Page 38 of Monster’s Obsessive Hunger

LYSSA

I wake to a soft, golden light and the feeling of being utterly, completely safe.

The first sensation upon waking is not a jolt of fear or a heavy weight of grief, but a profound and gentle peace.

I am warm, tangled in a cocoon of soft furs, the lingering ache in my side a distant, fading memory.

The air in the cave is still and quiet, filled with the scent of dying embers and the clean, cold smell of the mountain.

My eyes flutter open, and the first thing I see is him.

He is lying on his side, propped up on one elbow against the dim light of the cave mouth.

He has not been sleeping. He has been watching me.

The chaotic, frightening storm of light in his chest is gone.

In its place is a soft, steady glow, the color of warm honey, pulsing in a slow, even rhythm that seems to match the beat of my own heart.

His sockets now are not the blazing fires of a predator, but the soft, watchful lights of a guardian.

The sheer, unwavering intensity of his gaze should be unnerving, but it is not.

It is a look of such profound, reverent attention that it makes my breath catch in my throat.

He is looking at me as if I am a miracle, a fragile, impossible treasure that he is terrified might vanish with the morning mist. A slow warmth spreads through my chest, a feeling so full and bright it almost hurts.

“Have you been awake all night?” I whisper, my voice a soft, sleepy thing in the quiet of the cave.

His skull-face tilts, a gesture I am coming to recognize as a sign of deep contemplation. “I did not want to miss a second,” he says.

The admission is tender. He has spent the entire night in a state of perfect, still vigilance, simply watching me breathe. His restless, eternal hunger, has found a new kind of stillness in my presence. It is the most beautiful, romantic, and terrifying thing I have ever known.

A comfortable, domestic silence settles between us as we prepare our morning meal.

Or rather, as I prepare it, Thorrin attempts to help with a clumsy, endearing gravity that is a stark contrast to his usual monstrous grace.

He is a vassel of immense power, capable of tearing a dark elf limb from limb, but faced with the simple task of slicing a piece of dried meat, he is utterly lost. His massive, clawed hands, which can rend stone, are comically oversized for the small knife I give him.

He holds it with a delicate, painstaking care, as if he is afraid it might shatter in his grip.

I watch him, a smile playing on my lips.

The tension that has defined our every interaction is gone, replaced by a new, fragile ease.

He is trying so hard, his every movement a testament to his vow to never hurt me again.

When he tries to fetch the heavy iron pot from the high ledge where he stores it, he misjudges his own size and sends a cascade of smaller clay bowls crashing to the floor.

He freezes instantly, his entire body going rigid, the pot held aloft in his hand.

His light flickers with a familiar, anxious green.

Waiting for me to flinch, to scream, to be afraid of the loud noise, of the sudden, violent movement.

A week ago, I would have. My body would have reacted with a jolt of pure, instinctual terror.

But now, I just look at the shattered pottery on the floor, then up at his massive, mortified form, and I laugh. It is not the watery, uncertain laugh from the clearing. It is a full, easy sound, born of pure amusement. “It’s alright, Thorrin,” I say. “They were ugly bowls anyway.”

He slowly lowers the pot, the green in his chest softening back to a hesitant gold. “I am… not made for this,” he rumbles.

“No,” I agree, moving to his side to take the pot from him. “You’re made for tearing down fortresses and fighting monsters. But you could probably learn to cook.” I pat his massive arm. “Maybe we should start by building a proper table, so we don’t have to eat on the floor like savages.”

The empty caverns in his skull seem to brighten. “I have already begun,” he says. “In the back of the cave. I am carving one. For you.” The admission is a sweet, tangible proof of his commitment, a promise of a future built by his own monstrous, gentle hands.

He insists on helping me clean up the mess of broken pottery, his large hands surprisingly deft as he gathers the larger shards.

As he reaches for the iron pan to set it by the fire, his grip slips for a fraction of a second.

It clatters to the stone floor with a deafening, echoing clang that makes the whole cave ring.

He freezes again, a statue of absolute stillness, his skull-face turned to me, waiting.

The silence that follows the crash is profound.

And in that silence, I look at him—this terrifying, magnificent, clumsy creature who is trying so hard to learn a new way of being—and I feel a wave of affection so powerful it is a physical force.

I start to laugh. It is not a small, polite sound. It is a full, unrestrained peal of genuine, heartfelt laughter, the kind I have not known since I was a child, safe in my mother’s home. It is the sound of a joy so pure it feels like a release.

I watch him, and a new miracle happens. He does not flinch.

He does not turn away in pained confusion.

His massive frame, which has been so full of a tense, coiled restraint, seems to relax.

His skull-face tilts, and the rigid line of his jaw softens in a way that is not quite a human smile, but is so clearly his own version of one that my heart seems to swell in my chest.

The light within him is not a chaotic storm or a hungry fire.

It is a brilliant, steady, and unwavering gold, the color of a sunrise, of pure, uncomplicated happiness.

In this moment, we are not a monster and his human mate.

We are just two souls, finding a strange and beautiful humor in the simple, messy act of building a life together.

As I watch him, a piece of his own clumsy attempt at a smile reflected in my own, I understand what Elira meant.

The hunger is still there; I can feel its low, constant thrum in the steady crimson that now burns at the very center of his golden light.

It is a part of him, an eternal, burning core.

It burns with him now, not against him. It is not a force of destruction.

It is simply the fire in the heart of the man I love.