Page 31 of Monster’s Obsessive Hunger

THORRIN

T he warmth of the fire is a torment. The sound of Lyssa’s soft voice, even tinged with the weakness of her recovery, is a blade twisting in my gut.

I cannot stay here. I cannot sit with my rival and pretend I belong in this world of comfort and gentle affection.

My presence here is a lie, a monument to my own catastrophic failure.

With a quiet that is born of shame rather than stealth, I slip away from the firelight, my form melting back into the shadows from which I came.

I need the cold. I need the silence. I need to be alone with the gnawing beast of my own guilt.

I find my way to the frozen lake. It is a place I have seen before, from a distance, a landmark in Kaerith’s territory.

The moon is high and full, its pale, indifferent light turning the vast sheet of ice into a scrying mirror of polished obsidian.

I stand at its edge, staring at the distorted, monstrous reflection that stares back.

A creature with a heart that pulses with a sick, green light of self-loathing.

Is that what she sees when she looks at me?

Or does her impossible human heart see something else, something I lost centuries ago?

I have simply watched, a pathetic, useless ghost, while others have mended the damage I caused.

I replay the moment in the clearing, the sound of her laughter, bright and pure, followed by her sharp cry of pain.

The two sounds are now inextricably linked in my memory, a symphony of my own failure.

I am a creature who breaks the very things that bring him a flicker of joy.

The curse was meant to make me a monster, but it is my own weakness, my own lack of control, that has made me truly monstrous.

A heavy presence settles beside me, silent as falling snow.

Kaerith. He does not speak. He does not need to.

He simply stands at my side, a massive, solid wall, and stares out at the frozen lake.

We are two ancient rivals, two solitary kings, and we stand together in a shared, monstrous silence, our reflections two dark scars on the face of the moonlit ice.

The silence between us stretches, long and heavy.

I expect a threat from him, a guttural command to leave his territory, to return to my own desolate lair and never trouble his world again.

The fact that he says nothing is, in its own way, more unnerving.

He is not treating me as a rival to be driven off.

He is treating me as something else, something pitiable.

When he finally speaks, his voice is a low rumble, the sound of ancient stones shifting deep within the mountain. "You’re not the only one who’s afraid of what you want."

The words are a shock, a confession of a vulnerability I did not think a creature like Kaerith could possess.

My skull-face snaps toward him, my empty sockets fixing on his unreadable form.

He is the alpha of this territory, the Waira who has successfully claimed a mate, who has built a life.

For him to admit to fear… it is a revelation that cracks the foundation of my own despair.

It means I am not alone in this particular torment.

The shared vulnerability loosens something in my own chest, a knot of shame and self-hatred that I have held so tightly it has almost choked me.

"I wanted her so much I almost broke her," I mutter, the words a raw, scraped confession aimed at my own monstrous reflection in the ice.

"I did break her. I felt her ribs give way.

I heard her cry out. And in that moment, all I could think was that I wanted more. "

I expect him to recoil in disgust, to finally confirm that I am a beast beyond redemption. But he does not.

"Then learn to want her without breaking her," Kaerith replies.

His voice is not sympathetic. It is hard, practical, a brutal command.

"The hunger doesn’t go away. The desire only grows stronger.

You cannot kill it. You cannot run from it.

You can only learn to control it. You learn to be gentle when every instinct screams for violence.

You learn to cherish what you could easily crush.

Or you will lose her. Those are the only choices. "

Learn to want her without breaking her. The words are a judgment.

A challenge. An impossible standard set by a monster who has somehow, against all odds, succeeded.

He makes it sound so simple, a matter of will, of choice.

But he did not see the chaos in my chest, did not feel the storm that she ignites in me.

My control is not a thing of stone like his; it is a thing of glass, and she has already shattered it once.

I look at this creature beside me, this rival king, and I see not an ally, but a mirror showing me everything I am not.

He is the protector she deserves. I am the beast she must be protected from.

To return to that warm, safe cave now would be a lie.

I cannot sit by their fire and look Lyssa in the eye, her body still aching from my lack of control, and pretend that I have learned the lesson Kaerith speaks of.

I have not. I do not know how. To be near her now is to endanger her.

Elira’s words return, sharp and clear. Walk away. It is the only choice left. It is the only act of true protection I can offer. To remove the monster from her life.

Without another word, I stand. Kaerith does not move, does not try to stop me.

He simply watches, a silent, grim judge.

I turn my back on the frozen lake, on the impossible standard he represents, and I melt into the deep woods.

I am not just leaving the lake. I am fleeing.

I am fleeing from the unbearable weight of his wisdom, from the hope and the terror that Lyssa represents.

I am choosing to walk away. I can’t bear to see her face again, to see the trust in her eyes that I know, with a sickening certainty, I will eventually betray.

The chapter of my life that included her is over.

A return to the silence. To the gray. It is the only mercy I have left to give.