“Who are you?” I whisper to myself.
I don’t know if I know anymore.
All I know is I belong to a monster now.
fourteen
EVEREST
The ruenox leaves my system a little quicker this time. Rath left me on the bed to go bathe after licking me clean like a giant fucking jungle cat. His tongue was rough, which sent tendrils of ebbing pleasure through me, and now I’m basking.
Stretching my arms above my head, I tense, then relax and drop my fingers to my chest. I can’t help but touch my nipples—the C-rings pierced straight through them. They ache a little, but not the kind of pain that human piercings cause.
I wonder if shops will start buying that zitha stuff from the monsters. It would be a pretty fucking lucrative business.
As I flick the right one, I think about the ones in Rathyn’s chest and wonder who marked him. Was it a claiming thing for him, too?
Sitting up, I wrap the sheet around my shoulders and watch the bathroom door. There’s steam drifting from the gap, and it’s not long after that he appears, freshly washed and smelling like a fucking meadow. His long, wet hair is tied in a messy bun on the top of his head, and the light glints off all the metal in his body.
As he strides over to me—stark fucking naked—I catch a glimpse of his slit. It’s barely there, but now I know what lies beneath it, and my mouth waters a bit.
He leans over and sniffs.
“Back off, bud,” I tell him, pressing a hand to his chest. “You got your fifteen.”
“There is always an option for you to offer more,” he murmurs. His tongue darts out as his head dips lower, and he touches the tip to my right nipple.
I gasp. Fuck, he’s starting to equate getting cum with turning me on now. More than he did at the clinic. More than he did when he first took me on as his.
But I’m wrung out.
“Why don’t we cuddle?”
His brows dip. “Cuddle.”
“You know, like…” I scoot back on the bed and make grabby hands at him. When he crawls onto all fours, I guide him into my arms and wrap around him. His tail snakes around my waist as his legs tangle with mine, his clawed feet digging into the already torn mattress.
“This is…cuddle?”
“Mm.” I rest my head against his wet locks, and his ear flicks, batting me in the chest as it settles over my pec.
“It is very strange that humans have one heart,” he says again.
“Yep. We’re not weak, though. We just have to be careful.” I pause and then ask, “So, if one of your hearts stops working, does the other take over?”
He nods.
“Cool. Yeah, if we lose ours, we’re toast.”
He scrunches his brow. “I do not know this toast. But I know you will die. You are so fragile.” His words are tinged with something like sadness. “Short-lived and delicate.”
I don’t really know what to say to that, considering I know firsthand how true it is. My parents didn’t stand a chance when the pandemic swept through our town.
I touch a piercing in his ear instead, to distract myself. “Who gave you these?”
“My commander,” he says. “For completion of my first year of training.”
“So, they’re not all about, you know, companions?”
