11. The Creeper
THE CREEPER
Damn. That was the hottest thing I’ve ever seen. My dick is still half-mast thinking about how that sweet little human girl looked while the Empty Man fucked her with that wine bottle.
And her taste.
I licked that bottle clean, letting my forked six-inch tongue plunge down into its depths so I didn’t miss a drop of her delicious cum.
Musky perfection. The only thing that would have made it better would have been a bit of blood.
I can’t wait until her time of the month shows up.
She’s going to spend an entire week with my face pressed between her legs.
She doesn’t know it yet, but it’s going to happen.
Mmm.
I sigh and sway as I walk, feeling light on my feet in a way I never have before—the mental image of her trembling hips after she came cycling through my mind on repeat.
Who would have thought that my mate would be human? Or so deliciously, delightfully perfect?
What’s her name again?
I’m sure they said it at the auction. I can’t recall.
Perfection. That should be her name.
I duck into the nearest room, an office at the back of the Devourer’s lair. No closet or bed to portal out of here. Damn. But then I eye the shadows under the desk. Maybe that would work…
I kneel down and crawl into the space, my antler-like horns pinging off the cheap metal. Dammit! This is why I prefer closets, I think as the air coils into tight springs around me and then unfurls.
I go sailing through time and space, lurching as white and black flashes streak by in wild patterns like ink blots. The universe compresses, then stretches, then compresses again around me as if I’m riding a giant slinky that’s flopping its way down the stairs.
Other monsters feel sick when I drag them through a portal with me, but I’ve gotten used to the sensation over the century or two I’ve existed. It hardly bothers me anymore. I don’t even mind when space time warps and collides with magic, and I somehow end up with four pointed ears between jumps.
The one time I ended up with two dicks… Well, that time, I really didn’t mind. That was fun.
Maybe that will happen again. Right now.
If it does, I’m not portaling until I’ve marched right into my mate’s room and claimed her pussy and her ass at the same time.
Of course, that would mean facing off against the Devourer rather than just sneaking through his home unannounced.
That part won’t be fun.
I might be lucky to make it past him with both dicks intact.
Hmm. Maybe I’ll hope for two dicks the next time I go visit her. After I figure out her name. And after Dev acknowledges that the auctioneer called it a four-way tie.
All Four Terrors bid on her. All of us continued to raise the stakes until heads and floating eyeballs all turned in our direction to see what, exactly, was going on.
For all intents and purposes, we don’t bid on any of the humans.
Ever. I haven’t, and I know for sure the others haven’t either. But with this girl…
I know why I was bidding.
Why the other fuckers had to interfere, I don’t get. Though, the way Em was with my mate last night… I have a feeling that he’s drawn to her too. Just like me.
Were all of us?
I don’t know how I feel about that. I hate the fact that all four of us bidding on her put a target on my little mate’s back. If the other monsters believe she’s important to us, they won’t hesitate to hurt her in order to assert their dominance. And if they discover what she is to me specifically…
A growl lodges in my throat.
No one can ever know that she’s my mate.
Not the other teeth and tongues, not the other Terrors.
No one. I just need to find a way to take her from Dev without starting World War Five.
He seems abnormally possessive of the little human with a mane of white-black hair, and I’m terrified to consider what that means.
At first, I believed all of the other Terrors bid on her because they saw how badly I craved her. But now… Now, I’m not so sure.
Dev has never been petty before, and Em’s pranks have never involved a human before. And Tesq? He hates humans. There’s no way he’ll bid on one just to piss me off.
No, there’s something else going on here, something I can’t articulate yet. And though I have an inkling of what that something is, I refuse to voice it out loud.
The portal squeezes me out like an unwanted shit, and I pop into existence in Dev’s closet. No extra limbs this time. Too bad.
I can tell whose closet it is because of the ungodly number of stained shirts hanging from the hooks.
I swear, Dev can’t keep a shirt clean to save his life.
The fucker is always slopping paint on some canvas or another.
I spot a paintbrush mingled in with some of his pants and sigh.
I go to pull it out and do his servants a solid so it doesn’t accidentally get washed when his dulcet tones stop me.
Ohhhh. Am I going to be privy to another one of his infamous temper tantrums? I’m Dev’s best friend—read as, his only friend, because the bastard is a sulky, moody, sadistic asshole—but if he catches me in here, I’m a dead monster.
Electricity sparks in my veins at the thrill of getting caught.
Why does that excite me so much? Am I simply a masochist?
Nothing pleases me more than spying on scary fuckers and praying to all that is unholy that I don’t get discovered.
It’s definitely on my list of favorite pastime activities—third to watching my sweet mate orgasm.
My favorite pastime will inevitably be fucking said mate… once I steal her for myself, of course.
Dev’s voice roars from the bedroom, and I hear a tray smash against the wall. Someone must have just tried to feed him or something.
“Get out!” he bellows, with all the good grace and spine-chilling fear factor of a powerful monster.
If I weren’t a Ten, his shout alone might have buckled my knees. As it is, I stifle a chuckle.
Where’s my video camera when I need it? I fucking love recording embarrassing moments and replaying them to Dev at a later time. His face always turns beet red before fur explodes across his arms and legs and he chases after me, threats of violence and death spilling from his lips.
Yup. Definitely a masochist.
I wonder what my mate would say if she saw the video of Dev shoving a cupcake up his—
“Sir, I need to know about the girl, though. Should we feed Aliana?” a croaky voice asks. “Humans have to eat daily.”
Aliana.
Gorgeous name. Maybe not quite as beautiful as Queefa—my favorite name—but still…adorable. It fits her and those naughty orgasms she had.
Aliana, Aliana, Aliana… I string her name into a song in my head, complete with an entire orchestra and drumline. The song starts off soft and soulful but grows and grows and grows, until the clash of cymbals and the roar of trumpets nearly burst my eardrums.
I pop back into the portal just in time to hear Dev’s scalding tone. “Don’t act like I don’t know a goddamned thing about humans. I will tell you when the fuck I want her to have—”
Sounds like someone’s going to be eaten alive, I think as I hurtle through time and space over to see the Empty Man.
Dev’s clearly not in the headspace to negotiate, but I need some terms and conditions laid out about how we’re going to share her time. Mainly…I want to know when Em’s headed over there again so I can watch. My dick hasn’t had that good of a workout in a long time.
But spying from the closet last night…
Best. Night. Ever.
Chills. Literal chills. I love me a good orgasm.
When I pop into Em’s stronghold, the contrast between it and Dev’s place is intense.
While Dev considers himself a cultured fucker and likes to dick around with human things like art, Em embraces his monster side wholeheartedly.
Dev lives in a museum, and Em lives in what used to be a pound.
There are cages everywhere, filled with any and every creature imaginable.
Since Em doesn’t have a body of his own, sometimes he needs to possess one. He likes to have a variety on hand to suit his whims.
I pop into a broom closet, my shin knocking into a mop bucket leftover from before the rise of Ebony Kingdom. From the Dark Ages.
“Dammit, Em!” I curse under my breath. I’ve told him not to leave it there. But I’m beginning to believe he thinks of it as a doorbell. It’s a warning for him whenever I show up.
Grumbling, I pick up the soiled yellow container and carry it with me as I grab the knob and open the closet door. The scent from the cages hits me immediately, and I crinkle my nose.
Blood, I love.
But the food that Em has to cart in to keep his menagerie happy?
Disgusting.
If I never have to smell cabbage and doggle tentacles again, it will be too soon.
I make my way down the hall, past three cages with various anencephalics.
There’s a three-foot long centipede-looking one who oozes some kind of purple acid that gives off smoke.
One that’s asleep. His dish has the offending doggles in it.
And a third who is using his thousands of tiny human arms to suspend himself from the top of the cage, like he’s all ready to make himself a little cocoon.
News flash, bud. You’ll never be a butterfly.
At the end of that row of cages, I spot a monster with puffy yellow feathers and metal wrecking balls instead of hands. He steps into a cage and then leans back, using his teeth to pull it shut behind him.
“Em! Hey, Em!” I jog over, sporting a grin.
The monster’s eyes widen as he stares at me, his shoulders hunch, and he goes into a half bow. “Creeper, sir. I’m not called Em. I’m Tranta.”
My brow furrows. If Em wasn’t possessing this monster’s body, what was he doing out of his cage?
The question must be clear on my face because the little monster squeaks up at me, “I’m new.
Just joined his menagerie this second, in fact.
” He clears his throat awkwardly, his feathers ruffling around his face in a way that might be because he’s embarrassed.
“Some Eights have been around my neighborhood. It’s not a great time to be a Two. ”
“So, you want the Empty Man’s protection?”
“Got food, got a roof over my head, and it’s safe… Getting possessed by a Ten once in a while seems like an okay price to pay.” The guy’s wrecking ball hands clink together.
My smile stays plastered on my face, utterly fake. What a coward.
But, without cowards, there could be no masters.
I give him a nod and leave him to his fate.
Turning, I stride back down the hall of monsters and shove open a door that’s got a large window in the top half and leave that set of cages to enter a waiting room.
Lights have been strung up all over the place.
Christmas lights. A mod chandelier made of geometric angles.
Tons of construction zone work lights. There are even brake lights because a truck smashed through the glass front doors during the first days of the new world order.
Some human sap wanted to free the animals from the monsters.
Ha.
“Em?” I ask, expecting some of the lights to blink in front of me.
Em has a system. Chandelier is a snooty yes . Brake lights for hell no . Construction lights for wait . Christmas are woohoo . You can have nearly an entire conversation with those responses.
“Em, are you there, you clever bastard?”
He doesn’t answer me.
Hmmm… I stride through the lobby over cheap industrial carpet that’s so old, it’s worn bare in some spots, the concrete beneath peeking out.
I pull open the door that leads to a larger room with bigger cages. A light flickers near the end of the hallway, and I raise a hand in greeting.
“There he is, Mr. America…” I sing an old jingle from television…
One of the songs that sometimes pop up in my head and make me nostalgic for the good old days when I could make a housewife tremble at a noise in the backyard late at night or the times I could make a little kid whimper when a shadow moved.
These days…people are practically immune to little scares. Living with monsters out in the open has hardened them, and now they’re tough nuts to crack.
It’s kind of depressing, really.
I stride past cages filled with twenty monsters and five humans. Some cower away from me, and others beg to suck my dick. Fangers go to all kinds of lengths to win over strong monsters like me and Em.
I smile over at Tallulah, one of the human girls that Em likes to possess often.
She picks at her blonde hair and gives me a shy smile back, though I don’t think she has much memory of our time together.
Last time Em possessed her, he and I dug through a lot of intestines, searching for a magic stone some idiot swallowed.
That’s not the kind of thing most humans can stomach.
Stomach. Get it?
Ha, I kill myself.
And others. Lots of others.
At the end of the row of ten-foot high cages, I stop and lean against a pole. Because I realize, with a tiny bit of shock, that our lovely Aliana wasn’t the only slave Em bought last night.
In front of me is the pretty boy that everyone went crazy over. A guy with tawny skin, green eyes, and disheveled blond hair. The label on his cage says “Chase.”
“Aww, who’s a cute boy?” I tell him, looking at where he’s kneeling next to the automatic water dish, lapping out of the bowl.
Behind him is a fuzzy, square pet bed. The back gate of his cage opens to a dog run outside, where dogs used to go to do their business.
Now, Em lets the humans use it. But only one at a time these days because a sandworm ate three the one time he let all of them out at once.
Chase glares at me for a moment before his back suddenly stiffens.
His eyes bug out. He arches his chest, and his hands fly up, clenching at the air in front of him.
He remains frozen like that for a moment before sliding smoothly to his feet behind the chain-link fence, the angry look replaced by a cocky half grin.
Those green eyes of his smile at me, and I smile right back.
“Why, hello, Em. Looking good.”