Page 26

Chapter

Twenty-Six

Erin

T his world has its wonders no matter what Syros says.

In the morning when the sun, or whatever passes for light here, rises over the tops of the trees, he heads out into the woods. He returns a short while later with a handful of some kind of plant, shredded greens with flecks of red mixed in, which he promptly sets in a pan over the fire.

After several minutes, a pleasant smell like frying cheese fills the interior of the cabin.

“Here,” he grunts when he realizes I’m awake. “This will help you.”

“What is it?” I wrinkle my nose at the wilted leaves on the makeshift plate, but my stomach grumbles. I’m starving.

“Just eat. There’s no reason for you to question my every move.”

I gulp down a retort. A wall has come between us no matter what has occurred physically.

Syros can hardly stand to look at me as he shoves the plate into my waiting hands and returns to the fire.

He’s distancing himself.

That much is clear.

Like whatever happened last night was the last time, the final experience, and now he wants to sever the connection.

Why does it make me want to cry?

There are no forks for eating utensils here. Once the plant cools enough for me to pick up without burning myself, I pinch off a bit and eat. The texture is similar to kale when it’s sauteed, but the texture is less familiar, a little bitter and salty but delicious. The kind of thing I might devour in an entire sitting if I was snuggled on the couch watching one of my favorite movies.

The image forms in my head, of my living room back at home, the television playing Something’s Gotta Give and a bowl of this stuff nestled in my lap. The blanket would be tucked around both of us.

Syros probably won’t fit in the house, as the ceilings are low and his horns would carve grooves in the plaster.

The absurdity of the scene draws laughter out of me.

I’m the one going home, and he’ll stay behind. It’s not like he’ll ever be able to fit in my world, anyway. Not looking the way he does.

People will see him and run screaming, thinking he’s some kind of nightmare fuel made flesh, or worse. They’ll hunt him down. They won’t stop and get to know him the way I have, they won’t talk to him and actually hear his intelligent answers.

Have I even done such a thing?

The first few days of our acquaintance consisted of me running and him catching me, to some very sexy fun times afterward.

My cheeks flush, and I clear my throat before drawing another bite of whatever this is to my lips. “Is this what you eat when you can’t get your fill of humans?” I ask him through a mouthful.

“It suffices, yes, but it isn’t enough to fill me or to satiate my hunger completely.”

See? I tell myself.

There is no way to make this work when I am literally his main food group. The sex isn’t a good enough reason to keep me around.

Syros finishes off the rest of his breakfast while I clean my own plate, neither one of us willing to speak.

A heavy pall has fallen over the room and encapsulates us both. I’m not exactly sure why it sets my teeth on edge. I should be happy because, not only am I on the right track to get back to my world, but Syros has agreed to help me, rather than hinder me.

There is no more growling about how he’s going to keep me forever.

My stomach gives a single, sorrowful flip.

Is that why I’m feeling a little weird about this? I settle back on the furs, adjusting my legs when my muscles start to tingle, my feet going to sleep.

Did I want him to fight a little harder to keep me? I shake my head because that’s absolutely ludicrous. He’s already fought against the Ech attack, and we barely made it out the other side.

I’d still be knocked on my ass or even dead from bleeding out if he hadn’t done whatever magic shit with the plants.

“What do you need?” he blurts out. “To make your machine?”

The gruffness of his voice startles me, and I twitch, running a hand through my hair, wishing I had something to tie it back with while we work.

“I need to search your shelves to see what you have. And any tools will be helpful.”

He cocks his head to the side and stares hard at me. “Tools?”

“You know, a screwdriver or needle nose pliers. Anything I can use to manipulate the pieces of whatever we find.”

Despite my hesitation, a small glimmer of excitement brings a smile to my face. This is where I excel. I haven’t been able to find much success with my paranormal blog—yet—but I’ve always been good at tinkering, taking things apart to see how they work and manipulating the pieces to make something new.

Here, at least, I’m confident.

I’m not sure if the machine I make will have the capacity to form a bridge solid enough for me to cross, but I know I’ll do what it takes to try.

“Tell me what you need from me, and I will make sure you have it.” Syros crosses the room to a pile of trinkets near the fireplace, bending to check it. After a few moments, he turns, holding out a leather pouch and waiting for me to take it.

It’s heavier than I expect, weighing several pounds despite its small size. I pluck apart the ties, prying open the sides, and see a neat row of screwdrivers lined up according to size.

“Is that what you need?” he asks.

Joy warms my heart when I lift my face to meet his. “You are full of surprises. You know that?”

I swear he’s grinning at me. “I aim to please.”

“I thought you aimed to eat,” I joke.

He snorts, his version of a laugh. “That, too. Although I have done my share of devouring you. Today, we work.” He spares a glance toward the curtain-covered entrance, and the sliver of sunlight filtering inside through the gap in the fabric.

“I, ah, need to turn on the radio and connect to Tyler, to tune in to the correct frequency.”

Why does it fill me with embarrassment to admit it? Especially when I note the way Syros’ red orbed eyes begin to darken to the color they always turn when he’s less than thrilled with something. Okay, correction. He’s pissed.

His tongue flicks out to brush against his canines. “Fine.” He bites out the word. “Although I make no promises that, once the connection is established, I won’t eat this Tyler. I still haven’t had my fill, and if the bridge works, I may have to take him in your place.”

“I’m not sure if you’re joking or not.” But I’m gonna choose to look at it like a joke.

I break eye contact, my gut settling low and my chest constricting as I crouch closer to the radio, fiddling with the knobs until I find the right channel and the static fades.

“Hello? Tyler? Are you there?”

A yawn comes through loud and clear. “Erin? I’ve been up all night waiting to hear from you.”

A growl sounds from behind me, lifting the hair on the back of my arms and neck, and I don’t need to turn around to know Syros is pacing in front of the fireplace. I feel the heavy thuds of his feet as he stalks back and forth in the small space.

“Yeah, I’m sorry, I was busy,” I say, clearing my throat. Busy getting stuffed full of monster cock. “But I’m here now, and I’m going to start trying to boost the signal.”

“What do you need from me?” Tyler wants to know. “I’m ready to do whatever it takes to get you back.”

“Stay connected. I have help from my side.”

I have a half-baked plan already, though I’m still not sure it will be enough to create a bridge between our worlds. The extendable antenna on the radio isn’t nearly enough for the signal strength we need—I’ll need to make it longer somehow, a way to strengthen the radio waves. It wouldn’t hurt to relocate either, to search the surrounding area and see if there is a place where the signal is stronger than inside the cabin.

That means going outside, in the open.

Hopefully, Syros will be on board once I explain my plan. I need his help if I’m going to make this work.

Syros helps me get the things I need, moving whenever I ask him to grab something from his collection. A few pieces of scrap metal, a bit of aluminum foil, and a metal coil is what we come up with. It’s not much, but it will have to do. He doesn’t complain while we work, though he rarely speaks aside from a random comment here and there. Nothing deeper than surface level, nothing, nothing more than a few words.

After several hours, his distance starts to weigh on me, dragging my shoulders down despite my resolve to make this radio portal work. Tyler’s voice accompanies us the whole time, filling the quiet gaps when silence settles between Syros and me, but it’s not the same. It isn’t just conversation I want; I want to talk to Syros, especially since our time together is growing more limited as the minutes pass.

My departure is impending; I can feel it in my gut.

Very soon, I will be face to face with my way back to Earth.

My fingers fly over the wiring that used to belong to an electric kettle. If my transmitter works, then we’ll attempt to make the connection around midnight, the same time the original portal opens.

There is a lovely symmetry to the plan, but everything hinges on supposition, physics, and a whole lot of magic. I dare not lean into the small shred of hope too much in case this entire endeavor fails.

A clawed hand falls on my shoulder and grips it hard. “Erin, take a break,” Syros grumbles. “You haven't moved in a very long time.”

I shake my head, my eyes gritty and burning, my stomach flipping. “I need to get this done. Otherwise, we’re wasting daylight. And there’s no guarantee it will even work.”

“Erin? Who’s there with you? Who is that, really?” Tyler wants to know, his voice reedy and anxious.

Syros has never spoken close enough to the radio for his voice to transmit clearly. He reaches past me like he’s going to turn off the radio, but I grab him by the wrist to stop him.

“I am a little hungry and thirsty,” I admit, ignoring Tyler’s question.

He’ll be full of them once I get home, and there are some parts of my story I’m going to have to omit. Definitely the sex, because we don’t want Tyler turning his Cornholed by the Cryptid into a memoir. Maybe it should be Gagged by the Grim instead.

I can see it now.

But a large part of me doesn’t want the college student knowing about my connection to Syros, the lovely and insular relationship we’ve sort of established with each other. I’m protective over it, and over him.

“You have to talk to me. Are you sure you can trust whoever it is with you? I know you said you were in a safe place, but what happened to the Grim?” He groans in frustration.

Now I’m the one ready to turn off the radio, but it could be the hunger talking.

Syros releases my shoulder and holds out his hand, waiting for me to place mine in his, and then he drags me to my feet. “Come. We’ll take a walk, and I’ll show you the stream, and my patch of plants.

My excitement spins up from where it’s been buried underneath the weight of tiredness and single-minded drive.

We move toward the door and rather away from Tyler’s squawked demands over the radio.

“Is it safe to go outside?” I want to know. “We’re not going to run into any more creatures like the Ech, are we?”

“We should be safe as long as we make the outing brief and you stay by my side. Always.”

It certainly makes a girl think when a man—monster—says those words to her. And right now, my mind is churning a thousand miles an hour as Syros leads the way out the door, holding the curtain open and waiting for me to pass over the threshold.

The sun overhead is duller than I thought, but compared to the comforting gloom inside the cabin it might as well be a blindingly bright day on a sandy beach.

I squint against the glare and shield my eyes with my free hand, the other still gripped tightly in Syros’ hold. It’s light enough for me to see the trees looming over the small cabin in their gnarled detail. The trunks are a strange gray color streaked through with black, and the leaves a dark green, nearly blue.

The sky is a darker version of our robin egg blue back home, and there are no clouds. At least, not from this vantage point.

I glance toward the area where the Ech dragged me and halfway expect to see a dead body there.

“I took care of the body while you were healing. There are no spots of blood to draw any other predators to the area, either, and everything doused with more gollilock,” Syros explains.

“You were very busy.” The memory of pain constricts my throat, and the burning sensation travels down to my heart.

If Syros hadn’t pulled an extraordinary win out of a hat, I’d be dead. There is still so much about this place and these creatures that I don’t understand. Which is part of the reason why I need to get back home.

These are stories I need to tell, only this isn’t the right time to do it. Now, I need to focus on survival. And it is much harder to focus on it when I’m enjoying Syros and his company, knowing our time together is limited.

“The woods used to be filled with the sound of living creatures. They were noisy, exciting. Finding food never took much effort,” Syros explains.

“You’re old enough to remember those days. How long has it been since…” I hesitate to finish my question.

“I am much older than your kind. The life expectancy of the Grims extends for centuries.”

So not only am I fucking a monster, but one old enough to be my great great-great-what-have-you many times over. Syros is not the kind of partner you’d take home to meet your parents, although a strange voice in my head thinks my father might have liked him.

I must be starving. I’m lightheaded and going crazy.

Drawing in a deep breath, I hold it in my lungs, the quality of the air around us slightly sweet.

Yes, this is a special place, even though it’s dying. And this is a special kind of creature walking next to me with his oddly graceful stride. Syros draws me to the left, the path beneath our feet soft and spongy.

The babble of a brook grows louder until the path splits, and ahead of us, a small sandy beach leads straight down to the water.

“I have my garden over here,” Syros says, pointing. “It is not the correct sort of food to sustain my kind over long periods of time, but it does help in the interim between the solstices. Everything you see here is edible, I’d imagine, for human consumption.”

I straighten, my shoulders thrown back. “You mean the stuff you’ve been feeding me might have killed me?”

“Erin, I told you the only way you were dying was by my hand, and I meant it literally. I would not waste your death by poisoning you.”

I slap the side of his furry arm. “Stop joking.”

Although he laughs again, he is definitely not joking.

The more time we spend outside, with the wilderness around us and the conversation flowing easily, the less concerned I am with the plan. Midnight is hours away from us.

I drink from Syros’ cupped hands, the water clear and pure tasting. This is the kind of stuff companies would charge an arm and a leg for back home. How is it possible for this world to decline and yet the resources, like water, are still better quality than what I’m going back to?

The worry is a niggling sensation at the back of my brain through the rest of the day. Syros keeps our walk in the woods short, as promised, and hustles me back into the cabin to resume work once my stomach is full and I’ve done my business.

Away from his prying eyes, of course.

My pussy throbs and aches in the most delicious way from all our lovemaking. I’ll definitely miss the way he makes me feel.

Not just my body, but the closeness when we’re together and the way we talk. It’s strange to think I had to survive everything I did in order to get to this place, and stranger yet to know this is one of the most genuine and real connections I’ve ever had.

I always thought there was something wrong with me. The relationships I’ve had with men in the past either never get off the ground or they end after a few months. I always claim I’m too busy to settle down, or that I get bored easily and they lack the capacity to stimulate me mentally.

Or maybe I’ve been waiting for something of this magnitude. This caliber. Maybe my entire life and every situation I’ve lived through has given me the perspective to appreciate what’s right in front of me. And I’m willing to give it up .

I shut down that rain of thought.

Otherwise, I’ll break my own heart, and I’m not willing to stop and look at it in those terms.

I twist the final wire and stare at the product. The handheld device, when tuned into the frequency of the radio, should boost the signal to the point where the static solidifies into an honest to goodness rift.

Not so much a bridge as a way of penetrating through the walls of this world and mine. Hopefully the connection will be wide enough for a person to step through.

“You look pleased,” Syros admires.

“I’ve done everything I can and this is the final product.” I rear back proudly. “It’s one of my cleaner works, too. Compact and light and packs a punch.”

“Shall we test it?”

“What time is it?” I fire back.

“We do not keep track of those things here, but judging from the slant of the sun in the sky, then I’d say it is approaching twilight,” Syros says.

Twilight . That means we still have several hours until the main event. AKA the biggest win of my career if this machine actually works the way I want it to.

“How should we test it?” he asks, the low growl back in his voice.

“Let’s go outside, just in case it explodes.”

“Would it be such a great loss if the hovel evaporated?” Syros follows me to the door, moving lightly, his frame crouched over me in a protective shield. “Although, you hate it when I call it that.”

“Yes,” I say simply. “Because it’s your home.”

“But is it really such a home if you aren’t here?” He asks the question so casually that I have to do a double take. I freeze, trying to wrap my mind around his words, but I can’t seem to force enough air into my lungs.

My throat tightens, and I fight for the words to say, but he leads the way out of the cabin without another word.