Chapter Four
Chapter Four
Akirako
R eality was collapsing around me. I was going insane, having a mental breakdown. Because what I was seeing just couldn’t be real. The shadows surrounding me coalesced into a shape, a form—muscular arms and legs attached to a slightly too-long torso. I could make out subtle horns on either side of where I assumed the head was, and a wide, toothy grin split the black to reveal sharp fangs that stretched too far across the face.
“It’s not…you can’t be…”
Red glowing eyes topped the scoops of this shit sundae, and my stomach had dropped completely into my feet. I knew those eyes. I’d seen them when I left the restaurant, then in the mirror, and so many other places if I was being honest with myself.
They’d haunted me since I was a teenager.
Wisps of smoke continued to dance around the thing before me, masculine if I was going off what I’d felt pressed to my ass just a moment ago. As I stood in shock, him still looking at me like I was some piece of meat, two more sets of eyes appeared in the blackness of his face, which was still a strange sort of indecipherable.
It was like he was made of black, with no skin, and all light absorbed or nullified by whatever he consisted of. How I was seeing his eyes and teeth was beyond me. I knew how illumination worked and this was not it. If he was shadowed out, all of him should be that way.
“How can I…What… are you?”
Like a dog or snake, the fangs at the front of his mouth, both top and bottom, were much longer than the rest, and when he spoke, they swept against each other.
“Lots of names for something that’s been nameless my entire life. I just…am. I always have been.”
I shook my head, my pulse too loud in my ears, and my stomach twisted up into knots. “That doesn’t—You have to be something. Are you…a…a monster?”
“I’ve been called that before.” He smirked, the corner of his elongated grin lifting. “I suppose it fits…sometimes.”
Dozens more pairs of red eyes, stretched slits with no pupil, opened, speckling his shadow body with dots of crimson. He tilted his head to the side, studying me, and that grin of his pulled wider, his fangs dripping with saliva.
I pitched backward, flinching and tripping over my own damned feet as I stared up at him, my eyes leakings at the terror pumping through my veins.
“Are…are you going to hurt me?” My voice was tiny, and I wasn’t sure why I bothered fucking asking. Of course, he was.
Taking a step closer, more of the light near me was choked out as this being closed in. I yelped, which bled into a whimper. As he crouched in front of me, the slight details I could make out of his body were stark musculature and absolutely no boxers to be seen. My brain reeled as it processed the thick, veiny cock that hung from his hips—a banded ring of flesh at the base.
“Would you like me to?”
His voice was so calm and deep, not a hint of emotion and something otherworldly about it. And hell, that made sense. Whatever he was, this man—of sorts—was not human, and that was fucking nuts.
“I only hurt those who want it—whether that be for pleasure or punishment. A guilty soul appreciates a good flogging as much as a lustful one.”
“What are you?” I shook my head again, the tears spilling over even as my curiosity peaked. “What…do you want?”
That fanged grin only got more unhinged. “You, flower. I want you. We all do. And as I’ve said, I am I. I have always been. A monster, a shadow, an angel. Whatever you’d like of me, I can deliver it with the most delicious pain.”
I was frozen, unable to move and unsure if I wanted to. It was ludicrous, psychotic , but I remembered what he’d felt like against me. I remembered his claws around the throat of a frat boy who was about to rape me.
“I…Do you have a name?”
Rolling his head, the monster tracked me with his eyes—all of them. “I do, Akirako. You may call me Runethok.”
“Or just Rune,” a voice cut it from just behind him, lighter and feminine, “because who the hell wants to say ‘Runethok’ all the time?”
My nerves flared into panic all over again, and I looked behind Rune to see three more…creatures staring back at me. I was going to fucking pass out at this point. It was all too damned much. I’d clearly jumped right off the deep end and joined my mother in a mental break from reality.
“What the fuck?!”
Rune stood up, rolling his many eyes. “Fucking hell, Keika. I’d just gotten her heart rate down. Thanks.”
The woman he was speaking to looked Japanese, of all things, but she wasn’t entirely human, far from it. Large, fur-covered ears perked up from her head of thick black hair that stretched down to her waist. In fact, her entire body was covered in a short layer of fur, swirled with large patches of color like a calico cat. I’d had one growing up for a time, and this woman —if I could call her that—had the classic piebald pattern of white, black, and orange across her entire body, which was incredibly curvy. Full breasts and wide hips, a smooth line from her sternum down to her pubic bones, it was like a damned tabaxi come to life.
“Oh, come on. We could all smell Aki upstairs. I couldn’t wait anymore. I needed to,” she slinked forward, effortlessly graceful, “get a sniff of our new roomie.”
I was flush against the wall behind me. There was nowhere to go, but I still flinched backward. The woman chuckled, reaching out with fingers decked in wicked claws at least three inches long.
“Shh, pet.” She raked one down my cheek. “I wouldn’t dream of marrying that beautiful face.”
Lowering her head toward me, I could sense her take a deep breath as I turned my face away from her. Fuck, how could I feel her in my skin when she wasn’t even touching me. She looked so very cat-like but still human—an intriguing blend that had me trembling nearly as much as Rune did.
“You know, Rune, I can hardly see like this. How about a little light.”
Before anyone could say anything more, a flash of bright light erupted from behind the cat-woman’s back.
“There now. That’s better. And she looks so cold, too.” The woman’s voice was so deep, with a soft lilting rhythm to it, like she was purring, not speaking. “Should Keika warm you up?”
I couldn’t respond. My brain was not comprehending what was going on. So when two flaming tails circled around from Keika’s back, all I could do was scream.
“I won’t burn you, pet.”
But I was hardly convinced, and the panic was too intense to ignore. “Get away!”
“Ugh,” Rune grumbled again, and I flicked my stare up toward him as two more masculine figures pressed in closer behind him, “Kei, this was exactly what I said not to do.”
Keika huffed a slight pout, one that nearly made me laugh, and then stood up, giving me space but not extinguishing her tails.
“Fine, fine.” She crossed her arms over her chest, decidedly beneath her impressive breasts. “But don’t stand there on your high horse and pretend that you’re not loving how scared she is.”
Eyeing Rune, I watched him smirk as he returned his attention to me. He tilted his head in that strange way again, and I pulled my knees up in front of myself, some dumb act of self-protection.
“I didn’t say I wasn’t, Kei.” He held his stare glued to me. “But I had hoped this little…introduction could go a bit smoother so that we could get to the fun stuff quicker.”
“There shouldn’t be any fun stuff. She’s a fucking human, and she should have stayed where she belongs.”
The deep voice that boomed through the shadowy hallway was fathoms more ruff and knife-sharp than any I’d heard before. I could see someone still a few paces back where I couldn’t make them out, and the others—including the other cat-like person who’d yet to introduce himself—all rolled their eyes.
“Baltz, I told you that—”
“I don’t give a fuck what you told me. I never liked this. We should’ve just wiped her completely.”
Rune turned over his shoulder as the other creature stepped up. I looked like it was a move more down out of the need to menace me than reveal himself. He still clung to the shadows, and while he shared a similar set of glowing eyes, this monster’s were light blue and a good few inches above where Rune’s sat.
There was also, thankfully, just the one set.
“Don’t you mean I should have wiped her? That’s my doing, Baltzeheir.” Sarcasm dripped from Rune’s voice, even as it remained omnipresent and his toothy mouth hardly moved. “And need I remind you that about ten minutes ago, you were chomping at the bit to get her here.”
Baltzeheir scoffed, and the sound of heavy footfalls preceded the shimmering appearance of what I had to guess were scales. I could only see his powerfully muscled arms and a hint of his legs, which were stallion-like with webbed feet.
“Chomping at the bit? Seriously? Go fuck yourself, Rune. And you know what? I changed my fucking mind.”
Something moved behind Baltz in the shadows, perhaps more of those scales. The light caught the ridges, illuminating something almost…iridescent.
“P-Please…I just want to go home.” I shook my head, the only thing I could do apparently, and put my hands up in a pathetic beg. “I won’t say anything. I swear.”
Rune turned back toward me, Keika right on his heels and draping a hand over his shoulder. “As lovely as it is when you beg, flower, that’s not happening. Your mind rejected the wipe. You’ve been on the verge of seeing us for years now. It’s time.”
“We promise, little bird, you’ll love it here.” That purring voice came out of the darkness near Rune again, but this time, it was from the other furry feline. “Rune is quite fun when you get used to them, and my sister and I will treat you like the most treasured little toy. You can be sure of that.”
So they were related; that made sense. Still, I could hardly trust a couple of what I had to admit looked like yokai and a shadow demon akin to fucking Hellsing of all things. And then, of course, there was…
“And Baltzeheir? Because I’m pretty sure he just made it abundantly clear that he doesn’t want me here.” Flicking my attention to him, Baltz just glared, not denying it. “And you’re… you’re monsters! Just let me out of here. I’ll chalk all this up to PTSD and long hours.”
The male cat-man crept forward, taking up a spot near his sister. “We’ve seen those books you read, the movies. Is it truly that hard for you to wrap your mind around this? And what was that about being swept away by the Jersey Devil?”
“That doesn’t fucking matter, Kenta!” My eyes shot to Baltz as he cut in, the terror nearly choking me. “I don’t fucking want you here, and need I remind all of you that I get hungry when I’m pissed. A tiny, diseased human is hardly more than a snack, but I promise to make it worth my time.”
Everything stopped. Whoever this man was, whatever he was, Baltzeheir had just said with his whole damned chest that he was going to… eat me.
Nope. No, no, no. I’m done.
Panic made me hyperventilate, and I slid down the wall until my ass bones hit the floor. The world was a spinning, blurry mess, and despite how hard I tried, I couldn’t slow myself down. It was the worst panic attack I’d had in years, and I was going to lose it if something didn’t change quick.
“Aki,” Keika said, crawling toward me on the floor, “you need to breathe, pet. Do you remember your exercises?”
As she tried to reach out, I slapped her hand away. “How do you ?!”
Shaking, I scrambled back up to my feet and stared at the three remaining creatures near the only way out of this place. I wasn’t strong or a fighter. But I was quick and flexible. That would have to be enough.
Rushing forward, I slipped under Kenta’s legs and squeezed myself into a terrible reach to grip the corner of the wall ahead. I pulled myself with everything I could and then tore off down the corridor. I had no idea where I was going, but I couldn’t be down in there with those…beings anymore.
The pounding of my footsteps echoed all around me as I found a set of stairs and took them up, up, up. The only words I could hear in the distance were the frantic calls of my name and a single grumble from the scaled asshole.
“She fall off the edge up there, and none of us are catching her.”