Page 80 of Monster's Obsession
Then something flew into my mouth, and I choked.Oh my god,I’d just swallowed a monster fly. I was going to die after it laid eggs inside me. Hacking up my lungs, I finally spat something small and black out. “Oh hell.”Keeping my mouth shut from now on.
A whistle rang out from behind me, and I twisted my head back to find Tempest flying up behind us on his own charge.
Smiling again, he caught up to me fast. “Are you even wearing underwear?”
I rolled my eyes at him. “Get me off this thing.”
“Can’t do that,” he answered with fake sincerity. “You see, once you tell a Derins where to go, it doesn’t stop until it reaches its destination.”
I blinked at him, then glanced at my creature darting forward over a thin bridge, not perturbed in the slightest by how easily it could slip off the edge.
“I hate you,” I called out over my shoulder. “You go out of your way to piss me off.”
He caught up to me, and we traveled over a long stretch of lanes created by closely connected towers. “But aren’t we having fun yet?”
I gave him the death glare, while he just studied me with that smug demeanor he’d mastered.
“What’s wrong with you?” I demanded. “Why do you hate me so much, when you’ve known me for years. What did I do to you?”
He didn’t respond for a long time, and we kept on traveling in a direction that seemed to be farther away from the center of the city as I attempted to push my dress down.
“Sometimes you remind me of her,” he said, both of us side by side, bouncing on our beasts.
“Who?”
“The queen.”
I sucked in a sharp breath. “I’m insulted you’d think I was anything like her.”
“That’s not what I said. I’m referring to how I tried my hardest to pull away from you both, and yet I still found myself drawn to you both. And in the end, just like with her, it’ll fuck me.”
I blinked at him. “And that’s a bad thing to be drawn to me?”
He shook his head like somehow his thoughts had sent him somewhere he didn’t want to go. “It is when it brings pain.”
“I bring you pain?”
“The queen was someone who despised me, who tortured me, and who I couldn’t leave. I’d been sworn into her guard since I was a child. Told that when I grew up, I’d take my place to feed the city. I had no say. Leaving my post would get me killed, and really, I stayed for Creed, Ash, Seven, and Steele. They were my found family, but her…she was a fucking psychopath. And she reminded me of it any chance she got.”
“Didn’t you help her feed the city though? She must have felt something more for you?” He spoke with so much venom in his voice when he mentioned her.
He scoffed, his face twisting with hatred. “When someone hurts you for simply existing, over and over, you learn to shut out emotions. A fuck is just a fuck,” he growled.
He suddenly took off with his creature ahead of me, leaving me completely puzzled. And slightly hurt. Was that how he saw me when we had sex? That I was nothing more than a hole he fucked? I couldn’t deny that left a bruise on my soul, because even if he scared me and always kept me at arm’s reach, I’d never detested him.
I’d been hearing so many conflicted things about the queen around the city. There were those who were absolutely loyal to her to a fault…even after all these years. And then there were others who absolutely…hated her.
Kicking my heels into the beast, I sped up and realized that riding these animals wasn’t really that bad. Just as Tempest had said. I even managed to pull my dress down to cover my ass, tucking it underneath me. I finally caught up to him.
After a while of not talking, I murmured, “My parents were assholes too–beyond assholes. I was in that asylum in the first place because I walked in on my father fucking…not just his secretary but also hismalechief of staff…and our gardener…at the same time. Even now, the image makes me want to puke. But…I think there are just evil dicks in the world who enjoy hurting others. You know, my father once said to me that the evil that exists in the world lives in the shadows of each one of us. I actually think he was talking about himself, acknowledging what an awful person he was. When he died…I didn’t feel an ounce of pity for him.”
A muscle in his jaw tightened, and I expected some hurtful remark. I readied for it. But when he said nothing, I took that as a step forward to having our first real conversation.
“So, why were you promised to be by the queen’s side from such a young age?” I asked. “Is your family royalty?”
He chuckled, sounding bitter. “If only that had been the case, then I could have walked away from her a long time ago. My family had accumulated an enormous debt with some nasty monsters who happened to be guards to the queen, so when it came time to pay up and they were short, they sold me into servitude. When I came of age, they packed my bags and sent me to the castle.”
“Oh fuck,” I mumbled, feeling slightly heartbroken thinking of Tempest as a child. It didn’t excuse him for always acting like a dick…but he’d obviously been rejected his whole life. Something like that messed with your head.