Page 57 of My Monster’s Keeper

I rub my chin and glance back at Becky to weigh how mad she is. On a scale of angry, she’s hit inferno.

She rushes over to stand beside me. “Who delivers the people?”

“Cops, thugs, different people.” The man stutters and flinches when the bigger human howls in rage.

Frost punches him in the face, and he falls silent.

“When?”

“Anytime,” the thin human whispers, his eyes locked on the blood dripping from his ill-fated companion.

“How do you know they’re coming?”

“We get a phone call.”

“How could you do this?” Becky roars.

The man cringes. He is pathetic, this snivelling coward of a man. “My life is not my own,” the man whimpers. He holds up his wrist, showing me a ghostly grey bracelet.

I study it and reach out to touch it, but the minute that I do, it constricts, fading into the skin. I feel a pulse of magic, and then the human’s eyes widen and his life just turns off.

He drops heavily to the ground. I turn in time to see the other two fall.

“Great!” Wilder growls. “What was that?”

“It was a binding. A magical binding. When I touched it, I alerted the owner of these people that I was too close, and he killed them rather than let them continue talking to us.”

Becky glowers. “What do you mean, the owner? They’re people. They can’t have owners.”

“In my world, we have owners and vessels, beings who are tied to stronger or more powerful beings.”

She gapes at me. “That’s ridiculous.”

“It is our way.”

She snorts, but her eyes flicker with panic. I move closer and curl my fingers around her wrist.

“Poppet?”

She peers up at me, and the fear leaches away. She smiles at me, but there is concern that can’t be erased. “You’re going to help me stop this, aren’t you? You’re not here to tie people to you, are you?”

“Yes,” I say easily, honestly, and without question. I’d do anything she asked me.

“Okay then." She looks around, but the bodies are gone. “Can we go home, then?”

I glance at the others and nod. “I’ll take you.”

I step into the shadows, reaching for the ones I need and pulling myself across the world. It doesn’t take long, but I’m extremely skilled at what I do.

We appear in the shadow of the gigantic oak in the backyard. Instead of stepping away from me, she laces our fingers together, almost absently, and tugs me up to the porch.

She stops in front of me. On impulse, I don’t stop. I walk into her, taking my human form and pressing my body to hers.

“Becky,” I whisper her name.

She shudders, and just when I think she hates it, she leans back into me. I lock my arms around her waist and close my eyes when her fingers rest on my arms. It’s not sexual, but it’s comforting, and it’s nice. I’ve never done anything like this before. It’s soft and intimate, the opposite of my world.

She smells floral and spicy, and the longer we stand here, the stronger it gets. Her brown hair is a colour that can’t exist in the dusky darkness of my world. She is everything that I’ve never seen before, and I can’t resist. I was afraid that I frightened her, but this isn’t fear. She wants me to touch her.