The Heart of a Monster: The Complete Series

Chapter 22

Lance

The entire clearing stank of sorcery. It itched in my nose no matter what form I took—even in the shadows where I barely had a nose—closing around me like a vise.

I stalked around the yard outside the house as if I could outpace the sensation. Torrent had said we wouldn’t stay here very long. Crag and I had already shredded a few stray beasties that’d ventured out this way. Thankfully it seemed like they were still wary of the location where the sorcerers had done their dirty work, not totally convinced they were gone for good, but their hesitation would only last so long.

Were the sorcerers actually gone? One of their hearts was still beating in Quinn’s chest. I glanced at her, my fangs prickling as they emerged instinctively.

She still looked like the same lively, lovely woman she’d been before, but now I knew what that odd energy seeping out of her was. It hadn’t been strong enough for me to pick up the exact taint before. It was their kind of power—that sickening, twisting, suffocating power that shouldn’t even exist.

Torrent had been popping in and out of the shadows all around the exterior of the house, always positioning himself so he had a nearby tree to casually rest a hand or a shoulder on without his tentacles out. He’d just finished a circuit of the property with the leprechaun, who as far as I could tell was only doing a lot of hemming and hawing without offering any useful insights.

“If you see anything at all that could help us identify who was behind the attack, from what you’ve observed of the powerful shadowkind who’ve come through Miami recently or anything you’ve overheard, I want to know about it,” Torrent said by the doorway. He’d had to come up with a fake story to avoid putting even more of a spotlight on Quinn, something about suspecting the same beings had stolen an item he needed for a business enterprise.

“I try to steer clear of the murderous type of shadowkind,” Goldie said with a chuckle as he headed inside. “So far all I’m seeing is that I definitely wouldn’t want to mess with these monsters.”

Useless. But Torrent had thought having him look around was worth trying, because what else did we have that we could try? The beasts who’d descended on this place had come in the middle of the night without leaving any witnesses. If some minor creatures in the woods had noticed the attack, it wasn’t as if they could tell us anything. They were useless too.

Even if we found out, then what? I should congratulate the murderers for a job well done. Who knew how many shadowkind those villains had bent to their will over the generations?

At the thought, my fangs grew larger. I threw myself into dragon form and lunged into the forest.

Bounding off the tree trunks, I whipped through the underbrush until my fire-tinged breath grew ragged in my throat. I transformed into human-like form and gouged the bark with my claws, leaping and tumbling. Then I sprang back into the dragon to race all the way to the top of one tree before flinging myself to another and another.

I was free. Nothing chained me. Nothing constrained me. Nothing ever would again. I was proving it with every pang of my muscles, every hiss of air over my scales or skin.

I skidded down a trunk and leapt over a mossy log. Fallen branches crunched beneath my feet. I flipped onto my back and writhed, digging the spines along my back into the earth and reveling at the friction.

But even that couldn’t wipe away the memories that’d risen up, clinging to the corners of my mind no matter what I did.

I’d left those images behind before. They should be gone. I could always slip away from them, escape into some other sensation.

When would Torrent be finished? I wanted to get away from here.

Footsteps rustled through the nearby vegetation. I spun onto my feet and around, hoping it was him calling me back but knowing he’d most likely have already spoken up if it was.

My gaze caught on a head of pale blond hair. Those soft tresses I’d nuzzled and stroked. I could smell her on the breeze, a scent like windblown wildflowers, like mortal spring. But I could feel her too, the faint vibration of energy that emanated from her between the larger pulses. My claws dug into the dirt.

Quinn paused, gazing steadily at me. Even with apprehension quivering through my nerves, there was something intoxicating about having a mortal look at me in my most vicious form without showing the slightest sign of fear.

I bared my fangs with an experimental growl, and all she did was knit her brow, looking both confused and concerned. But not for herself. “Lance?” she said tentatively, taking a step closer.

Torrent had asked her to stay out of sight while he and the leprechaun inspected the house, so she’d been lurking in the shadows of the forest almost like one of us. Crag was probably watching over her from someplace nearby.

“Are you all right?” she went on. “You seem more… worked up than usual.”

I shook my body, willing the clashing emotions away as well as I could, and shifted into human-like form. My fangs stayed out. I dragged my claws idly over a nearby tree trunk to remind myself how much destructive capacity I held even in this shape.

“We’ve stuck around a long time,” I said in a purposefully careless tone. “Aren’t you bored? Dreary, stinking sorcerer house and dreary, sticky forest.” Even as acclimatized as I was to heat, the summer weather brought sweat onto my skin within moments of transforming. The beams of morning sunlight that pierced the canopy shimmered like captured flames.

Quinn tipped her head to the side, eyeing me. “I agree it’s not where I’d want to take a vacation, but it’s hard to be bored when I’ve just found out something so huge. And we’re still trying to figure out who these shadowkind are that seem to be after me.”

What did it matter? Rollick wanted her too. It was them or him. Then she would be gone, and our job would be over, and that unsettling energy would be gone from my life too.

Along with the laughs and the smiles and the gasps…

“I am bored,” I insisted, and carved a chunk of wood right out of the tree. My claws skittered over it as I held it between my hands, slicing it to slivers in a matter of seconds. The chips pattered to the ground at my feet.

“Are you sure that’s all it is?” Quinn said. “I’m pretty sure I’ve seen you bored before. It’s not like life in that swamp cabin was a laugh riot. This seems… different.”

“If I say I’m bored, then I’m bored.” I jabbed my claws all the way into a different tree, snarled at it, and wrenched them free. Then I turned away from her. “Also bored of this conversation.”

But she wouldn’t give up. Of course not. This human didn’t give up. That was why she was still here at all.

She walked after me as I sauntered away, still doing my best to look nonchalant. “Are you worried about the shadowkind who attacked this place?” she asked. “I’m sure between the three of you and Sorsha’s crew if we call them in?—”

I couldn’t restrain a stuttered laugh. “Worried about the sorcerer-murderers? No.” I took a couple of swipes at the air. “They removed a little poison from this world. Set some beasties free. The ones that bled got what they deserved.”

Quinn halted. At first I thought she was disturbed by my remarks, that she wasn’t sure she even wanted to talk to me anymore, and somehow that both relieved me and irked me at the same time.

Then her voice came out quieter and gentler than before. “You’ve mentioned humans who didn’t treat you well. Have you been caught by sorcerers?”

I growled, but I couldn’t intimidate the truth out of existing. I didn’t have to say much about it, though.

I jerked my hand toward the house. “Not those ones. But I’m not going to be sorry for them.”

Quinn advanced again. I held my ground, a little uncertain about what I’d do if I let myself move. One of those sharper shocks of energy rippled out of her, and I flinched as her expression twitched with it. She halted.

“I’m sorry. I—my heart—” She pressed her hand to her chest. Her normally bright eyes dimmed. “I remind you of them. Of what they did to you.”

Images from the past flashed through me—pain and bindings, groans and shrieks, flesh flayed apart.

My voice turned rough. “The worst wasn’t me. The worst was the others. It’s done now. It doesn’t matter.” I waved my arm toward the forest around me, letting the momentum spin me. “I’m here. Lovely trees. Things to explore.”

“But it still bothers you.” Quinn was silent for a moment. Then she added, “If I bother you—if it’s uncomfortable for you to be near me, now that you know—I’ll leave you alone. I was just worried about you. I don’t want to make it worse.”

There was so much anguish in her voice that the part of me that wanted to wrap her up in my limbs—to devour her in all kinds of ways that would make her gasp only in pleasure, not agony—overwhelmed the uneasiness in my nerves. I found myself moving toward her, reaching for her and then drawing back my claws. Claws that had torn—claws that had savaged?—

“You don’t make it worse,” I said. “You’ve been a very good adventure.” And more than that, really. Somehow even with the treacherous heart thumping behind her ribs, the tenderness in her voice and her expression was driving back the memories more than anything I’d done on my own had.

She crossed the last distance between us and raised her hand to my cheek. “I’m so sorry,” she said. “I didn’t realize— I don’t know what all they did to you, but no one should be bound up and forced to do things against their will. That’s bad enough. Of course you’re angry.”

“I’m not—” I started, and cut myself off as a spurt of the very emotion I was denying flared in my chest.

I didn’t like to feel it. Didn’t like to notice it. It was easier to be careless and following the whims of the present as if the past had never happened.

Before, when I’d first gotten free, I’d had only anger to fight back the pain. None of it had felt good. But Torrent had found me and showed me how to be more than that, and I’d left it behind.

Only I hadn’t really, because it was still here.

Suddenly I didn’t know what to do with my body other than pull Quinn into my arms. I tucked my head next to hers and inhaled her scent from her hair like it was some kind of drug. The soft warmth of her body washed over me.

She hugged me back, a little catch coming into her voice as if she were trying not to cry. For me.

“If there’s anything I can do to make it easier, you let me know, okay?” she said, her words muffled against my shoulder.

I didn’t know what to do with that offer either, but it pealed through my heart. My throat constricted, and I closed my eyes, squeezing her tighter. The tortured sounds of the distant past kept echoing up from the back of my mind, fading but still audible.

I hadn’t saved any of them. I’d tried and I’d failed and they’d all given their essence back to the shadows.

But maybe I could save her.

That would be a good thing, wouldn’t it? It wasn’t her fault where her heart had come from. She hadn’t asked for it.

Resolve dug its own claws into my chest. This lively, lovely woman was a victim of the sorcerers’ twisted magic as much as any of us had been, and I would not let them destroy her too.