18. Aliana #3
A headache is beating a drum against my skull. Fear and anger war for first place inside of me. I’m going to fucking kill Creep.
But…
But I can’t say no.
Before I can lose what little courage I managed to muster, I bring my hand up and whack at the goblet of blood in his hand.
The sticky, red liquid splashes across his face and chest as shock widens his cat-like eyes.
The woman beside him squeals, the tentacles extending from her body slithering across the floor like sentient snakes in tandem with her apprehension.
Raucous laughter erupts from behind me, and I don’t even have to look over my shoulder to know that it’s Creep. The low, delicious sound of his amusement permeates the air and has goose bumps rippling on my arms. Or maybe…
Maybe the goose bumps are from the tongue glaring down at me.
“You goddamn bitch.” One of his hands raises, and I brace myself for the pain.
I don’t know if he plans to kill me or just beat me, but I do know that I won’t be able to defend myself, not with all of the monsters staring on.
This is it, Aliana.
This is the end.
“I would think twice before you did something you’d regret to my property .” Creep’s slow, salacious voice holds an undercurrent of violence and danger, enough to halt the monster’s hand mid slap.
Geova freezes, his gaze flicking over my shoulder to where the Creeper approaches.
“Sh-she’s yours?” Fear laces the monster’s tone. His gaze volleys between me and Creep, as if he’s unsure who to focus on.
“Drop. Your. Hand.” Creep’s words are practically a growl, and when he presses his shoulder against mine, I know Geova only has a second to obey or face the consequences.
I don’t know what those consequences will be, and I’m not sure I want to know.
I’ve heard the Terrors are powerful, but holy shit.
This other monster looks as if he’s seconds away from shitting his pants.
Even I can feel a hint of Creep’s power sliding over the room like some invisible fog, making necks bow and knees knock within a twenty-foot radius of where he stands.
“She’s just a slave, Creep,” the pink tongue next to Geova coos, absently dropping a hand to her chest. Is that… Is that a third tit? What the fuck? “You can get another one.”
“Fuck off, Mishika.” Creep doesn’t spare her a glance as he grabs my upper arm and once again drags me towards the quiet corner from before. “Just because you go through ten slaves a week doesn’t mean I will. This one happens to know what I like.”
My heart is still pounding rapidly, so I miss hearing Mishika’s reply.
Did I really just whack a cup of blood out of a monster’s hand? In a party full of tongues? And survive?
Holy shit.
Ho-ly. Shit.
Creep’s low chuckle reaches my ear, curling around me like smoke, as he spins me to face him, not removing his huge, clawed hand from my arm. “I didn’t know you had it in you,” he says, and I detect a hint of awe in his tone.
At least, I think it’s awe. It could be constipation. I can’t really tell because my body’s still debating whether or not it’s going to fall over in a faint right now. Shooting monsters is one thing. Making enemies of them and letting them live—that’s far scarier.
“Is it…?” I have to swallow in order to keep speaking. “Is it my turn to give you a dare now?”
A slow, beguiling grin dances across his lips. “There’s not a dare you can give me that I wouldn’t do, little warrior.”
“So if I dared you to strip down right here, you’d do it?” I ask with a snort.
His eyes gleam, and before I can continue, he has his hands in his hair and is slowly removing the tie holding back his gorgeous, waist-length blue-black locks.
He flings the band at my face—though I’m able to dodge it before it actually hits me—and shakes his head out to free his mane of hair.
He takes a step closer to me, his hips jerking forward, his hands lowering to the waistband of his pants—
“That’s not your dare!” I manage to squeak out, quickly grabbing his wrists and pulling them away from his pants. I do not want his dick out. Nope. Not at all.
Fucking monster.
“Then what is my dare, little warrior?” He steps so close, I can feel his arousal pressing against my upper stomach. His eyes grin down at me, even though, for once, he’s not smiling. “Because if you want me to strip, I would prefer to do it in the bedroom.”
“I don’t want you to strip. I don’t ever want you to strip.” I shake my head adamantly with each word.
A smile touches the corners of his lips. “For someone who doesn’t want me to strip, you’re certainly talking about me stripping a lot,” he points out.
“I dare you to…” What would a powerful, fearless monster refuse to do in a room full of other powerful, fearless monsters? The answer comes to me with a startling clarity, like a light bulb manifesting above my head. “Tell me about your childhood.”
Creep blinks at me, stares, and then blinks some more.
“You…want to hear about my childhood?” Incredulity bleeds into his voice, and I have to bite down on my growing smirk.
“I’m sure you remember some of it, old man,” I goad. “It can’t be too long ago.”
“Try…a few hundred years, give or take,” Creep responds dryly, forking his fingers through his dark hair.
This time, I’m the one who’s blinking up at him like an imbecile. A few hundred years? What type of workout routine does this fucker have? He looks amazing.
“Do you…kraken, or however you put it?” I know I’m taunting him, but I can practically taste my impending victory on my tongue.
No monster will want to divulge such personal information.
If there’s one thing I learned from my time here, it’s that tongues protect their secrets.
They guard theirs with every ounce of darkness in their bodies.
Creep would rather allow me to have one hour of freedom than tell me anything personal about him, anything that could be used to hurt him later on.
But then he speaks. “There’s not a lot to tell.
My mother was a level Three monster, and my dad was an Eight.
Neither of them were the loving type, and for the most part, they left me alone.
My mother was killed when I was a little boy by a group of humans, and my father…
well… I think a part of him always blamed me for some weird reason.
He thought I wasn’t strong enough, wasn’t brave enough, wasn’t smart enough.
You see, my mom was his fated mate, and when she died, a piece of him went with her.
I suppose I can understand how that feels…
” His eyes drift to my face for a brief moment before he focuses once more on the wall above my head.
“Back then, I didn’t have the same powers I have now.
I was probably only a Two or Three on the power scale.
Nowadays, nothing can really hurt me, but back then…
” He heaves out a sorrow-filled breath, and I find myself leaning forward, eagerly hanging on each and every word that leaves his plush lips.
“He used to hurt me. Stab me with a special knife coated in the blood of acids. Acids are particularly deadly monsters. Their blood is capable of eroding flesh, but you probably already know that. Anyway, he stabbed me and stabbed me and stabbed me… He stabbed me until I grew old enough to stab him back. And I kept stabbing that fucker until he wasn’t even recognizable. ”
I can’t breathe, can’t think. His words echo around in my skull, bouncing off the edges like the old pinball game we have back at the camp.
We’d only been able to make it work once—using an ancient generator we found—but the ball ricocheting around the board is exactly what’s happening to me now.
My emotions are pinging from one location to another, lighting up pity, then fury on his behalf, before rolling over to fear.
“H-how do I know you’re telling the truth?” I manage to stutter out, unable to tear my gaze away from his proud, arresting face.
But right now, he doesn’t seem so arrogant. He appears…lost.
Slowly, his eyes slide to mine, ensnaring them in an iron vise, and his hands dip to the waistband of his pants. He folds the fabric down just enough for me to see the wounds decorating his hips—stab wounds. Dozens and dozens of them.
“Because believe it or not, little warrior,”—his voice is a low, husky murmur—“I don’t lie.”