18. Aliana
ALIANA
“Little warrior, I’m surprised you’re still awake.”
The silky voice has me swiveling around on the armchair Filia helped me drag into my bedroom. I drop the novel I’ve been reading—also a gift from Filia—and stand slowly.
Creep leans nonchalantly against the open door of the closet, his muscular blue arms crossed over his chest. Like before, he’s shirtless, but this time around, his strange black hair is braided down the center of his back.
It somehow accentuates his strong jawline, sharp cheekbones, and the elaborate curls of his antler-like horns.
My heart thumps so loudly, I can hear it between my ears. I swear it feels as if a bucket of bouncy balls has been knocked over, and now all of those balls are ricocheting off the inside of my skull. Nervous anticipation slicks my hands by my sides.
“If you thought I was asleep, then why did you come?” I ask, unsure how I feel about that. Was he going to…watch me sleep? What the fuck?
Creep’s budding smirk gives nothing away as he steps farther into the room, his gaze lazily trailing over my body.
A flash of heat enters his eyes when he takes in the short, lacy nightgown that I found in the closet.
Probably another gift from Filia, since cute nightgowns don't seem to be on the Devourer’s list of priorities.
“Looking as gorgeous as ever,” he practically purrs, continuing to advance on me where I stand beside my chair, wondering if I need to dodge behind it or not.
I can’t help but compare him to a sleek panther stalking towards its prey, just waiting to pounce and tear open the creature’s neck.
Everything about him—from the hard glint in his striking eyes to his coiled muscles—exudes danger and savage lethality.
He may be more slender than the Devourer, but I have no doubt in my mind that he is just as deadly, if not more so.
“What are you doing here, Creep?” I fold my arms over my chest, trying to hide how eager I actually am for his visit.
I tell myself it’s because I want to accept his offer of a game, I want to have a chance to escape, but I know it’s not just that.
I’ve been…lonely. Even my dinner with Filia and the others hasn’t been enough to abate the pain in my heart.
At the human camp, there had been laughter and love. Smiles and inside jokes.
Here, there’s…nothing. Loneliness, perhaps, and a lot of fear, but no laughter. No love. No smiles. And definitely no inside jokes, unless you consider “kitten” one.
He places a hand over his heart in mock surprise, as if my words have somehow mortally wounded him. “Why, I’m hurt, little warrior. Can’t I just come and stalk my favorite human?”
I just barely hold in my snort. “No.”
His lips curl away from his slightly pointier-than-normal teeth, and he halts a few steps away from me next to the sarcophagus.
“Well, since you’re already up…” He casually brings a hand down to the open coffin and rubs a finger across it, as if inspecting it for dirt. “I wonder if you’ll be interested in playing that game with me.”
Yes. Fuck yes.
My heart races, thrashes, trips over itself, and then rolls down a hill. I swallow convulsively as I try to figure out how to play a game of my own.
Act too excited, he’ll see through my facade.
Say no, I’ll risk him leaving before I can “change my mind.”
I settle on a blunt, “Maybe.”
Can he hear how fast my heart is beating? How deafening the sound is? It pounds inside my chest, battering my rib cage.
“Maybe,” Creep parrots, that grin never faltering from his handsome face.
“What would we be playing?” I jerk my chin upwards, praying he mistakes the heat rising to my cheeks as nerves instead of adrenaline.
This is my chance.
I can’t fuck it up.
“Have you ever heard of…kraken?” He jumps to sit on the stone edge of the coffin and begins to swing his legs back and forth, his attention never wavering from me.
I gulp. “The monster?”
I’ve heard about those water beasts before. Don’t they have one eye and tentacles? Or am I mistaking that with another tooth?
“It’s a game as well.” He jumps off of the casket and stalks towards the makeshift bathroom, flinging the door open and wrinkling his nose with disgust when he sees what’s inside.
He immediately slams it shut and moves towards the bed, then pulls away the blankets.
The unicorn tapestry moves aside for him as if it weighs nothing, while I have to fight that heavy thing every single night.
“What the fuck are you doing?” I blurt, unable to bite my tongue.
He doesn’t bother to turn around from his perusal of the bed when he answers me. “You can learn a lot about a person from studying their bedroom.”
“This isn’t my bedroom,” I retort immediately. “It’s my prison.”
His bare back muscles ripple, his entire body going rigid, and slowly, he drops the tapestry he pulled back and turns around to stare at me. Something glints in his dark blue eyes, an emotion I can’t quite pinpoint. It remains just out of my grasp, no matter how desperately I try to hold on to it.
An impassive slate replaces the emotion I thought I saw when he explains, “Krakens, despite their appearances, are only Ones on the power scale. Do you want to know why?” Abruptly, he stalks forward until he’s able to place his hands on either side of my head, caging me against the wall.
His eyes briefly lower to my parted lips before lifting back up to my own. “Because they’re afraid.”
“Afraid.”
My brain seems to have become broken, jammed, shattered. All it’s capable of doing is repeating nonsensical words back to him.
“Afraid of their own goddamn shadows,” he concludes, punctuating those words with a slap of his hands against the walls.
I flinch instinctively, and his eyes darken, the pupils pooling outwards until the entire iris is a sea of inky black.
“So how do we play this game? How do we play kraken?” I will my voice not to waver, but I’m terrified and have no idea why. There’s just something about him, something so innately dangerous…
“The first of us who refuses to do a dare loses,” he explains, the slow curl to his lip commandeering my attention.
“Wait.” His words register. “We’re playing truth or dare?” I give him an incredulous look, and he throws his head back in hearty laughter, his braid swishing with the movement of his head.
“There will be no truths, silly girl.” He boops my nose, and I have the irresistible urge to bite off his fucking finger. My eyes must scream murder, because his smile only grows. “We can’t have truths without any trust, now can we?”
“But we can have dares?” My brows lift until they touch my hairline, and his gaze dips to the furrow that has no doubt manifested between them.
He lifts a finger to rub at the skin, as if to erase the miniscule crease. His touch is surprisingly warm, his fingertip soft despite the fact that his skin looks like tree bark.
“We can,” he agrees, finally dropping his hand back to his side.
That only lasts a second, though, because in the next, he has it extended. My gaze dips to it immediately, and I can’t help but marvel at how big it is compared to my own, the fingers ending at sharp claws. Does he want me to take his hand? The fuck?
“What do you say, little warrior? Do you want to play my game?”
I hesitate, and this time, it’s not completely for show.
Am I doing this? Am I truly doing this?
What the fuck will he dare me to do?
On one hand, I know playing this game and winning will give me the opportunity I’ve been searching for to escape—if he keeps his promise about my one hour of freedom.
On the other, this could be a trap. And I know the Devourer will be furious if he discovers I have left with another Terror.
Actually…maybe that’s a good thing. There’s nothing I love more than pissing off the beast of a man who bought me.
“Nothing sexual,” I blurt out before I can stop myself.
Heat rises to my cheeks at how fucking desperate I sound, but I don’t care.
I won’t suck his disgusting monster dick or whatever else he deems “suckable.” I heard all about the shit monsters get up to in the bedroom.
Filia and the others in the kitchen all had war stories about the monsters and humans they’d banged.
And not just with dicks. I don’t even want to remember Zeelof mentioning his stinger.
I refuse to be used, tossed aside, and laughed about.
But there are other things Creep could want to do that also have me worried.
“And nothing…” Dangerous? No, that doesn’t seem right. Nothing… “Immoral.”
His brows lift in surprise.
What the fuck are you doing, Aliana? Don’t give the scary tongue terms and conditions!
My pulse skitters dangerously as he leans over, putting his face only an inch away from mine. His eyes search my own as his hot breath feathers over my lips.
“Okay.” His acquiescence surprises the shit out of me, and I blink rapidly, unsure if I heard him correctly.
And then he adds, as if to reiterate what he meant with that one word, “There will be no dares of the sexual nature or the immoral kind, at least from me.” A sly, cunning grin tugs up his lips.
“But if you want to dare me to get on my knees and lick that sweet pussy—”
“Not happening,” I hiss, finally finding the courage to place my hands on his chest and give him a shove.
He could kill me for that—I half expect him to—but he surprises the shit out of me by throwing his head back and barking out a sharp laugh.
“Fuck, little warrior. I love your damn spirit.” He shakes his head ruefully. “Never let it break.”
I make a face at him. “Then stop trying to break it, asshole.”
Asshole? I mentally curse my brain-to-mouth capabilities—or lack thereof. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.