Curiosity was my primary word for how I’d described each new experience with my human. I’d figured out the rest later.
Original pity over the death sentence she didn’t deserve? Curious.
Sadness over her mistreatment? Curious.
Staying with her simply because she’d asked? Curious.
A desire to find her again? Curious.
Obsession and its evolution through lifetimes? Curious.
The speed with which I named it in truth—love—despite never before having encountered the emotion? Fascinating.
And now, a newly curious thing happened in my moment of explosive madness.
Fury solidified in a shape of its own in the most literal of senses.
The mortal male’s hand was on a weapon in an instant, but the height of his brows, the drop of his jaw, his backward stumble, told me plenty.
A loud, angry accusation. The man shouted something I couldn’t understand, but given his wide-eyed, slack-jawed horror, it may have beenBeast! Monster!Or my personal favorite,Demon!
A snarl sliced through his shock.
I understood the heart of the exclamation, though it came in a language I didn’t speak. I wasn’t even familiar with the linguistic origins of the word. The horrified declaration that transcended translation.
His hand grasped at the weapon strapped to his hip.
My jaws snapped, frothing, lips pulled back an inch from his face.
I was too close for his harpoon to be of any use to him.
The girl—for she was not yet a young woman—plunged her fingers against me, into what must have been fur. With it came the clutch of inexplicable trust. Whatever I was, whoever she was, she knew I was there for her. I’d burst from the ether in a moment of torture. The bond was instantaneous.
The man’s testosterone-fueled madness outweighed any wisdom. He took the two steps backward to create the room he needed to draw it from the leather holster around his waist. The light hit the serrated spike.
Whether for fishing, murdering beasts of the land, or just punishing cowering daughters, the thorny fin on one end may as well have been shark’s teeth with saw-like ridges running its length.
The man bared his teeth, face contorting with hate as he hoisted his blade.
His hand was meant for her.
The killing blow was directed at me.
He brought it down with its full weight, cutting through a thick fur hide and embedding in my shoulder with athwunk.
At least, he might have embedded it in my shoulder, had I been made of hair, blood, and bone.
After all, I was corporeal, but I wasn’t.
Only a god can kill a god.
Maybe I deserved the title. Maybe I didn’t. But one thing was for certain: this violent human male was not worthy to stand against me.
He waited for the embedded weapon to give me pause, to make me retreat, to so much as elicit a sound.
His panic came from my lack of reaction.
The whites of his eyes matched the ground around him. His face became a blanched mask as he fell, scrambling backward, rump hitting the ice as he clawed against the snow. With an animalistichumph, I shook the weapon from my shoulder. It clattered to the ground. Only then did I understand what he saw in the reflection of his wide-eyed terror.
