Page 20 of The Monster's Daughter

Kage doesn’t respond, but his gaze lingers. Long enough that I feel it on my skin even after I roll onto my side, pretending to sleep.

The next morning, frost crusts the rocks, crunching under our boots. My breath fogs in thick clouds. Kage raises his head suddenly, nostrils flaring.

“What?” I whisper, half-panicked.

“Heat signatures,” he says, voice low. His frills tremble. “Faint, but there.”

I tap my wrist console, cycling through readings until a flicker appears: residual power, buried deep.

“Seismic shift,” I murmur. “Door moving.”

The bunker. We’re close.

But before I can celebrate, the world erupts in a metallic screech.

Shapes drop from the ridge above—scavenger drones, six of them, claws sparking against stone. Their bodies twitch, half-meat and half-metal, eyes glowing red like angry coals.

“Company,” I hiss, yanking my sidearm free.

Kage roars, a sound that vibrates straight through my ribs, and charges. He’s a storm of black and silver, claws rending steel apart like paper. Sparks shower the rocks, and the air fills with the stench of burning oil and blood.

I move with him, and the terrifying part? It feels natural. My med-laser isn’t meant as a weapon, but when I flick it wide and sear straight through a drone’s joint, it topples screaming. Kage follows, tearing it in half.

“Left!” I shout.

He pivots instantly, his tail whipping one drone into the canyon wall while I fire point-blank into another’s chest. Metal shrieks, fluids spray hot across my face. I gag on the stink, but I don’t stop.

By the time the last one collapses in a twitching heap, we’re both panting, bloodied, standing shoulder to shoulder. My hands shake, adrenaline singing in my veins. Kage is bleeding again, ichor slick over his side, but his eyes are bright, alive in a way I’ve never seen before.

We look at each other, breathing hard, and for a second I can’t tell if the pounding in my chest is mine or his.

The bunker looms up ahead, half-buried in the mountain face. Its doors are slabs of steel, scarred by centuries but still sealed tight.

Kage staggers forward, lifts one blood-slick fist, and pounds. The clang echoes through the cliffs.

“Please,” he mutters, low, almost to himself. Then louder: “Open!”

I hold my breath.

The door grinds, metal screaming against stone. A seam cracks open, light spilling into the gray dawn.

An old Grolgath male stares out, frills dulled with age but eyes wide and sharp. His gaze locks on Kage.

“Kage?” His voice breaks.

Kage goes still. Then, in a whisper, “Gake?”

The man nods once. “You took your sweet time, boy.”

My knees nearly give. My throat aches with the pressure of tears I can’t shed. Against all odds—against everything—we found them.

CHAPTER 14

KAGE

Reunion. The word is too small, too brittle, to carry what I feel.

Seeing them—my parents, alive, breathing, standing in front of me—it’s like a severed limb slammed back onto my body. Painful. Overwhelming. Essential.