Page 10 of Taken (After the End #6)

I don’t get a good look at the tent or my surroundings—all I can see hanging upside down is the way the light glints off the scales on the demon’s back—and I don’t think there’s any point in calling for help. I mean, he’s a demon beast monster. Who would want to fight that?

He’s got claws the length of my hand, hands the size of my head, talons on his three massive toes, an exospine, and scales everywhere else. Lacchus. If this is the white-haired beast called Lacchus who dismissed me earlier, what’s he doing here now?

I’m falling and flying. I land on another bed, this one’s much less luxurious than the last. The mattress is hard and scratchy against my stomach as I flop onto it face first. I lift up, prepared to defend myself as best I can, but the demon is busy becoming smaller, shedding his scales for brown skin, and growing black hair where it hung white a moment ago…

I watch the beast transform until Lacchus reappears and all that remains of the demon are short horns, an exospine and a few soft scales that shimmer with opalescence over his shoulders, shoulder blades and pectorals. I shudder. Watching him shift like that is scary.

I remember books and myths in Portugal about the lobisomem.

I never believed in the lobisomem. Never believed in ghosts, the devil, angels, or God.

Never believed in the existence of anything I couldn’t see with my own eyes and paint with my own hand, but tia Maria always did.

She told the neighborhood children stories about the lobisomem and his terrible deeds in his terrible form.

Standing at the town fountain, smirking as I watched tia Maria animatedly terrify the children, avó Maria had come up on my left, moving so silently she made me jump.

I’d nearly dropped the supplies I’d been holding—this had happened near the end, when rations were scarce and often stolen—and the few children who could still laugh had only these stories to look forward to.

She’d leaned in very close to my ear and placed a thin, bony hand on my back.

She said to me, “Don’t listen to her, meu querida. The lobisomem is not here to hurt us. He watches over us. Now that humans have killed God, he is the last who watches over us.”

Chills had shot up my spine as she’d vanished as quickly as she’d appeared, just as quickly as her memory appears to me now, the chills with it.

I look at this creature, doing everything he can to avoid confronting me, and I try to decide…is he the gobbler of lost souls? Or their protector?

He doesn’t make eye contact, but he brings a bone tray and a bone cup to the bed.

He sets them down and turns from me without meeting my gaze or looking at me at all.

The cup has liquid in it, which I drink.

The tray has food on it, which I eat. I taste nothing, but I know I need to regain some strength so I don’t to fall completely into shock.

I keep my gaze fixed on Lacchus as he stares at himself in a wonkily shaped mirror propped up on one post marking the exterior of the tent. He’s looking at his pants.

Like Jiral’s, they seem to be made of some kind of hide and he’s grunting as he assesses the damage.

They’re torn up both sides. Fuck. He looks unhappy about it.

He looks unhappy in general. He doesn’t look happy with me being here now and didn’t seem happy with me before when he was sitting sadly around the fire.

Welp. I’m here. Very much within his sight, even if he won’t turn his sights toward me. And with avò Maria’s words ringing in my ears, I start to think that it could behoove me right now to try to win his favor.

So, with that thought in mind and a huge bite of something appalling and fleshy in my mouth, I arrive at three conclusions: I need protection in this new, strange world.

A demon could protect me best. He saved me from being raped by Jiral, so if there are only two extremes—devourer of souls and protector—I’m going to mark him down as demonic, but nice.

And then my final terrible, incredible—and incredibly terrible—conclusion: he’s attractive enough to fuck.

And then yet another: I’m going to fuck him.

I fucked a lot before my time in the Sucere Chamber.

Especially after my parents died. It helped curb the loneliness.

It also felt nice. And throughout my escapades with men and one woman, I realized that I’m good at it.

So, even if he doesn’t find me attractive, that doesn’t matter.

I still know I can please anybody, even a demon.

Even the lobisomem. And though a believer I am not, it's to the lobisomem watching over me now that I pray.

I pray my ass off.

My face still stings, but my eyes have stopped watering. Running my fingers over the bruise, it’s hot, but doesn’t feel too swollen. I’m okay. I’m alright. I’m still going. I’m gonna do this. I’m not gonna give up.

I don’t give myself a chance to back out, but untangle my legs and roll out my wrists. I glance at my ugly wristwatch, hoping that Pam has her ears closed for this, and shrug my shoulders out of my suit. I unbuckle my bra and shift to the end of the bed. I push down my pants.

Lacchus is watching me in the mirror. Good. I have his attention, at least.

I kick off my shoes, peel off my socks and shimmy my underwear down my hips to my knees, letting it pool on the floor along with the rest of my clothing.

I move toward Lacchus, who’s stiff as a board, and move until I’m in a dangerous position just behind him, close to his spiky, protruding exospine.

Hesitantly at first, I trace just the tips of my fingers over his back, running them parallel to his deadly-looking spine.

He shivers and rounds on me, catching my wrist midair. He looks pissed. Fuck. He could gut me alive.

He opens his mouth and I see his front four teeth are square, but all of the rest are fangs.

I gulp and feel myself sweating in unattractive places, but fuck all of that.

I’m in it. I’ve got a plan. It’s weird, but it’s all I’ve got short of offering to make him some rock or sand art and even that requires communication.

Meanwhile, making love transcends language.

Though, who am I kidding? This isn’t love. This is thrill and madness with just a dash of desperation.

I reach for him with my free hand, but his smooth, partially scaled palm on my wrist gives me a shove.

He barely moves, but given our size difference, that small gesture sends me sprawling.

I make a loud squawking sound as I hit the carpeted ground hard.

There are worn, colored rugs layered over each other all over the space and I’m pretty confident I’m going to get rug burn from this one as my ass bumps across it.

I make a pitiful sound and fight the sting in my ass and the sting of rejection at the same time.

More than rejection, though, is the feeling of hopelessness.

I have no fucking plan. I mean, I already had no plan, but if he doesn’t want to fuck me then I really have no plan.

I guess I’ll just have to make myself as small as possible and try not to get in his way and steal some scraps and bide my time until I can eventually…

hopefully…get back to the Sucere Chamber…

And then what? Take the pills? Die in agony like that other sad sack?

Don’t cry don’t cry don’t cry.

I’m breathing hard, facing him and leaning back on my hands, my bare chest thrust out and is…

is he watching my boobs? His hands are massive and the scales that were on his shoulders are shimmering down his arms. His nose is flatter to his skull than it was and his hair is switching black and then white whenever the torchlight glitters across it.

He seems like he’s oscillating between his two forms the longer he looks at me.

I don’t think that’s a good thing. Is he pissed? Or…is he turned on?

Fuck it.

I arch my back a little bit more dramatically, channeling my inner pinup, and then when I’m sure his pale yellow gaze is fully fixed on my chest, I bend my knees and peel them apart.

His slitted nostrils flare, his mouth opens and he makes this screeching sound that’s from every Creature Feature I’ve ever seen.

My arms are trembling but I ignore that and feverishly try to mentally rewrite my favorite horror movie, Alien, as a romance between Ripley and the Mother. Ha. Ha ha ha. Cue sobs.

Don’t cry don’t cry DON’T FUCKING CRY!

I let my legs fall open a little farther even though that siren in the pit of my stomach is blazing with every warning tone ever made, every language ever spoken or written or signed. I stay strong, fixed in this extremely lewd position until one of his immense, clawed feet lunges towards me.

He drops down onto arms that are way longer than a human man’s would be because this thing probably isn’t human—he’s not even human-adjacent.

One of his talons digs into the blood-red carpet beneath us, slicing through it easily to the sandy desert floor below.

He could tear me up like a piece of paper. Ha. HAHAHAHA. Cue internal screaming.

Don’t scream don’t scream don’t scream.

My inner thighs tremble as this creature starts to drag himself forward.

His hands are by my hips as he makes the final move to drag his body over mine.

He doesn’t seem to have a scent, which weirds me out a little and also fills me with both embarrassment and relief.

I definitely smell. But at the same time, I’m glad he doesn’t reek.

I remember fucking sweaty boys in the backs of alleyways, in cars hastily parked on the side of the road and then abandoned. I remember the wild need, the lust, the desperation.

I feel it all again now, but the coating of terror makes that pill harder to swallow. Yet swallow I fucking will if that’s what’s required. Ain’t no spitting here. I’m no quitter.