2. Cain
CHAPTER 2
CAIN
A few moments earlier…
“Will you take a mate thisss year, Cain?” Helia asks, her s slipping on her tongue.
I don’t answer right away. Instead, I sigh and evaluate how serious she is about the dangerous prospect of a monster like me attempting to take a mate.
Again.
Usually, it’s a joke after what happened on the other failed attempts, but this year I sense she might mean it.
If she’s concerned enough to risk the life of prized selections better suited to build alliances, then perhaps I should start to worry, too.
She’s wearing her monster form, so that makes it more difficult to read her intentions. She has the freedom to show her true self whenever she likes, and I try not to indulge in the sense of envy her freedom gives me. It’s a luxury I don’t share, even though Helia’s true nature is almost as terrifying and beautiful as mine.
A long, pointed tail curls over her thigh.
Horns twist through her silky hair.
And a third eyelid flashes at me as she waits for my answer.
I’m looking at her face-to-face, which is a feat given how tall she is in this form. In my current human state, she would engulf me if she weren’t lounging.
But if I were in my true form, I’d be even bigger than she is.
She’s resting on an elegant chaise lounge, seemingly at ease despite the excitement of an approaching Monsters Night. The white velvet of the furniture makes her purple skin stand out as she curls her long nails through a male’s hair. The tattoo on his cheek marks him as one of the slave servants in Monster City, but it’s his behavior that betrays his training. Despite the terrifying creature stroking him, he’s currently kneeling obediently on the floor.
Humans serve a different purpose in Monster City than they do here. But their reward is the same as what the winning Elite families achieve in mine, so I don’t pity them. They willingly sold their mortal lives into slavery, fully knowing what they were signing up for, all because of the prize at the end of the journey.
Everyone wants immortality.
I find it overrated.
Perhaps because I’ve lived long enough to know that there are things worse than death.
Like starvation and the threat of insanity.
My monster growls inside my soul, snapping at me to demonstrate his impatience. After so many years of wearing my human form, my mind has begun to separate from him out of self-preservation.
Because he’s always hungry now, voraciously so. The only thing keeping him sated are the prayers of the Elites and some villagers who know my name.
Prayers have suited me thus far, mostly because I can’t track my prey in the Dream Realm. I can only feed on what’s freely given to me. I need to be invited in. Perhaps there are loopholes for such an invitation, but I have managed to create a system in my city that’s entirely voluntary.
Maybe that’s why I’ve never met any others like me. What creature would willingly give themselves to a monster?
But I discovered prayers do the trick, enabling me to survive a lot longer than I probably should have.
Playing the role of a God has served me well, but it’s a tactic that only works if I’m feared and worshiped.
As another brief wave of prayers feeds my dark beast, I flutter my eyelids closed for a moment to give him a snack.
He needs to stay in the shadows.
Stay in the realm of prayers and dreams.
I don’t allow my monster form to peek through outside of carefully controlled stipulations.
He can’t have free rein. Not ever.
Because it’s not just a matter of appearance for me. When I allow my dark side to play, I lose control.
The Dream Eater takes over.
That can never happen. Not in a city full of fragile humans.
I only let him out in a controlled fashion, sacrificing an Elite family every now and then who hasn’t met the unreasonable point quota I’m forced to raise every year.
The last time I released him, though, my beast consumed an entire village. Not everyone in that village deserved their fate.
Most villages fear the monsters when they shouldn’t.
Me? I should definitely be feared. I don’t want an innocent to die, but when my true nature escapes, I’m dangerous.
No one is safe.
I can’t let him out again if the delicate ecosystem we’ve developed here is going to survive.
I’m not the only powerful monster suffering.
That is why qualified mates are more valuable than fodder. Genetic manipulation and generations of selection have created unique humans that are much needed by our kind. A mate can stabilize a powerful monster, as can other monsters in tandem with the right anchor if their types complement one another.
I’ve never met a monster who suited mine, not in this world, at least.
And any human I’ve tried to mate hasn’t survived. Whatever genetics a Dream Eater requires, I’ve yet to discover it.
The growling in my head rumbles. My beast snaps inside my soul, hungry for more, but there aren’t any further prayers right now.
Prayers come during times of desperation.
Of suffering.
Perhaps, it’s time to bring them out again.
“That depends,” I tell Helia’s reflection in my two-story window that overlooks the Elite City. She always asks me if I’m going to take a mate, and I always respond the same way. “Are you?”
I take a sip of my whisky that rolls around like caramel on forever ice—a fabulous product created by the Magic Sector just five years ago.
Her plump lips stretch into a grin, revealing deadly teeth and a long tongue that flicks out to taste the air. “You know I prefer my playthings,” she says, still petting the male bowing his head in submission. Her smile dims as she evaluates me. “You seem tired, Cain. Do you need me to send some gifts? I have a few pets to spare.”
The male at her feet shivers but doesn’t protest.
Any gifts for my beast won’t survive a true feed.
“No gifts,” I tell her, earning a scowl from the Queen of Monster City. She doesn’t wear a crown, but her horns and glimmering hair that seems to float on an invisible wind are crown enough.
She rules by power alone, just like I do as the Elite City King.
She’s a better ruler than I am. The city lights blink through her, my magic that allows me to speak to her working only through reflections, so I can’t truly appreciate her form in its entirety.
Mirrors are portals to other worlds, as well as faraway places.
Like Monster City, the hub between the ever-increasing realms and dimensions, with new monsters appearing every year.
New opportunities.
New alliances.
New hope .
“What about me?” she whispers innocently, but the wickedness in her sharp, silvery gaze is anything but.
We were lovers, once.
It nearly destroyed this realm. Helia brings out the worst in me, and I in her.
And the fact that she brings it up now means she’s definitely feeling off.
“You know what would happen,” I casually inform her as I allow my gaze to shift through her and focus on the city instead. “Perhaps I do need a mate, though.”
But does such a mate truly exist?
It’s been centuries of cultivating the highest-quality mates for even the most powerful monsters, but one has never been born for me.
None that has ever survived, anyway.
Maybe not all monsters are worthy of one.
I certainly have done unspeakable things. No matter what excuses I try to make, I am a monster through and through.
A soft hiss comes from the reflection, and I flick my focus back to Helia’s dark form. A shimmer of scales ripples over her body. She rarely wears any clothes. Her naked appearance isn’t very human in that her breasts are full and rounded with no nipples—any spawn she might create wouldn’t feed on milk.
The dip between her thighs is solidified, and it only opens when aroused and ready to mate. It’s not unusual for powerful female monsters to have bodies that naturally protect themselves against procreation with the wrong specimen.
If a male can’t arouse her, he’s not worthy.
Her nakedness doesn’t bother me. It isn’t lewd. Rather, it’s attractive in a fascinating way. She looks as if she’s wearing a tight suit made of silky amethyst and it’s styled perfectly for her long frame.
However, some things about her have changed.
I frown at the unusual spikes that sprout along her forearms and the new armored scales that indent around her abdomen and chest—areas that cover vital organs.
Even Helia has a heart in there somewhere.
The male beneath her whimpers, her nails having gone to his nape in a punishing grip. Blood trickles from the slight punctures she has created.
“Helia?” I ask, because this isn’t like her.
She’s not cruel to her playthings.
And her monster form seems to be preparing for battle and sex all at the same time, something I’ve never seen it do.
A tremor goes through her when I say her name, as if I’ve reminded her that we’re still talking. She flicks out her tongue and gently releases the male. He scrunches in on himself as though trying to become small.
“Go, Jason. I’ve no further need of you,” she says, and if I’m not mistaken, I swear I can hear a note of apology in her tone.
“Yes, Your Majesty,” he whispers, then folds himself onto the floor in prostration before rising and exiting the room, never turning his back to her.
They train them well in Monster City.
But Helia doesn’t seem to be her whimsical self, as much as she’s trying to hide it.
Something’s wrong.
“I’ve felt off these past few years,” she admits with her gaze still watching the space where Jason had once been. “My playthings don’t amuse me anymore. Perhaps I’ve outgrown them.”
I don’t mention the obvious.
Perhaps her mate has finally been born.
It’s too cruel to tease her with the prospect that her suffering might be over, that her mate might be out there.
But I find myself feeling hopeful that at least one of us will make it through this Monsters Night alive.
I set my glass down and cross my arms. Out of sheer force of will, lights flicker out in the city so I can see her better. I frown, realizing some lights are going out inside Elite homes, so I keep those on.
I just need to see Helia better, not thrust my city into a state of panic.
Of course, I could transition our discussion to one of the mirrors in my estate, but I prefer to keep a watchful eye on the city while we talk.
She’s calmed the spikes from her forearms, lowering them to gentle nubs, but the armored scales on her body remain. She stands, forcing me to look up at her as she stretches to her full height.
I’m in awe of her beast.
And afraid that she’s becoming just like me.
A monster with no control and no remorse.
“Perhaps you should adopt your human form for a while,” I suggest. If there is a mate out there for her, he’ll be less intimidated by her more forgiving human form—it’s more forgiving in both behavior and appearance.
Her thin brow furrows as her tail flicks around her feet. “And become divided like you, Cain? You chain yourself up every Monsters Night to prevent yourself from losing control of your other half. We all deal with the struggle of our situation differently. You handle the hunger your way; I’ll handle mine how I see fit.”
I don’t rebuke her, because she’s not wrong.
There’s a price to my method, one that’s making me slowly go insane.
Neither of us says it, but we’re both thinking it.
We need to find ourselves mates.
“Did you know there’s a new world joining us for Monsters Night?” Helia asks, deflecting to the true purpose of our meeting.
I raise a brow, that piece of information grabbing my interest. “What kind of world?” I ask, finding it odd that she didn’t call it a new realm. There are so many that we couldn’t possibly have documented them all yet. My desk is full of biometric and cultural summaries of new monsters to help me guide the Elite City families in their genetic endeavors. With every new alliance Helia forms, thanks to the mates my humans provide, the closer we come to solving an age-old problem for our kind.
Stability.
Safety.
Peace.
My beast growls inside my soul, snapping at the asinine idea that we’ll ever find peace.
Eat, he seems to say. Fuck. Devour. Live to see another blood-spotted day.
Helia grins while she settles onto her chaise lounge, this time sitting as she crosses her legs. Her tail drapes over her knee, providing some modesty.
Not that Helia is modest, but she doesn’t want to provoke my hungry beast.
Despite her flirtations and her teasing, she knows better than I do what kind of destruction we would cause together. She maintains full lucidity when in her monster form because she hasn’t “divided” herself like I have, as she puts it.
Meaning she has to live with the horrors in all their brutal vibrancy. At least my memories of my monster’s form are hazy and dreamlike.
If I try to grab on to them, they seem to slip away.
But there’s a lilt of hope in her voice again, because she must have sensed the new energies and that excites her. “A powerful one full of possibilities,” she marvels.
Well, that certainly is interesting.
A new realm with new monsters might join us this year.
And new monsters bring new energies. I’ve already noticed the stir in the magical currents that run through the Elite’s strategically placed villages. I should have attributed that to whatever it is Helia has sensed.
But I don’t have her power. My magic rests in the realm of dreams.
She runs Monster City, which strategically sits at the hub of the largest influx of exchanging energies from the other realms we have built alliances with, and the train tracks link that energy to the villages.
It’s a system that has successfully created biologically and magically compatible humans over the course of many generations.
And careful selections as well. That’s where human discernment and ambition come into play.
Pitting the Elites against one another to create perfectly compatible specimens was a brilliant idea—Helia’s, in fact.
The Elites thought their proposal had been a human invention, but Helia had been the one to cultivate this world.
In hopes of helping monsters like herself, like me.
Oh, she has helped so many monsters.
But not us .
And time seems to be running out.
“There’s a hide-and-peek portal that keeps popping up,” she continues. “Every time it does…”
My eyes widen. “You feel a new realm?”
“New dimension, I think,” she corrects me.
We’ve run into new worlds quite often, but a new dimension is something we’ve rarely encountered.
Her tail flicks. “I’ve come to a decision. If they join us for Monsters Night, I won’t intervene. I might even send them an offer, should things go well. Let’s watch them and see if any of the selections take. Then we can build an alliance with this powerful dimension.”
I nod, interested in the idea of new monsters coming to play.
Sometimes the transition can be tricky, but it gives my beast something different to focus on.
And then there’s?—
“Watch over me, Cain.”
A feminine voice I’ve definitely never heard before slips into the Dream Realm and shoots through me like an arrow, making my entire body shift as my beast reacts with violent hunger.
He eats up those four words immediately, not even stopping to appreciate how sweet they taste.
My tongue swells in my mouth, and the decadent flavor of a new prayer makes me shudder when I take a breath.
Who the fuck is that?