Tannith became my family, something I desperately wanted as a kid. I think every orphan craves a family in the end, and they usually create it themselves. I found mine in my best friend.
His hand is still clutching my waist, his hand so big he easily wraps it around me. “Death nearly took you from me today, and then there would be nothing left of this world or the next with you gone. I have waited too long, and we haven’t even begun. I would destroy it all in vengeance before I finally joined you in the sky.”
The intensity of his words hits me in the chest. He means it, and I’m speechless. I’ve read books about men who say these things, and secretly wished I was one of their loves, but now that it is happening—I get a monster in my dreams, who I’m not sure is even real here. Am I making up these dreams to escape my shitty reality? Likely. Do I care? Nope.Dreams, please carry on.I clear my throat. “You mean when I went into the river? You’re watching me even now?”
“I’m always watching.” He confirms without a hint of care that he is stalking me. I should care and maybe be creeped out. It’s weird that I’m happy I have a stalker. “I am not happy with you, Meredith. You’re mine, and you risked yourself for a wolf.”
He really hates wolves.
“Elizabeth is my selected, and it’s my fault she is even in this place. I knew she’d die if I didn’t try to help, and well, isn’t it better to die trying to do the right thing than live knowing you did something wrong?” I question.
His hand tightens on my hip. “I don’t care as long as you live. You can be a villain in this forgotten world, and I’d still be at your side as you destroy the world, with a smile on my face.” Okay, he is obsessed. I recall him calling me his and that almost kiss that he gave me. He does know I’m human, right? I candestroy a three-tier cake in minutes, but that is about the extent of my abilities.
I yelp as he yanks me an inch closer to his chest, and I have to put my hands on his abs to stop from falling against him. “I-I’m surprised you didn’t jump in for me when you’re this way about me.”
“We’re forbidden from interfering in any tests the goddesses send your way. Reluctantly, I cannot without risking your soul,” he explains softly, running his hand up my back, and I shiver. He runs his nose up my neck next, and I swallow a moan from the contact. I like when he touches me. “You smell so fucking good, Meredith. I want to know if you taste as good as you smell. I can barely wait any longer.”
I gulp. “What do I smell like, then?”
“Mine.” He growls low into my ear, and his lips brush down my neck. “All of you is fucking mine. Even if those wolves are getting too close to you and think they stand a chance. They don’t. They’re all dead. Especially the one that kissed you under the water.”
I tense, feeling weirdly protective of Reed. “He only kissed me because his kiss is like magic.” My monster snarls and leans back, raising an eyebrow. My eyes widen as I reword what I just said. “Not like that. I’m…” I stumble over my words. “Oh my god, just kill me now. I mean—literally—he can heal people with a magic kiss. It’s a gift to the royal family. He’s an heir to the Maiden Pack.”
He smiles, and it’s a little scary. “I do not care. He will still die for touching what is not his.”
“Okay. I’m not sure what to say to you,” I mutter. “I haven’t agreed to be yours, my monster. I don’t know your name, or even if this dream is real. I’m likely going insane.”
“I want to learn about you.” He brushes off my concerns.
“What exactly do you want to learn?” I play his game. For now.
“Why do you smell so human when you were touched by oblivion?” He touches my jaw softly, running the pad of his thumb across my skin. “The world is going to tremble when you’re un-leashed. When you remember.”
“What did you just say?” I ask as a headache builds in the back of my head. I hear him repeat it, but a voice shouts in my head something else. Oblivion. Oblivion. Oblivion.
For some reason, that word echoes in my mind again and again until there is nothing short of pain smacking through my head, almost like it wants me to remember that word. I’ve heard it somewhere before, I’m sure of it, but as soon as I try to reach for whatever that memory is, it’s gone like dust. I blink my eyes and shake my head, the voice gone, along with the word.
“What does ‘touched by oblivion’ mean?” I ask, searching his eyes, and I swear he looks disappointed.
He tilts his head to the side. “It’s what you are. I see that you’ve not figured it out…yet. Perhaps the trials are the goddesses’ way of showing you, to undo what has been done, to correct it.”
No, that isn’t an answer. I push for more. “What does that mean?”
“Rules are there for a reason, and I cannot tell you everything without risking—” He stops mid-sentence. “You will have to trust me.” He changes the subject so fast that my head spins. “Tell me about your childhood, as I cannot tell you more. I’d be interfering, and I will not curse us both. Not when the future we have at the end of this is so close.”
Being cursed doesn’t sound good, not after what I saw happen to Tannith. “It wasn’t a good childhood. Well, from what I remember. I lost all of my memories before I was about eight years old, so it might have been okay before that. There isnothing but blackness when I try to remember. But after that, I was in an orphanage in the human district.”
“Where’s the human district?” He frowns. “The maps had no human district before I was locked in here.”
I want to ask about why he was locked in here, but I have the feeling he can’t tell me. “Well, you’ve got the three packs that rule our world. They often fight and go to war, but the last hundred and fifty years have been a period of peace. The human district’s kind of nestled in the middle of them, a bit to the west. The Crone Pack holds the north, the Maiden Pack holds the southwest, and the Mother Pack holds the east. The east is the biggest of the packs in terms of people, cities and land from what I’ve seen on maps, but the Crone Pack has the biggest army. The Maiden Pack is the richest pack, and they are more known for peace. Then there’s the Folkland just above the Crone Pack, where we are now, and that makes up the whole world of sz”
“The three packs do not make up your whole world. That is a lie you’ve been told and taught so you do what they say. What lies beyond the sea?” He leans in again, this time his face so close to mine.
“Nothing. People say it’s just storms and sea, and monsters lurk beneath them. No one survives when they go off that way, in any direction, and ships do not return. The packs stopped ships from leaving years ago to save lives,” I mutter what I’ve been told…but could there be more? If so, why would the packs lie?
“What lies they have taught you,” he murmurs, his breath blowing against me.
“What else is out there, then?”
