Chapter 3
THREE
HANNAH
He’s a monster to ask such a thing.
Maybe the roar and the deep, terrifying voice in the dark is just someone with a voice modulator waiting up here in the cave to mess with desperate girls like me for kicks.
I can almost convince myself of that except.
.. I can feel his presence. And he came out of the cave to kick my flashlight away.
I didn’t imagine that. In the darkness, I can sense him looming over me.
I look frantically up, left, and right but can’t see a damn thing.
Just this... deeper darkness where he stands.
But he is massive. And while my eyes won’t give me information, every other sense is working overtime.
He doesn’t smell pleasant, that’s for sure. And every hair on my arms stands at attention like they’re trying to warn me of danger.
Every time he speaks, the ground vibrates with his deep bass. I swear my bones resonate inside me, too.
All of it adds up to something that should terrify me.
Instead, crazily, I believe what he says.
I believe he can heal me.
But the price he’s demanding? To be his consort? What the hell does that even mean in today’s world? It’s such an old-fashioned word. Does it just mean companionship, or is he asking for...?
“Let me see you,” I say, pulse hammering but voice steady.
“So you can judge me as you have been judged?” His voice rumbles above me, and he sounds genuinely angry. “Do mortal eyes show kindness to those they don’t find beautiful?”
My whole body trembles now—part shame, part terror, part something else I don’t want to name.
I would never judge anyone for not being conventionally attractive.
I don’t think, anyway.
I have a feeling that whatever this creature is will challenge me in ways I never expected. Test every assumption I have about myself.
Deep down, some naive part of me hopes that once I’m healed, I can return and salvage my old life. Fix things with Drew. Our engagement fell apart because he couldn’t handle my quest for healing and said we both knew miracle cures didn’t exist.
Except... here I am, kneeling before someone offering exactly that.
And if I accept what he’s offering, there won’t be any going back to Drew. Or my mother. There might never be any going back, not if this creature means his demand of forever.
But then again—forever means I’d be alive to see it, doesn’t it? I have to be breathing to experience any sort of forever.
Forever means more than just fifteen more years on this Earth, constantly wondering if death is lurking around the next corner, never able to make future plans without that nagging voice asking Will you even be there to see them through?
“Yes,” I say before I can overthink it and chicken out.
I came here looking for the impossible. And when you’re desperate enough to climb a monster’s mountain alone, you don’t get to be picky about the terms. “I told you I’d pay any price. I meant it.”
“I’m pleased to hear that... I think,” rumbles the dark voice from above me.
Then everything happens at once.
So fast I can barely process what’s occurring.
There’s a powerful rush of wings, and suddenly I’m engulfed by intense, wild scents. I cough, but there’s nowhere to turn because enormous hands grab me under my arms and lift me up, up—
I scream as I’m lifted not just off the ground but into the air.
The whoosh of wind around us grows deafening as I’m pressed against his massive chest. Whoosh. Whoosh. Whoosh. The sound surrounds us completely.
My scream gets lost in the wind as the world drops away, and my stomach does backflips.
Holy shit!
We’re flying.
He actually has wings!
I force my eyes open for the first time to see wings stretched impossibly wide—huge, dark, feathered wings that blot out the stars above us.
I panic, but there’s nothing to grab except him. He’s the only thing between me and a very long fall, his enormous hands cradling my much smaller body against his chest. A chest that feels surprisingly human—warm and solid.
At least until it starts to glow.
The light begins where I imagine his heart would be, right where my cheek is pressed against his heated skin. I pull back and crane my neck to look up at his face—
Which is absolutely a mistake. Because his face is genuinely terrifying.
It’s like someone merged a human with a lion and added wicked black horns curving out from his temples.
I scream directly into his monstrous features.
He looks down at me and opens his mouth, revealing rows of razor-sharp teeth mere inches from my face.
Then he roars—a sound so deep and primal it seems to make his chest blaze even brighter.
We’d been climbing higher, but he suddenly pulls his wings back and sends us into a stomach-dropping dive.
My scream cuts off—not because I don’t want to keep screaming (trust me, I really fucking want to keep screaming), but because the freefall is so intense that nothing will come out of my throat.
Meanwhile, his chest burns brighter and brighter until I have to squeeze my eyes shut against the blazing light.
Even through closed lids, I can see the radiance.
It’s so bright it’s burning my retinas.
And then heat spreads through my own chest. Oh god, he’s actually burning me.
So this is what happened to all those missing hikers.
The mountain monster took them on a scenic flight and slow-roasted them mid-air. Will he gnaw my bones after I’m thoroughly cooked? I probably don’t look like much of a meal, but judging by the fire racing through my bones and flooding my lungs—
I force my mouth open and finally find my voice again.
I howl out my fury at being burned alive from the inside.
He’s a liar and a fraud, and I’m an idiot for walking straight into the lion’s den when everyone—from Drew to the mountain guide—tried to warn me away.
Thanks to my stubborn conviction that I could find a solution when doctor after doctor told me it was hopeless, that there was nothing to do but manage symptoms—
“Stop screeching,” comes the monster’s roar in my ear. “It is finished. You are healed.”
I pause mid-death-scream to process his words.
I’m sure it’s some kind of trick, considering we’re still hurtling through the sky. He hasn’t stopped flying—if anything, we’re moving faster.
But the blinding white light from his chest is fading. And when I focus on how my own chest feels... the searing heat that felt like it was cauterizing my insides has completely vanished.
Sweat cools rapidly on my skin from the wind rushing past as we speed through the air.
The monster’s surprisingly gentle arms adjust me in his grip so I’m no longer dangling precariously over—
I twist to glance down at the ground—
Holy shit! We’re so high up that it’s like looking out an airplane window through the breaks in the clouds where moonlight streams through. Everything below has been broken up into geometric patches like a satellite map.
And when I gasp for breath, even though the air feels thinner up here, I can feel it completely fill my lungs.
Not just halfway like usual, because my compressed spine used to restrict my breathing.
No.
No way.
Did I actually just get healed mid-flight by some kind of ancient monster?
And if he kept his part of the bargain, then when we land wherever we’re going...
I’m his consort now. Holy shit.
The thing is—and this is the part that should probably terrify me more than it does—I’m not entirely sure I mind.