcing her to meet my gaze.

“What you have with him, what I have with Kaerith—it is not a gentle thing. It is a constant negotiation with a beautiful, deadly storm. His love will not tame the monster inside him. It will only give that monster a new and more terrible focus. The hunger doesn’t go away. It just… redirects.”

Tears well in her eyes, whether from pain or the cruelty of my words, I cannot tell. She is so young, so full of a romantic hope that I have long since burned out of my own soul. I am not trying to break her spirit. I am trying to forge it into something that can survive.

“If you choose to go back to him, you have to do it with your eyes open. You have to understand that this will be the rest of your life. A constant dance on the edge of a blade.” I stand up, my work here done.

She needs to rest. And I need to go outside and make sure our monsters haven't killed each other in the snow.