Chapter One - Alexandra
I knew life wasn’t sunshine and rainbows for everyone, but eventually the clouds always broke, revealing the sunlight once more for them. But in my case, the darkness that seemed to follow me never cleared.
I had learned a long time ago, life wasn’t fair, and at some point, I just accepted it.
The only bright spot was when I was able to climb into my bed, crack open a spiral notebook, and forget reality even existed while being transported into the world I created when I put my pen to paper.
I poured all of my despair and desire onto those sheets. The ink was my pain, and the pages were my savior.
It’s where I found myself now, contemplating the events of the day and how I would cope with them. I was lounging on my bed in an oversized Aerosmith t-shirt I'd found at the thrift shop and some black sleep shorts.
Shoving the rest of my chocolate chip cookie into my mouth, I grabbed the plastic cup filled with the delicious delicacy known as RumChata. Taking a gulp of the cinnamon alcohol, I swallowed down the lump of cookie that lodged itself in my throat before setting the cup back down on my nightstand.
The alcohol had been given to me as a bribe to not tell on the girl across the hall for smoking a joint. I honestly didn’t care what she did—I wouldn’t have turned her in anyway, but I wouldn’t turn my nose up at alcohol.
Despite not having any friends here, I kept to myself... it was just easier. My life had enough chaos without me creating enemies. I had my own shit to worry about. If the girl wanted to smoke pot to get through her days, who was I to judge? We all had our own ways of coping.
The RumChata left a trail of light heat in its wake as I reached for my black spiral notebook that had seen better days.
The edges of the pages curled slightly from being bent a bit when I wrote at odd angles.
Flipping to the next blank page near the back of the book, I realized that I would need to grab another one soon and add this full one to the plastic bin beneath my bed.
That bin held the only things in the world I cared about, the only things that held any value for me.
As a ward of the state, I hadn’t enjoyed many luxuries in life growing up. Even now, being on an academic scholarship for my junior year at a small private college, I wasn’t afforded much. The single dorm room was definitely a plus, though.
I couldn’t dwell on the fact that all the possessions I cared about could fit into one measly bin beneath my bed. One day, things would be different—that day just wasn’t today. I was what you could call a “pessimistic optimist.”
My scholarship covered my classes, school materials, boarding, and a small stipend for food. I’d be the first to admit I had a pretty shit diet. I wouldn’t eat all day, then I’d use my budgeted allowance for the day to order a large pizza and cookies and binge eat as I wrote through the night.
Another terrible habit was my almost non-existent sleep schedule, and I often found myself cursing the first rays of morning light as they streamed in through my small window.
They took me away from my fantasy world filled with delicious men I was unhealthily obsessed with, signaling that I'd once again be heading to classes running on fumes.
Often I dreamt of being one of the supernatural creatures of the world instead of an isolated, forgotten human stuck in an endless loop that kept reminding me of my place in life.
But unfortunately, this seemed to be the hand I'd been dealt. I just needed to find a way to make the most of it.
That didn’t stop me, though, from checking my teeth to see if they’d elongated to sharp points like a vampire's, trying to conjure fire into existence in my hand like a witch, or wishing I’d grown a pair of demon horns overnight.
Maybe I was just a late bloomer in the supernatural community? At least, that’s what I liked to tell myself when I found myself sinking in the bleakness of my life.
Grabbing a pen with a slightly gnawed black cap from my nightstand, I backed into the corner of my bed against the wall, a cozy space where I had my pillows arranged and smashed in a nest of sorts to engulf me.
Drawing my knees up, I rested my notebook against them, closed my eyes, and tipped my head back to rest against the wall, thinking of where I would be transported to this time.
It was time to cut myself loose from reality and escape to the world between my pages. A world that inspired awe and forged hope within my soul. Hope that one day the world I lived in would be a better place.
My fantasy world was one in which I righted the wrongs of the world. Where the monsters most people were afraid of helped me hunt down the true bad guys—the humans.
Because I can assure you, my monsters were angels in comparison to the true evil that lurked in my reality. Humans just happened to wear skin suits that were more pleasing to the eye.
Closing my eyes, I allowed my mind to drift to the image of my monsters, sinking into the alternate life I’d created for myself.
At first, when I’d created them, there had been nothing beautiful about my monsters, but they had morphed in my mind over the years.
Before I learned how to write, I drew them as faceless shadow creatures draped in the fabric of black cloaks with ripped edges at the bottom.
They moved in the darkness, shifting with the shadows, undeniably hidden from the human eye.
Then, as I wrote them in stories instead of drawings, when they weren’t traveling in the darkness, the lower halves of their bodies were still mostly swirling shadows, but there was a section in the middle of their chests that thrummed with a steady glow, like a human had their heart.
Each of my three monsters had a different color that emanated from the piece of them I liked to think of as their soul, spreading into their necks and up into their faces like veins beneath the surface.
Lucien was red.
Elwin was green.
Kylo was blue.
Then, to top it all off, they had four arms, two on each side, with razor sharp claws at the tips of their fingers. Some might find them disconcerting, being so devoid of humanoid features, but it’s what I loved about them. What you saw was what you got, unlike humans.
I had met too many dark, ugly, twisted humans for me to trust them.
They’d smile to your face to placate you, whispering the words you wanted to hear, all while taking what they wanted before leaving behind a husk of a person.
The ones who stole.
The ones who raped.
The ones who thought they deserved everything simply because they breathed.
In my fantasy world, my monsters and I snuffed the arrogance and entitlement out of every single one of those fuckers. Sometimes discretion was needed, so, in addition to their monster forms, they had a human form so they could blend in with society and be at my side.
Which brought me to the task at hand. Opening my eyes, I thought of where I wanted to begin with this one. Today’s chapter was about the Dean of Students who had lifted my skirt this afternoon and told me he’d forget the claims of me cheating on my essay if I helped him.
I hadn’t cheated.
There was no need to when academics were a natural gift of my mind. The only way I was even able to attend this college was due to the academic scholarship I’d been awarded. Without it, I’d be on the streets without a penny to my name, like most kids after they aged out of the system.
There was definitely no way I’d risk any of that by cheating on a dumb creative writing essay that I could ace without struggling.
The problem was that Chloe Blufount didn’t like that I continuously ranked above her for the top spot in the undergraduate class for English majors.
Our creative writing professor instituted a public ranking board to encourage excellence, and with my talent for writing, I edged Chloe out every year.
But Chloe was a girl who was used to getting her way, especially since her father’s money usually got her everything else she wanted.
He could buy her lip injections, lash extensions, a constant fake spray tan, and her continuously revolving hair colors, but he'd never be able to buy her top rank in our class.
I was proud of that.
So this was how she got me out of the way instead.
Feeding the skeevy dean lies, knowing full well what his reputation was.
Chloe was one of the monsters beneath a pretty human skin suit, offering me on a silver platter to a man who took what wasn’t freely given, knowing I had no one to help me fight my battles other than myself.
In reality, I had smacked his hand away lightly, told him I’d take the zero on the assignment, and quietly left his office, not wanting to ignite the temper I’d heard about many times.
It finally came to me, how I wanted this scene to go. The specific way I wanted the dean to suffer. I let the ink glide on the page, closing my eyes and summoning my bloodthirsty monster to reenact the scene in the manner I truly wanted.
Lucien.
He’d slaughter for those he loved without blinking. Touch what was his and die a painful death as a result. It was that simple to him.
The scene was finally set. There I was, sitting with my legs crossed in the chair in front of the dean’s oak desk, with the dean standing and leaning against the corner of it, eyeing me like a pig.
As Lucien stepped from the shadows in the corner of the office, his fingertips gleamed like freshly sharpened obsidian daggers.
His form shifted as he approached slowly and intentionally, like a predator stalking his prey, confidence and danger radiating off of him in waves.
His blood-red eyes with black slits were pinned on his target with unwavering intensity.
Truly, he embodied the creature of nightmares kids would fear coming from the shadowed corners of their rooms.
Just as the perv put his hand on my exposed leg and drew it up toward my skirt, as he had in reality, Lucien tutted at him. “That simply won’t do. The only person allowed to touch my angel is me.”
The dean stood, frozen in fear of my monster, and I smiled wickedly when his beige dress pants darkened and the scent of urine permeated the air. All it took was Lucien’s talons touching his skin in the faintest whisper of a touch.
The dean knew he had just become the prey.
The shadows on Lucien’s face parted to reveal his lips as he smiled at the dean, putting his rows of sharp teeth on display. The dean screamed, begging for mercy, in the seconds before his hands were swiftly cleaved from his wrists.
Maybe that act should have scared me—it was what I truly wanted, and craving that type of violence wasn’t normal. But instead, it unfurled a sense of justice and satisfaction within me, perhaps even a hint of desire towards Lucien for the vicious move.
Alright, it was more than a hint of desire.
It wouldn’t be the first time their possessive and sometimes barbaric actions had turned me on. But it wasn’t a surprise because I had written them to be exactly like that.
The thing was—my creations weren’t just monsters.
They were my soul mates, and I had created them to be extremely protective and territorial over me.
Something I’d lacked in my life growing up.
They all had distinctively different personalities, but their underlying love and need to keep me safe shone brightly through their shadowy depths.
The dean’s screams echoed through the expanse of his office, but no one came to his rescue. No one could save him—he was damned from the start of my story.
He fell to his knees as blood poured in rivulets from his severed wrists, pooling beneath him in an ever-expanding crimson lake. Snot poured from his nose as he sobbed and begged, “Please, spare me. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
Narrowing my eyes as I stood from my chair, I planted the bottom of my boot on his chest before kicking him backwards. “Too bad you won’t be able to say sorry to all of your other victims,” I sneered. Then, huffing out a dry laugh, I added, “Though, your death will be enough of an apology.”
As the words left my lips, Lucien towered over the dean before ramming the tips of his pointer fingers into his eye sockets. The dean only screamed for a few seconds before the bliss of silence descended through the small office with his death.
I soaked the moment in, smiling smugly at his fate. He wouldn’t be able to abuse his position of power again.
Meanwhile, Lucien retracted his talons from the dean and grabbed a handkerchief from the desk, wiping off his top hands’ talons with his lower two before tossing the rag onto the dean’s body. Dramatically, he rolled his eyes and murmured, “I hate when they make me get my hands so dirty.”
A true laugh burst from me as I called him on his bullshit.
“You’re such a liar. You get upset when you don’t get to handle our situations this way,” I reminded him as I leaned back onto the desk with my hands on the edge.
“Though I’m sure Kylo and Elwin would love to hear if you’re changing your ways,” I added teasingly.
“You’d make their lives so much easier.”
It was his turn to laugh, and the sound truly made my heart skip a beat. I lived for their love and joy–it fed my own.
“Don’t let Kylo lie to you either, angel,” he rebutted. “He’d be bored if he wasn’t constantly trying to contain my urges under the blood haze.”
As Lucien came to float in front of me, leaning in close, I widened my eyes and fake pouted. “But what about poor Elwin who has to deal with calming Kylo down when you inevitably go against his commands?”
He paused as if truly giving it a thought before chuckling. “Yeah, I feel bad for the bastard, but we all know I’m not going to stop. No one fucks with you or my brothers and gets away with only a slap on the wrist.”
The reminder of his wrath had my eyes falling down to the dean, and my body shivered at the memory of his touch on my leg.
Lucien sensed my distress, his voice dropping low as he whispered, “You’re okay now, angel. He’ll never touch you again. You are ours.”
The possessiveness of his words, combined with the deep tones of his voice, made heat pool between my legs. An ache began to build, demanding I find a way to satisfy it.
I had yet to bring myself to cross the line of being intimate with my creatures as I wrote my stories, but today felt like the day that was going to change.
I needed a little something extra to cheer me up after having to swallow my outrage at the dean’s actions.
I’d wanted to punch him in the mouth and tell him where he could shove it with his suggestions, but seeing as I couldn’t give in to that desire… I’d give in to this one instead.