Qanek #2
Lucero stretched her arms over her head and yawned. “You know, since you can fly now, I think it is time for me to go back to my world. I need to charge this and check on my apartment. Make sure everything is in order and–Qanek, what’s the look for?”
The very words from her mouth made me freeze in place.
The plan at first had been to heal and take her back. But then we had completed the mating ritual. Then I had fucked her. I assumed she had accepted me, but she wanted to go back to her world?
Panic had become far too familiar in me since the day I had met her. It was a feeling I was not used to, one I did not know how to control. Even if I tried. So I did not. I could not.
“You wish to leave me?” The betrayal bled deep from my tone.
“Qanek, you know I’m a human, right? I can’t stay here forever. I do have a job. My camera needs to be charged…”
I growled. The sensation in my chest rose higher and higher, like a beast crawling through a tunnel until it lodged in my throat. There was no way I could expel it, for it circled tight, threatening something akin to death.
“You swore you would not leave me, wife.”
“And I’m not. But I have to go home–”
“You promised!” I screamed, and Lucero flinched.
She flinched away from me.
Like I was a beast.
I huffed, finding it difficult to breathe.
Had she lied to me? Did she truly not want to be with me? No. That could not be possible. She was mine. We were mated now, in every sense of the word. She was my wife.
“You are not allowed to leave me,” I growled, pacing through our den. But the energy still buzzed inside my veins, searching for a way out and darkness crept along the edges of my vision.
Lucero scrambled from the blankets, standing on her knees. “Qanek, you can’t keep me here forever.”
“You will not leave,” I growled. The words had come from a pit deep inside me. The darkness closed in and I attempted to bat it away from my waking thoughts, but it took hold, opening its wide maw to swallow me whole. “I forbid it.”
Lucero appeared outraged. All the ease that I had fucked onto her expression disappeared, leaving anger behind.
Fine.
Anger I could deal with. I knew what her hatred tasted like and I could counter it with my own. Except… those jaws began closing around me and it was a struggle suddenly to breathe.
“You forbid it?” she snapped back. “Qanek, what is wrong with you? I just want a change of clothes and hair products–”
“I can provide for you. I vowed I would. I have provided for you. Do you doubt me as a husband?”
“That’s not it–”
“Then why must you insist on leaving? You cannot. You are mine. I hunted you. I fucked you. You are mine.”
“Qanek.” She raised her hands. “I’m not a fucking pet. You can’t keep me locked in here. I have a life back home. This was fun, but a human can’t survive in this den forever–”
I staggered back, slamming a fist against my chest. “You find our home inadequate?”
She sighed. “I didn’t say that.”
“You did.”
“I didn’t.”
“You did.”
“Qanek! I just mean that I have things back at home that need to be sorted.”
“You left your life behind the moment you let me pierce you with my cock. You gave yourself to me, feral creature. I will not allow you to leave.”
“Qanek, you can’t–”
I shook my head violently, turning away from her protests. I could not deal with them. I refused to accept them. She would not leave me. Not after she vowed her loyalty and gave me her body. I would not be made to look a fool more than I already did.
She was mine.
Mine.
I could not let her go back.
Because she would go back and not return.
She would leave me, and I would be alone again in this terrible world, my wife too far away to reach. I would be alone again.
I could not allow that to happen.
The anger rose, craving destruction. I gave into it.
I always gave into it. Because it was easy and because I knew no other way.
It was what I was bred to do. My kings, the lords of hell and all the creatures in it, had created me to destroy.
To kill. I was the best at it. I surpassed my brothers in strength and brutality.
And I was drowning in it.
Finally, the jaw snapped shut, and then there was nothing but darkness.
I lifted the stone that served as our tabletop and threw it with a roar. It shattered against the far end of our den, breaking into hundreds of pieces that fell into our water and stirred the pool angrily.
I whirled towards Lucero and she cried out, scrambling away from me.
“You fear me now?” I growled, still approaching, knowing that my mind was not aligned with my body in this moment. I was propelled by a different force, and I could not stop it from basking in rage. “You think I would harm you, wife?”
“Qanek, you’re scaring me.”
I loomed over her. “You will not leave me. You vowed to stay by my side, and so you will. Even if I have to chain you to my fucking walls to do it.”
She gasped and started to step backwards, but I did not let her go.
I would never let her go.
“Qanek, you can’t…”
“I can.”
Then I summoned the magic inside me, weaving and turning it into chains that wrapped around her wrists, the other end stuck to the wall of our den.
Lucero stared down at it with shock, tugging at the bindings. “Qanek, this isn’t funny.”
I stepped away. My heart was beating far too fast, my chest rising and falling. That lump in my throat grew, and I felt like I was losing air. Losing breath.
Losing her.
And I could not let it happen.
I could not let my wife leave me.
She was too precious. And I did not deserve her, still she had binded herself to me. She was mine and she could not leave me. She could not leave me alone. She could not. I would not allow it.
I shook my head as the thoughts overtook me. Everything became a blur. I did not know what this was. This disorientation. As though I’d been struck upon the head.
“Qanek, let me go right now! You can’t chain me to the wall!
” I stumbled backwards, my wings hitting the wall.
Bits of stone crumbled atop of me. I could no longer breathe.
I could not take in the air. I knew nothing beyond her words.
Beyond the sensation the thought of her leaving caused.
It overtook everything inside me. Every possible scenario, every feeling felt too heightened.
I had only ever felt this way in battle.
Everything was too much.
It was too much and I had nowhere to put it, to lay these sensations. They overflowed from my body until I was trembling, the growls in my chest growing louder.
“Qanek, let me go!”
You cannot leave me. You cannot leave me. You cannot leave me.
“You belong to me!” I screamed, gripping my hair in my claws and pulling until I felt the strands yank from my scalp.
I hated this.
I hated this, but I could not stop it from overtaking me.
I looked at Lucero and seeing the tears in her eyes broke me. I wanted to unchain her, but the thought of her leaving me did not allow me to step forward and rip the magic apart with my bare hands.
She stared at me like she had when I had first taken her.
Like she despised me.
But what she did not know was that I hated myself even more.
“Qanek!”
“I must leave.” I stepped backwards towards the entrance. “I… I must leave.”
I needed to unleash this violence somehow. I needed to tear apart cities. Let blood rain down on my hands.
It always came back to this.
I was the third of my brothers.
The one nobody wanted.
The one always alone.
Too brutal. Too wild. Too beastly.
And not even my wife wanted me.
She wanted to leave me all alone in this world all over again.
“You will never leave me, Lucero,” I vowed. “You promised you would stay, and I will not release you from that promise.”
“Qanek, please–”
But I could not hear what she had to say. I was already flying out of our den.
And her screams followed after me, haunting my very soul.