Page 48 of My Monster’s Keeper

Becky

“ S tay here,” I say to the two Fae. “Better yet. Go rescue Diablos and stay with him.”

Frost opens his mouth to protest, but I stalk straight over to the other portal. I inhale and exhale.

Am I afraid? No. Not at all. I’m pissed.

I’m really pissed. Dangerously pissed.

I tear off the skirt of this strange dress that’s now artistically covered with blood to my mid-thigh. I glance back and find Song at Frost’s feet. But Pitch runs to me. I open my arms and catch the silent creature.

“All right. Let’s go. You and me.”

“Becky, no! We’re coming with you!”

I glance back. “We need to go in undetected. I need to find them quickly, and you need to regain strength.”

Wilder stalks over to me and kisses me hard. As our kiss lengthens, my bones knit, and my bruises heal, by the time he breaks away, I’m healthy.

“You have half an hour, and then we’re coming in.”

I close my eyes. “Okay, that’s fair. Trust me. I can do this.”

“I know you can,” he whispers and steps back.

Frost still looks like he wants to argue, but he just shuts his mouth and stays quiet.

The first step is like sinking into dark shadows.

It’s cold and a little spooky. I get chills and miss the warmth of the sun.

But, after a little bit, I start to get used to it.

It reminds me of stepping into the gang’s turf.

You know that walking in this direction could be bad for your health, but you have business.

You just hope that you can get in and out unscathed.

I don’t know what I did exactly to that Fae queen and her court.

I don’t know why I was able to affect them so strongly.

But I left them decimated. Destroyed. I should feel bad about it, but I just remember the last five weeks alone.

The heat and what almost happened. I’m not sure I’m sane anymore .

And I really don’t feel bad at all.

I’m in the middle of a town, in an alley. The roads appear to be made with cobblestones. I’m mildly fascinated by the strange appearance, but I don’t really give it too much thought. Everything is dark, but balls of light float of the palest blue.

I hear laughter and creep towards the edge of the alley. People are celebrating? Why? Pitch jumps down and leads to the left. I follow without questioning the small feline.

It’s only at the corner that I realise the cobblestones aren’t stones, they’re skulls. I swallow thickly as I wonder what poor creatures were massacred to such an extent that their skulls became part of the architecture.

The buildings are made out of some green material that resembles wood but sways like fabric. When I reach out to touch one, it shies away from my hand. I figure if something doesn’t want to be touched that much, it must have a good reason and leave it be.

But why am I here? Who is here? Stix or Puppy?

I hear the laughter again and walk out into the street. A small figure darts out in front of me but doesn’t look back. Pitch and I follow behind.

There is a smell here, like blood and a tang. I can’t place it exactly, but it’s familiar. This village doesn’t leave me with good feelings of recognition, though. In fact, it’s leaving me feeling a bit green. Anxious.

I spot a crowd and quicken my step. They are loud, calling out jeers and growling. Laughing. The hairs on my neck rise.

I have a feeling that whoever I’m looking for will be on the other side of this crowd. I elbow my way through, ignoring the snarls, until I break through the crowd.

The first thing I notice is the buxom woman standing on a huge box. Her face is painted with blue markings and her tits, all six of them, are almost pouring out of her corset.

It’s not a pretty sight.

But the box draws my attention. I hear an aggravated growl, so full of fury that it sounds insane.

My heart rips, and I feel like I’m falling backwards off a cliff. It’s the only way I can explain the sudden, acute agony as I realise that my Grim is in that box. And the stick she is poking inside is to hurt…

I launch myself at her. I’m halfway up the box before she even notices me. She looks at me and stumbles back, but the stick is caught.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” I don’t need to understand her language to understand her intent .

“Open the cage,” I snarl. She understands me just as clearly.

“Are you insane? No way in hell.”

“It will be your hell in one minute if you don’t release my Grim.”

“Look, you’re out of your fucking mind. That Grim needs to be destroyed.”

Her meaning blooms in my mind. Kill…my Grim? I’ll slaughter everyone first.

I snarl and crouch. Testing the bars. I can’t see Puppy. He’s in the shadows, hiding. I don’t even know if he knows I’m here. Yes I do, I can feel him.

I reach out, seizing the magic again but find Wilder’s magic instead. I snatch it up and feel my body start to shift.

Wings sprout out of my back, my fingernails turn to talons and grow to three inches. My legs get longer and stronger.

The creature stares at me, her eyes wide with what appears to be horror.

“You shouldn’t be here!” she wails. Now her words are making complete sense to me.

I smile. “Ahh, but I am.”

She tries to run, but I reach out and casually swipe my nails through the tendons behind her knees. She collapses with a scream that sends the crowd gathered around us screaming into the distance. I kick her off the box and then step off it, landing in a crouch.

I circle the box and then reach for Wilder’s magic again.

It takes me a moment to find a vine. Another moment to coax it to grow for me.

A second later, black vines explode from the skulls slipping through the bars of the metal cage until it’s secured, and then they pull.

It strains, protesting, but it’s no match for my rage.

The cage tears apart.

Puppy explodes out and is on her before anyone can do anything. She screams long and loud before it abruptly cuts off with a distinct crunching sound.

I wait, tense.

I don’t know what frame of mind he’s in. I don’t know if he remembers me. A confused, scared Grim is a dangerous Grim. But he’s mine. I’m not going to leave him.

He’s all wild animal now. His scales rustling together as he turns to face me. His eyes are slitted. The yellow is almost gone.

“Puppy,” I whisper and walk up to him.

He hesitates as I lean over and hug him. A part of me is waiting for him to eviscerate me. Another part thinks he might run.

I’m wrong. So wrong. He stands up, taking his human form, and takes me in his arms, holding me tight. His breathing is hard when he buries his face in my neck .

“Becks.”

I want to cry. He remembers me; he doesn’t hate me. Puppy called my name.

“I’m sorry it took me so long.” I sob into his neck and stroke his back.

“You came.” He sounds awed.

“Of course, I came.” I squeeze him harder and then press a kiss to his chest. “If you want to kill them, do it quick. We need to find Stix.”

He steps back and smirks at me. “I will be quick. They didn’t feed me.”

I smile at him as he changes again and races after the creatures that tortured him.

He’s true to his word. Soon, he walks back to me, licking his bloody fingers.

Pitch yowls loudly, and Puppy turns his head and studies the cat. To my consternation, he reaches out and reverently lifts the cat into his arms.

“Where is Stix?”

Pitch yowls again, and Puppy stiffens.

“That is not right,” he hisses and looks at me. He holds his hand out. I wrap my fingers around his, not even questioning it.

The shadows envelope us, and then we’re standing in the middle of a vast forest. The trees’ trunks are roughly as round as a human and stretch high into the sky.

I can’t see any foliage on them. I can’t see anything living here. There just appears to be this endless wall of trees.

“Where are we?”

“This is my world. No one comes here. So they put him here. Ableth,” Puppy snarls.

“Wait,” I grab his arm. “They call your home the place where they punish people and send them to die?”

“To step into my territory is to invite death, Omega.”

I shudder, and Puppy turns, looking me up and down.

“You’re in heat.”

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.

Puppy skids to a stop beside me and stares at the rock.

“He’s in there?”

“Yes,” I murmur. I can feel the stone heating, but I’m worried about hurting him.

“I would prefer my cage.”

I do a double take. This is a fate worse than the cage? No. I have to get him out.

A loud whistle steals my attention. “What was that?”

“Ah, dinner to go,” Puppy growls happily.

I watch as he darts towards the wall and climbs up as easily as he came down. A huge chunk of stone breaks off and drops to my feet.

Yes. It’s working.

Another few seconds later and half the left side falls off. The side of Stix’s face appears. I let out a sob of relief, but it’s not over yet. I don’t even know if he’s okay. Inside, I continue sending fire and ice through the stone. Finding the weak points and ripping them apart.

I glance up again, and Stix’s eye is open, and he’s staring straight at me. Green eyes glow in my direction.

“I love you, too!” I say to him.

Another chunk from his mouth falls off. He twitches his lips but remains still. Above me, a war wages. I have to trust my Grim.

Puppy howls in pain.

“PUPPY!” I wrench my head around, but I can’t see the top of the cliff. I can’t see him.

I look frantically around and spot Pitch staring up at the cliff top.

“Pitch. I need Frost and Wilder,” I say to the cat, hoping she understands me. “Please go get them and bring them here! ”

Stix’s dark eyes glow with a rage I’ve never seen on him before. He struggles to move his arm, but it isn't until I get a huge blast of ice into the cracks that he lifts his arm and shoves the stone off of him.

A light appears beside us, and I look up to find Frost and Wilder coming through. Their eyes land on the battle. They look at me. Stix crumpled on the floor, and they soar up the side of the cliff.

I close my eyes and crouch beside Stix.

“What do you need?” I whisper.

“You. I need you,” he says, and then he kisses me.