Page 19 of Strongest Souls
Julie gasps and I peer past the toothy one. The green one is almost to the cell, but Julie is ignoring him and looking at me. “Michael?”
Before I can answer Toothy attacks. He lunges in, trying to rip at my throat. As far as I can tell, that area is not protected by my new tough hide. I twist my head, catching him with the tip of my horn. The tunnel isn’t wide enough for me to turn. If I’m going to run away, I have to do it backward.
Panic flares bright and sharp.
If I’m attacked from behind, I am dead.
I don’t want to die.
So I have to kill him.
While it’s easier to run on all fours, I can fight on just my legs. I grab his foot when he goes for my throat again. My claws sink into his leg, which only enrages him.
He snaps and snarls and tries to bite my face off. I twist and turn, trying to stab him with my horns. I don’t let go of his leg.
“Come and help me,” he calls to his friend. “What are you doing?”
“I’m guarding them.”
“Help me kill him!”
While he’s talking, he’s distracted. I slam him against the wall of the tunnel. Rocks rain from the ceiling. His claws rake down my face, and I’m already bleeding from my arm. This will change me further, but I can’t stop. I don’t want to. I want to feel his blood on my skin as his life slips away. That is power.
A distant part of me knows it’s a problem, but I can’t deal with that now.
I jam one horn through his abdomen and jerk upward. He gargles as he hangs there, limbs flailing. It’s only when he goes still that I shake him free and assess my next problem.
The green, insect-like thing is now bravely standing in front of the cell.
“You can’t have them. They are here by invitation of the queen,” he says.
From the cell, Joe laughs. I missed him, even though I didn’t want to. He’s human now, and no doubt thinks he’s so much better than me. I saved him when he was new here. He should’ve been grateful and let me have Julie. I pulled her out of the puddle, and I know her from before.
But I can’t remember what before is anymore.
I don’t even remember pulling her out of the puddle, even though I know I must have because I remember them telling me I did.
“We are captives of the queen,” Joe says.
“I won’t let you eat them,” the green one says as I stalk closer.
No change rips through me. Sometimes it happens straight after a fight, sometimes it's much later after I have eaten. Maybe I’ll be lucky, and nothing will change, but I want to change.
I need to be smaller.
At the moment, I am a center monster made for killing.
I look at the green one covered in hard scales. His dick is soft and unprotected.
As if sensing me assessing him, he covers it with his odd-looking hands. “They have done nothing to you. Find some other unchanged meat.”
His mandibles open and close as he speaks. I could shove a horn through his mouth and ruin his head.
“I’m not here to eat them.” I’m only a body length away now.
Julie’s scent fills my lungs. Sweat and sex. I do want to eat her, but not in the way the green thing is suggesting. Eating her is all I will be able to do, given that I lack the equipment to do anything else. I growl and lower my head, ready to attack.
They all talk over each other.