Page 150 of My Monster’s Keeper

I bite my lip. “I can hold.”

He moves closer, running his nose down my neck, and places the most gentle of kisses right on my pulse.

Pitch jumps from his arms and promptly disappears.

I clear my throat. “We need to find Stix. They have Diablos, too.”

I walk side by side with my Grim, letting him lead us through the landscape that is his home. It’s eerie, but it suits him. A perfect hunting ground.

“Why did you come?”

“Because I love you. Because you belong to me,” I say the words simply, without thinking.

Puppy reaches out and grips my hand. It’s an act of affection that surprises me. My Grim does not like the normal human gestures.

I don’t protest, though, it’s too nice.

It feels like hours pass before the trees melt away, leave a huge meadow of black tube-like stalks of what appears to be some kind of vegetation.

Puppy leads me through it without saying a word. On the other side is a huge cliff. I stand there looking over the edge and feeling my mind want to scream. Down below looks like the fall into hell. Sharp, spikey cliffs points up with deadly precision.

“What is it?”

“Pitch said they put him down there.”

I peer down and swallow hard. “You can talk to Pitch?” I ask absently. “Of course, you can. Stay up here?”

“No,” Puppy hisses.

“Seriously, it won’t take me long.”

He snarls and transforms, stretching that massive jaw and exposing all his teeth.

I reach for Wilder’s magic again and feel the wings on my back split into the sky again. I focus on flying. It’s harder than it looks, but I figure what I’m doing is better than just throwing myself off the edge and trying to do or die.

I edge towards the cliff and look up and around. I don’t have the confidence to pull this off. Can I survive this? “Just take care of yourself, Puppy, and get out of here. You deserve a world that isn’t afraid of you. If something happens, make sure you get Stix free.”

He scoffs.

I spin so I can stare at him as I let myself fall backwards off the edge of the cliff. Puppy holds my eyes for a moment, and then he moves faster than I can think, following me down. He doesn’t fly, not like I do, but he may as well. He barely touches the edge of the cliff face before he’s moving to the next step.

I smile as I flip into a nosedive. He’s keeping pace with me as I fall, but my wings snap open, and I’m jerked up and into a wide circle.

I scan the floor when it comes into view. The ground is one big, barren field of boulders. But there’s one that looks more familiar. I see it and, without intentional thought, snap my wings, sending myself speeding in that direction.

For a brief moment, I’m confused about who I am and how I got here. It doesn’t seem like a logical chain of events. It seems more like a dream.

Perhaps I will wake up and find myself in Grant’s dungeon.

Perhaps I’ll wake up and find myself in my room in the flat I used to share with Grant.

Perhaps everything has been a dream.

No. I won’t accept that.

I land heavily beside the huge rock that I know holds Stix inside. It’s a cone twenty feet high of black rock that is sharp enough to tear ribbons of flesh off my hand.

I reach out again, but, this time, the fire and ice respond. I don’t complain, just put my hands on the stone and feel the pulse of it entering the rock.