Page 44 of My Monster’s Keeper

Becky

P uppy and I are sitting on the roof watching the fireflies dancing around the backyard.

The air smells faintly of fire and meat.

I’m leaning up against his chest, his fingers drumming a pattern on my jean-clad thighs.

He seems content to be wrapped around me.

Like the affection has grown into something that he’s okay with.

Sometimes I can still sense how unsure he is.

I am desperately ignoring the omega declaration. We had a massive argument about it. I think they are wrong, they insist I am an omega. And that I belong to them.

It was a stalemate.

And, to be honest, the idea of them making a mistake and calling me an omega and finding out I’m not, well, I don’t think I could handle their disappointment.

“How did you get the name Puppy?” I ask after a while of watching Song run around.

Puppy twitches, his expression gets hard and forbidding. “No.”

“Aww, come on, tell me,” I tease.

He stands up abruptly and stalks away from me. I follow but leave a bit of room between us.

“Puppy?” Is it that bad?

His chest heaves, and he clenches his fists. “No!”

Which clearly means yes.

My eyes widen as he advances on me, but instead of lashing out, he leaps off the roof and vanishes into the shadows.

Aw, come on. I stand on the edge of the roof and consider following him to see what would happen. Probably a broken leg.

“It’s a cruelty, you see,” Stix whispers.

I whip my head towards him, startled. “What?”

“Some of the denizens of my world can see and touch your world. They were talking about this thing called a puppy. It was a joke, a cold and cruel joke, but he didn’t understand, he was newly hatched into the world. He did not realise they were trying to set him up.”

I get shivers up my spine. “What happened?”

“They told him how wonderful it would be, people would call Puppy, and he would run to them, and they would love him, embrace him, be happy to see him.”

I swallow hard. “He named himself?”

“He named himself a name that meant love and family. A name that would be wanted and called with affection.”

I feel sick. “Stix, I don’t want to hear this.”

“They sent him here, and when people called Puppy, they ran. Screaming. He came back changed. Harder. When our people called Puppy, he came, still full of hope. So they tried to kill him and almost succeeded. They mocked him. They hurt him. A tiny little Grim helpless against the mob. He managed to escape, gravely injured. The Grims that came before him were vicious, violent, but they could be reasoned with. Puppy is merciless, volatile, and without empathy. Up until the day he met you, he was the most dangerously violent creature in my world.” Stix smiles.

“Now he’s your dangerously violent weapon. ”

I stare at him with wide eyes. “He just wanted to be loved? That’s what his name means?” The agony inside me feels like it’s going to break open my chest.

“He refused to change it. In my world, when you call the name Puppy now, you invite death. You go to war. He is a bogeyman.”

My fingers curl into my palms, and I stare harder into the shadows, searching for my Grim. Tears stream from my eyes, and my chest aches like it's being crushed.

“What’s his real name?”

“He wasn’t given one,” Stix says regretfully. “We come from different sides of my world. I live in the cities, he lives in the wilds. I was not aware of him until it was too late.”

“What would you have done?” I snap. He hesitates, and my breath hisses out of me. “Really?”

“There is no place in any world for an out-of-control creature with unlimited strength and power. Why do you think Frost was sent from court where he couldn’t grow to control his power? Why do you think Wilder was imprisoned with magic to obey?”

“And you? ”

“My sire drummed into me control and responsibility. But, even so, until I walked on the Earth, I didn’t allow myself to feel the skin that was mine. I kept walls and masks in place, hiding my strength. Pretending to be something I was not.”

“This is insane.” I shake my head in denial.

“It’s not like your world is any better.”

I want to argue with him, but he’s right. I know better than most how cruel my world can be.

“There are good and bad in all of the worlds. I wish I could take you to some of the amazing places in mine. I wish Puppy could show you his home territory. You would understand him better.”

“Do you want to go home?”

Stix turns, ducking his head down until we’re level. “Not without you, Wilder, and Frost.”

“And Puppy?”

“You are Puppy’s home. He’ll go with you, it stands without speaking.”

“No, that is not my home,” Puppy growls from behind us. “Here is home.”

And that answers that question. Stix laughs softly. His long fingers linger over the skin of my arm, and then he lightly bounces down to the grass below.

“Do you want a new name?” I ask my Grim. “You have so many already. But we can leave Puppy behind and give you something new if you wish.”

He tilts his head to the side. “I have names?”

I turn, stalking towards him. “Mmm, Grim, Earth Defender, lover. Friend. Family. Brother.” I tap my chest over my heart. “Mine.”

His eyes get uncertain. “Do you want me to have a new name?”

“I want you to be happy when I call you.”

“I will be happy, whatever you call me. No, I’ll keep it. It is mine.”

“Okay, but if you want to at any point, you can change your mind.”

He takes hold of me, walking us to the edge until my feet dangle off. I’m helpless in his arms. My stomach flutters but not in nerves, never in nerves.

Shadows reach out, and I’m gently released into their hold. He lands beside me just as the shadows withdraw.

“I’m going to have to keep you,” I murmur to the Grim. “No matter what happens, you’re mine.”

His lips quirk up at the side. “I’m keeping you, too.” He hesitates and then glances at me and away. “I like it when you say my name.”

My heart fills to bursting. I swallow the thickness in my throat and nod. “Then I’ll keep saying your name forever.”

***

Stix wakes us up in the middle of the night with a hand over my mouth. His eyes are intently focused on the front of the house. Puppy, Frost, and Wilder are alert, too.

“Get dressed,” Frost whispers. He shifts into his other form and forms a ball of fire at his fingertips.

I roll to the other side of the bed, grab my clothes, and pull them on as fast as I can.

“What is it?” I ask but then wish I hadn’t because the sound of the booms echo through the house.

It sounds like it’s taken out the front yard.

The bedroom door slams open, but Stix is already turning, throwing us all through the shadows and into the backyard.

I crash to my knees in time to see Puppy launch himself at a dark spindly shape that has cracks in its skin the colour of molten lava.

Its eyes are easily the size of my fist and tusks poke out at least a foot.

It’s the strangest thing I’ve seen in a long list of strange. But when it fixes its eyes on me, I shudder.

There is so much intent. Too much for me to be able to dismiss this. It’s here for me.

“Becky, run!” Wilder shouts.

I look up and find seven more of those creatures sitting on the roof. I take a step back and see their bodies tense.

Nope. No way, this is not happening. Are they here for me? If I run, it will get bad because we’ll be separated.

“Puppy!” I shout when he yelps.

He roars and throws himself back into the fight. Wilder throws vine after vine at these creatures, but they just turn them to ash. Frost is straining himself, the ice he’s directing isn’t doing anything.

I take another step back, and one of them jumps off the roof, and now Puppy and Wilder are both engaged in hand-to-hand combat with these things.

I can’t move. I glance around. Where’s Stix?

Just thinking his name materializes him.

He appears in a long, flowing black cloak of shadows and with that same guise that I saw the first time I met him.

His mouth is a pitch hole in his face, his teeth are serrated, and his lips stained black.

He’s gaunt and proportions out of whack.

He seizes two of them and dances around the roof, attacking until he finally sends them flying into the darkness. I glance back at Puppy and find the first creature is dead. He’s climbing the roof, while Frost is directing ice to push the other four towards Stix.

My breath hitches as I watch. Puppy lunges, snapping his formidable teeth, and the dark shape lunges backwards into Stix’s reach. He hurls it into the shadow.

They quickly dispatch the next one, leaving just two more. But these two appear to have learned. The second, slightly taller but otherwise indistinguishable from the other, leaps off the roof and lands in front of me.

I blink, and when it reaches for me, I duck out of its way, backpeddling quickly. Frost hisses, and then he’s in front of me, his hair a massive white cloud that shields me from view.

He moves so quickly, but he never steps out from in front of me. At all times, keeping between me and the creature.

The fight is violent, and I know the minute Puppy joins. I can hear flesh tearing and the quiet shrieks of the creature, but still, it won’t give up.

“This is insane,” I whisper. “Why are you doing this?” I howl.

A hand closes on the nape of my neck hard and pulls me backwards. I step away from Frost, one foot at a time. Dragged away from him.

“Let me go,” I say quietly.

The hands tighten, and I gasp, drawing all four of my guys’ attention. They go still. Stix snags the creature and hurls it towards the shadows. Leaving just the person who has hold of me and the four of them.

One human shouldn’t be so bad.

“Let her go,” Wilder growls.

The person behind me starts to laugh, and my ears strain, my whole body going still. There is no way. No way.

“Let me go,” I whisper.

“Not until they do as they’re told.”

I close my eyes. No, it can’t be. “What are you doing? Don’t do this.” Still, I doubt myself, doubt my mind and memory.

The hand moves up to my hair, threading through it and pulling it so tight that my eyes water. My head is jerked back, and I stare into a face as familiar as my own .

“Grant,” I whisper. “You’re alive?”

“Hey, little sister.”

“You died,” I stutter.

He smiles, the same smile I’ve seen a million times before, but, for the first time, he looks like a stranger.

“Now, I think we need to have a little conversation about just what exactly you think you’re doing.” Grant smirks at me, but it’s cruel, and, for the first time, I’m scared.

I’m scared about what it all means, but I’m scared for Stix, Puppy, Wilder, and Frost. Because this Grant isn’t human.