The Heart of a Monster: The Complete Series

Chapter 15

Quinn

My nerves kept jangling for a long time after Crag had whisked me away from the terror of the shadowkind onslaught. I leaned against his chest, the rhythmic flap of his wings and the odd warmth that seeped through his rocky flesh gradually soothing the worst of my panic.

My messenger bag swayed where he’d slung it over one of his arms. Guilt jabbed my gut when I remembered how I’d insisted we grab it instead of immediately taking flight, but the thought of leaving behind not just my pills—which could be replaced, if with a little difficulty—but my sketchbook as well had wrenched at me even more.

I didn’t have just drawings in there. Those were my dreams… even if right now it was hard to imagine I was ever going to get a chance to fulfill them. How the hell could I imagine anything close to a normal life when shadowkind monsters were hunting me down no matter how carefully my protectors hid me away?

The question sent a deeper ache through my stomach with a twinge of queasiness. But I couldn’t look that far into the future right now. I had to focus on simply making it through today.

“Where are we going?” I asked Crag, tipping my head in the hopes that it’d help my voice reach him through the buffeting of the wind. The whistling currents of air blew my pale hair across my face and then down over my shoulders.

He grunted. “Torrent always has backup plans. We picked a regrouping spot. He and Lance should meet us there.”

“And it’ll be safe from the other shadowkind?”

The gargoyle paused. I peered up at his face, as well as I could see it in my current position cradled against his massive chest.

He wasn’t the most emotive guy at the best of times, but it was particularly difficult to read his expressions in his monstrous form. I’d barely recognized him when he’d first barged into my view while I’d been crouched beneath the dining table.

His hard features had turned even more ridged: a heavy brow protruding over deep set eyes that held a ruddy glow, sharp-edged cheeks and a hooked nose like shards of granite, and the constant blocky jaw. All of it—all of him—was the same slate-gray hue now.

Two small, curved horns jutted from his totally bald scalp, just above his large, bat-like ears. Twin fangs curled from his jaw, jutting over his upper lip. When he’d spoken, I’d caught glimpses of more vicious teeth inside his mouth.

He was still the gruff but brutally protective Crag he’d been in his mostly human form, though. He’d torn apart the creatures that’d been closing in on me without pausing for breath—who knew how many he’d destroyed outside the cabin too. He’d gone for my bag simply because I’d asked him to, because he must have been able to tell it mattered to me.

Even with all the things I’d been angry at my defenders about, I didn’t think I could blame him for their lack of transparency. He’d never presented himself as anything other than what he was—and he was a hell of a lot. I had the urge to reach up and touch his face, to demonstrate the affection spreading through my chest, but I was afraid of jostling his hold on me. I’d rather not make this rescue any harder for him than it’d already been.

A familiar pang of guilt resonated through my gut. How much might he have given for me already that I hadn’t realized? Why should he be putting his own life on hold for me?

He’d been around for centuries, I reminded myself. Probably he had centuries more. If he wanted to spend a few days on what might be simply an adventure, or a chance to feel good about performing some kind of duty that had very little to do with who I was personally, then that was his decision. I couldn’t be taking that much from him.

I had to believe that, because I didn’t think I stood much of a chance of talking him out of whatever he’d decided his current mission should be.

I couldn’t see the ground from his embrace, even when I craned my neck. I had no idea where we were heading until Crag dove down toward the ground.

He landed on a low hill with a large, paved parking lot. A chain hung across the entrance to the lot, marking it as temporarily closed. It appeared to be some kind of lookout spot—for taking scenic pictures or something like that. I glimpsed the ocean in the distance, across a stretch of landscape that alternated between forest and fields. It was kind of pretty.

Crag loosened his hold enough to allow my feet to lower to the asphalt. I had the embarrassing urge to lean closer into his embrace, to burrow my face into his solid shoulder and keep his protective warmth wrapped around me. He rested a hand on my back, and a tingle raced over my skin at the span of it, nearly broad enough to reach across both my shoulder blades.

But I had to stay strong. I had to be able to hold my own as much as possible. If I gave up on myself, then I’d only be letting down him and the other two shadowkind who’d come to my aid. They’d have thrown themselves into the fray for nothing.

Dragging in a breath, I squeezed his arm and then stepped away. There was no sign of Torrent or Lance, but then from what I’d seen, they didn’t typically travel as quickly as Crag’s wings could carry him.

Worry condensed into an ache in my chest. “Are you sure the others are okay? They were out there in the fight too, weren’t they?” Both Lance and Torrent had vanished into the shadows less than a second after Crag had shoved the blue-skinned monster out the door. I assumed they’d gone to join the battle outside. It’d sounded as if a whole army had been descending on us.

Crag nodded. “It was mostly lesser creatures coming at us. The two of them should have been able to find an opening to escape without much trouble.” He handed me my bag and glanced around the lot, his jaw flexing. His tone turned oddly uncertain. “I don’t like to leave you alone, but I should check our surroundings for any sign of potential attackers. No shadowkind should be able to get at you easily here—not without warning.”

I took in the stretch of pavement again, and understanding clicked in my head. It was smooth, barely any dimples or cracks—not much in the way of shadows for a creature to slink through, invisible to my human eyes. Crag had brought us down right in the middle of the space.

I nodded. “I’ll be okay.”

He let out another grunt. “If you see anything worrisome, shout.”

The corner of my mouth twitched with bittersweet humor. “I can definitely manage that.”

Crag launched himself across the lot. The second he reached the vegetation at the edge, he flickered out of view. I peered around me again, resisting the urge to hug myself.

In the direction where there weren’t many trees, I could make out a road winding along not far beyond the base of the hill. A car cruised by, a perfect picture of human normalcy. The sight brought a lump into my throat.

In the same moment, an impulse quivered through my senses. The road wasn’t that far away. Another vehicle sped by as I watched. I could make a break for it: dash along the lane beyond the chained entrance, flag down someone to drive me to civilization… Figure out some solution other than me staying under guard for the rest of my life.

Maybe I didn’t know how to fight the shadowkind, but the creatures weren’t impervious. And when I was in the city, they’d come at me in a secluded spot at night. They might not dare attack me in broad daylight with all kinds of mortal witnesses around. How could I know that my protectors had been telling the truth that hiding me away was the safest option?

There were definitely things Torrent had been hiding from me. Maybe Lance too. And I couldn’t say any of my protectors made progress toward a solution of their own in the days we’d spent in the cabin.

A sharper ache hit me, full of homesickness and desperation. I’d spent the past several years chasing danger, sure, but this was a lot more peril than I was comfortable with. I wanted so badly to step back into the existence where everything had made sense. Where I got to choose how closely I toed the line of risking my life.

And then these three men who’d been strangers less than a week ago wouldn’t need to risk anything else for me either. It would be perfectly fair. That was how I liked to live my life—without dragging anyone else down with me.

I took one step forward, and another. Then I stopped, clutching my bag to my chest, a wave of uncertainty washing over me.

I thought of Crag, holding me so firmly and yet carefully just minutes ago. Of Lance, grinning with delight after he’d made me come. Of Torrent reaching out of the shadows with his tentacle to offer me a small fragment of reassurance.

Even if there were things they weren’t telling me, did I really think they meant me any harm? I couldn’t summon any conviction behind that thought.

And who was I kidding if I thought I could fend for myself if the monsters came after me again? I wasn’t sure an entire police force could deal with those creatures that bled smoke instead of blood and kept going until they were utterly smashed or torn apart. What good did safety by daylight do me when night fell every twenty-four hours? Who else would die when darkness fell and the fiends swarmed after me again?

I might not like relying on the three men who’d already saved my life more than once, but they were definitely better equipped to handle this problem than anyone else I could turn to. And even they had needed to whisk me away both times the horde had attacked rather than facing all the creatures down.

How could I expect my parents or even random bystanders to act as my protectors instead? And going it completely alone, away from human civilization, would basically be suicide. I’d probably be dead before the day was over.

There were a lot of things I wasn’t sure of, but I knew I wanted to live.

So I stayed where I was, my feet planted on the pavement and my arms tight around my bag, drinking in the fresh air that wasn’t as cloyingly humid as the swamp’s. The sun beamed down over me as it rose toward its peak in the sky, keeping the shadows at bay. I felt almost calm by the time not one but three figures shimmered into being at the edge of the lot.

Crag had switched back into human-like form. He headed toward me with Lance striding along next to him. The dragon shifter walked with a spring in his step as if he’d come from a dance party and not a brawl.

Torrent followed the other two with stiffer steps. Watching him, it occurred to me that I hadn’t seen him really move around before. He usually just appeared in whatever pose, sitting or standing, suited him at the time. I’d assumed he’d brought his tentacles with him because he had no choice in the matter, like Crag with his jaw and Lance with his claws.

But from the way he was leveraging them at his sides now, I could tell he needed them to support his weight. He was using the extra appendages like dual walking sticks, leaning on them to steady each step. Could his human-like legs even hold him up on their own?

Maybe his tentacles didn’t inherently come with his human form. They were a lot larger than the monstrous features that stuck with Crag and Lance. Torrent might be bringing them out only to use them, like Lance had transformed his tongue and teeth last night, rather than because he couldn’t disguise them.

I’d never paid much attention to his footwear before, but it occurred to me now that the ankle-high hiking boots were an odd choice for the summer heat. Lance wore thin sneakers like mine, and Crag always seemed to go barefoot. It could be that Torrent needed the extra support the boots provided too.

What had happened to his legs to leave him like that? Was it the same incident that’d caved in his cheek?

The men didn’t appear to talk to each other, but from the glances exchanged before they reached me, I had the sense that I’d missed a private conversation they’d had before appearing in my view, one they were still processing. Crag stopped a few feet from me in a pose like a sentinel and looked expectantly at Torrent.

Lance rolled his shoulders as if shaking off spare energy and looped a strand of my hair around one of his claws with a flick of his finger. “You got through okay, baby girl,” he said in the teasing tone he always gave the nickname.

My cheeks heated anyway, but my thoughts darted back to what I’d gotten through. “How did all those shadowkind find us all of a sudden?” I asked, focusing my attention on Torrent. “I thought there was some kind of barrier that stopped them from sensing me.”

Torrent sighed. “The vibe you give off has been getting stronger. It must have reached the point where the protections weren’t enough to disguise it.”

Of course. The ripple had turned into a flutter and then that outright flapping sensation. I’d been right to worry about it, even if I hadn’t known why.

“There were so many of them already in the swamp right by the cabin,” I said. “They attacked suddenly, all together—it wasn’t just one here or there like the thing that jumped at me when I climbed the tree.”

He nodded with an air of resignation. “This assault looked more… organized than before. There were a few higher shadowkind in the bunch who appeared to be directing or at least moderating the others.” He paused. “From their behavior, I also think that it’s possible they didn’t want to kill you, at least not this time. They were trying to take you away alive.”

A chill swept through me. “Take me where? Why?”

“They won’t,” Crag insisted.

A grimace twisted Torrent’s mouth. “I don’t know,” he said in answer to my question. “I wish I did. But the fact that they mostly emerged around the cabin rather than inside it, when they were clearly capable of coming up with a coherent strategy… They were hoping to draw us away from you. If their intention was simply to kill you, they could have appeared much closer and done it in an instant, like the being that caught you in the tree tried to. Possibly they were aiming to kill us before they took you at all, to be sure no one would be left who knew about it.”

I swallowed hard. I believed him when he said he didn’t know why. The weary frustration in his voice sounded totally genuine.

His observation made the situation ten times more complicated. It wasn’t just rabid beasts wanting to tear into me. Some of the other shadowkind had a purpose for me, or someone else they were answering to…

I shook my head, but I couldn’t dispel the bewilderment gripping me. “Why would anyone want me?” I demanded. “What is it about this ‘specialness’ that would be useful to any shadowkind? You’ve got to at least tell me that much.”

“We want to,” Crag said gruffly. “We would.” He shot another look at Torrent.

Lance clucked his tongue, his grin turning crooked with the slant of his jaw. “You’re a tricksy mortal, keeping too many secrets.”

“I’m not keeping them on purpose!” I burst out. “I have no idea what’s going on here.”

Torrent cleared his throat. His voice took its more usual brisk tone, but it still wasn’t quite as terse as usual. “We understand that. I can tell you… the impression your energy gives off to us is that you’re some kind of threat.”

My eyebrows rose. “What?”

A faint smile crossed his face. “It seems strange to us too. Nothing else about you appears to pose any danger to us. I assumed the lesser shadowkind were driven by base instincts, noticing only the energy and not paying attention to any other factors that would make them realize it was a mistake. But for higher beings to be involved as well, to be orchestrating some kind of capture…” His narrow forehead furrowed. “I’m confused too.”

“Which means we need to find out the reason,” Crag said in a prompting tone.

Torrent dipped his head. “Yes. We’ve already seen that the best protections we could arrange aren’t enough to keep us safe while we’re staying in one place. And if we have to keep moving around, we’ve agreed that we should use some of that time to try to figure out what exactly is ‘special’ about you. If you’re up for that.”

I opened my mouth and closed it again, letting his offer sink in. We’d go investigate the mystery of this strange energy inside me, somehow or other—they’d help me figure that out?

“Won’t we keep being attacked?” I asked.

Lance flashed his claws through the air. “We’re faster. If one or two stumble into us, we’ll shred ’em. Never stay anyplace vulnerable for long enough that a bunch of them could join forces, and they’re shit out of luck.”

“And I have some ideas about how we could safely rest for a decent stretch in between traveling,” Torrent said. “I have a friend in the area who should be able to help with that.”

He studied me in his penetrating way, his sea-green eyes as fathomless as the ocean to my left. “We’ll need your help, of course. We can’t work out what’s happening to you without your participation. We don’t know what we’ll find out or how unnerving it might be. Are you sure you want to go down that road?”

A shiver passed through me, but I raised my chin. He didn’t know me very well if he had to ask that.

“What are my other options? Just wait around for the horde to finally catch up and slaughter me? I need to know why this is happening—that’s the only way I’ll have any chance of fixing it.”

He gave a curt nod. “Then we’ll start right away, before the creatures after you have a chance to catch up again.”

“Wait.” I shifted my bag in my hands. “I’m almost out of my medication. I only keep a week’s supply right on me. I have a bunch more pills at home. But if I go back there—if the creatures follow me— Mom and Dad…”

Something shifted in Torrent’s expression that I couldn’t identify. “I’ll go,” he said abruptly. “We’ll pass through the city again within the next day or so, and I’ll get them for you. It won’t do our investigation any good if your heart gives out before we get any answers, will it?”

“No,” I said with a rush of relief—and a twinge of something softer. “No, it won’t.”

They’d told me more than they had before, and they were willing to work with me to find the answers I’d been desperate for. Torrent wasn’t keeping only me safe but my parents as well. I still wasn’t sure I had the entire story, but I had enough to soothe my doubts.

I slung my messenger bag across my back. “Let’s get started then.”