Among Monsters

by Quinn Blackbird

  At least I feel something for Silver. Something that cuts deep into my swelling heart as he rests his weight between my legs.

  A hoarse sound chokes in my throat and, losing the grip I had on my leftover scraps of control, I buck my hips off the blankets and part my legs a little wider.

  Silver sinks in deeper between my thighs. I feel his excitement against me.

  My fingers thread through his silky hair and pull his kiss closer to me.

  Silver moans something soft and coarse, like a distant whisper of a growl caught on the wings of the breeze. His hand is still exploring every inch of my thigh, farther and farther up, inch by inch, until his fingertips dance over my aching core.

  Everything about this is wrong.

  Dalliances out of wedlock is not how I was raised. Sure, Olivia has done it a few times with some of the men around the Capital, but I never thought that I would.

  Most of my life, I pinned my hopes on love that came in the form of a proper suitor and a marriage proposal. Never did I expect that this would become the closest to love I have ever felt.

  Silver is no suitor. He will never court me, press my hand in just the right way to reveal that he means to marry me. He is an aniel, for Gods’ sake. And not just any old aniel—one so old that he was made in these wicked woods and has lived longer than I can ever imagine. He is one who feels so indifferent towards me that I never know I’d he’s going to kiss me or shun me.

  This is not how I imagined my life turning out. This is definitely not how I pictured my first time.

  And still, I arch my back, pushing against him, and lure him closer. My core swells at the gentle caress of his touch.

  My fingers untangle from his hair. Slowly, I drag my caress down his spine, and I feel each of his muscles seize under my touch.

  His finger delves under the lacy fabric of my undergarment, and I freeze, a sudden burst of pleasure igniting deep in my belly.

  For a moment, I am still. Then a whispered “oh” is ribboned out from me.

  His finger curls in lazy strokes. Then he draws back just enough to look down at me, his eyes ablaze with a burning hunger. Long gone are the echoes of his detachment—he regards me with ravenous eyes that gleam brighter than pots of liquid silver.

  His hand slips away and a disappointed sound escapes me.

  Silver’s lips spread into a crooked, lazy grin. He brings his hand to the buttons of his breeches and, with expert fingers, unfastens them with mere flicks.

  He watches me closely.

  In answer to his silent question, I bite down on my lips and give a nervous nod.

  I’m ready. And so is he.

  A wicked smirk keeps his lips as he brushes a soft kiss over my chin. My head lolls back just before something wild flashes in his eyes, an ancient unquenched hunger uncovered.

  I feel the prod of his excitement against my core. Instantly, my whole body seizes up, as if to reject him. He whispers the soft sound of a chuckle under his breath and, against the curve of my jaw, murmurs, “Relax, Kee. It won’t hurt a bit.”

  That’s not what I’m afraid of. I’m afraid of the pain he might cause me in other ways. And still, I let his words uncoil through me and I sink back onto the blankets.

  He slips inside of me, stopping halfway, and I blink up at him, a thick daze hanging over me.

  Silver’s lashes hang low. He looks down between our merged bodies, his hand slipping away from my face to grip the thick blanket at the side of my head.

  He waits, a long, drawn-out moment of exquisite suffering, before he lowers his forehead to mine. Our mouths ghost over each other, but don’t kiss. It’s an eternal what-if moment, a forever almost.

  I moan as he pushes into me, slow and smooth.

  A low growl vibrates through him as he sinks all the way in to the hilt, then pauses. Beneath my hands, every one of his muscles jumps under his skin.

  He slithers his arm under me, cradling my body to his.

  He starts a slow, methodical movement, in and out, out and in, with each gentle entry filling my aching core to the brim.

  I clench around him, my fingers digging into his back, where his black wing tattoos rear up his body. Something inside of me snaps and I tug at his shirt in a frenzy.

  He lifts up just enough for me to rip off his shirt and throw it to the blankets.

  He is soft to the touch, yet hard, and I’m reminded all over again that he is a powerful, ancient aniel hand-crafted from marble. And now that I think it, I can feel his power vibrate off of him; it buzzes against my skin like a thousand little starbursts ignited.

  Silver’s pace picks up and still, between sharp breaths, he’s planting chaste kisses over my face. He lifts his hips and hits at angle that rubs against the bundle of nerves at my core.

  I choke on a gasp.

  I start writhing under him, and slowly, I let my eyes flicker shut.

  “Say it again.” My voice is a breathless breeze.

  Silver reads me easily. He dips his head to my neck and nips at the flesh there. “You are more than you know,” he growls, and flutters erupt in my belly.

  My body arches against his and I claw at him, pulling and dragging him closer to me. I need to feel him against me; every muscle and punch of his heart on my skin; inside of me, filling me; his hot breaths trailing down my neck, the rough sound of his growls tickling my skin.

  Pleasure is building, higher and taller, stronger and wilder.

  His body hardens against mine.

  My nails cut into his back, digging into the black marks he wears. If he was mortal, he would bleed. Instead, he ravages me. Every thrust is harder, faster, deeper than the last. Pleasure builds inside of me, higher and higher, climbing up my body to my writhing heart.

  His breaths turn desperate. Hooking my stocking-clad legs around him, I move with him until it hits.

  And a hundred fires are exploding to life inside of me.

  A ragged moan escapes him. The sound of it ignites a flutter in my chest.

  He juts against me, our bodies tense and rattled and sweaty. That moment clings to us, freezing us in time, before—

  We slump together. Breathing hard, his body weighs down on mine. He forces himself up on his elbows and finds my mouth again.

  He kisses me sweetly, and I’m suddenly certain that I had my first time with the most perfect person in the most magical place, and I can’t find an ounce of regret within me.

  His arms rope around me as his frosty-sugared tongue sweeps over mine. A light moan escapes me.

  My hands slide down the thick muscles of his tattooed arms.

  An exquisite sensation swims through me as he kisses me with more tenderness than I ever thought possible from him. It’s a kiss of unspoken promises and eternal desire and worship. It makes a fool out of me, because lost in the kiss, I let my mind wonder—what if he won’t hurt me after all?

  And with an aniel, that is the most dangerous thought of all.

  13.

  The skirt of my dress is draped back over my legs. I’m curled up against Silver’s bare chest, tracing the lines of the ink with my dirty fingertip.

  Can’t fight the serene smile that steals my lips and, in this moment, I don’t want to. I don’t want to fight any of the warm, fluffy feelings that torture me. Not the flutter in my chest, or the flipping in my tummy, or the tingles in my toes and fingertips. No, I’m content to suffer these exquisite sensations.

  His arm, tucked under my side and pressed between my body and the blankets, curls up around my back; his fingers spindle strands of my hair. It’s an absentminded gesture, but one that shoots thrills up inside of me and curls me even closer to him.

  Silver lies on his back, his other arm propped under his head, and he stares at the arched roof of the tent.

  The sweet stink of our bodies sweating together fills the tent, and to me it’s like the aroma of a bakery drifting on the air, luring a hungry sailor to its doors.

  Lazily, I graze my fingertip over a cu
rled black mark on his chest, one that takes a moment to register in my mind, and I suddenly recognise it. The symbol of the aniels. It’s a marking I’ve seen before in some of Olivia’s scrolls when she studied at the university in Scholar Square.

  The sight of it brings a thought to mind.

  “I’ve been meaning to ask,” I start, tracing the curved line of the black ink, like a crescent moon with a sharp spear shot through its middle. “My remedy is aniel blood but—how does the black market get such a thing? I can’t imagine aniel blood should be terribly easy to find.”

  There can’t be many aniels so willing to offer their blood for a few coins.

  Silver doesn’t look at me, but his fingers stop threading through my hair like a ribbon he wants to tug undone. “Not all aniels are made equal,” he tells me, and his voice is so low that I feel it vibrate through his chest. A soothing feeling. “Some,” he adds, “are made for one purpose. To die.”

  Against his chest, my face crumples with a frown.

  He goes on, “Many of the Gods enjoy games. Parlour games, tricking vilas—”

  “The usual,” I mutter with a small smile.

  In answer, he gives a curt hum. “Some of those Gods thirsted for games a little darker in taste. And not all of the aniels abide by the laws of their creators. So a prison was built to contain the most rebellious of my kind. Some believe the prison to be in these very Woods.”

  My face slackens against his chest.

  A prison. An arena.

  A rumour I have heard and believed to be true in my heart for years.

  “Once an aniel is cast away to this prison, you can be sure the sentence is dire. Eternal, in some cases.” He shifts beside me and—with a flutter of relief that lifts in my stomach—his hand finds its way back up to my hair. His fingers are quick to tangle around the limp strands. “Time passed, and the Gods continued to send few aniels to this prison. Perhaps a century has gone now.” He pauses, a faint frown on his face. “I cannot be sure. But in that time, one of the Gods had the idea to turn this prison into another game.”

  I get the feeling that God is Prince Poison—a notorious lover of games, all wicked and cruel. Silver’s God and maker and father.

  “A stadium was built, attached to the prison,” he says. “The aniels were given an opportunity. They could be released, returned to their Gods with a fresh start and second chance, if they accomplished one task—survive the game.”

  I already know from the rumours, and still I mutter against his chest, “What game?”

  “Fights to the death. Aniel against aniel. And, as time passed, the Gods threw in the worst of the vilas to join the games. They are given special weapons—like my dagger.”

  I lift up from his chest and look at him. His face is all sharp lines, shrouded in the shadows of twilight, and his mouth is set into a scowl.

  “What does your dagger do?” I pry, feeling the echo of its pulsing power against my palm, vibrating my fingers, like a bell being struck.

  “It kills what no ordinary weapons can kill,” he says, keeping his gaze on the arched ceiling. “These weapons can only be crafted by the Gods.”

  “And the vilas in the prison have them?”

  He cuts a fleeting, dark look down at me and, slowly, his hand slips away from my hair again. “Yes. It gives them a chance in the game. In there, it is kill or be killed.”

  He shrugs until his arm is completely pulled from under me, and I’m left cold without his touch. He folds both his arms under his head.

  “The Gods have since started to create some aniels just for the purpose of this game. That,” he adds and glances at me, “is where I suspect your remedy originates from; the aniels who were made just to die against the stronger ones. I imagine it is smuggled into the Capital by the aniels who guard the prison. Those aniels are not favoured well by their Gods, and so they have little wealth to spend and even less status and power to their names. They are so weak and unremarkable that you would be challenged to recognise one who passed you on the street.”

  I lower myself back down onto his chest. His muscles tighten beneath me, as though a tense wave rolls through him.

  A sickening twist seizes my insides. Aniels who guard their own kind, their own kind who are birthed and fashioned and created just to become bait in a slaughterhouse.

  I chance another glance up at Silver. His eyes have darkened into the shade of haunted ash. A distance has swelled between us, though my body snuggles against his.

  “Do you know anyone who was taken there?” I ask.

  And I know, the moment I asked it, I stepped over the line. Whatever boundary has been laid out between us, I’ve jumped clean over.

  His eyes flash like shooting stars, aflame in their final moments, and he looks down at me, his face suddenly hard. “What makes you think you can ask me that, ask me anything about my life?”

  I loosen a shuddering breath. Hesitation sticks to my voice; “The fact that we just laid together, maybe. I know it wasn’t for you, but that was my first time—and that means something.”

  “Allow me to clear something up, vilas.” He shrugs me off of him and pushes to sit upright. His eyes glare down at me. “I am not your friend, hardly your lover, and never your companion. I might have tasted your flesh, but you must understand that, to me, that doesn't mean anything. And no matter what you think of my aid, recognise that I have my own reasons for helping you.”

  He pauses to boot out at a lump of my skirt off his leg.

  I shift back and sit up to face him. My cheeks are flushed, hotter than flames, and a lump swells in my throat to choke me.

  “I didn’t mean to pry.” But of course I did. Curiosity wins over the best of me every time.

  Silver runs his now-glacier stare over me, head-to-toe, and his face twists into something grim that drips with disdain. “Do not fool yourself into thinking you are special, all because of some dresses,” he spits at me. “All it takes is some sweet-coated words to spread your legs, and that is all I want from you—for now.”

  My face spasms.

  He has speared me through with a sword, and the pain is wretched.

  I grimace at him like a tortured prisoner. Vicious words ache to spill out of me, but the lump in my throat fights it all back, and it’s all I can do to simply stare at him.

  He shoves up from the blankets and dips out of the tent.

  Mutely, I watch him sink down beside the fire and light a cigarette.

  I flop back down on the blankets and curl up my body into a cannonball. I’ve only buried my face in my crossed arms for a heartbeat before my face twists into something ugly, and I clench my mouth shut to stifle the sound of the sobs that crawl up me.

  Again, I’ve been played the fool by Silver.

  And again, I’ve been made to feel absolutely wretched by him. All because I can’t seem to keep my head on straight around him, and fall willing victim to the lies in his touch and kiss.

  He wanted my body, and he got it. And, like all the other vilas in his life I’m sure, I’ve been tossed aside like a used rag. That’s exactly how I feel; like a used rag, discarded in the wash basin, left for another to clean up after.

  14.

  There is something about weeping in bed—or, in my case, a tent—that lulls me to sleep. Perhaps it’s the emotional exhaustion that plagues me into another dream haunted by Koal.

  For a long while, I tried to fight off the snares of slumber, but they hooked into me in the end, and I eventually find myself standing amidst a blank dream. There is nothing around me, only an oat-white colour, as though I’m among the beige clouds that wisp over the world as the day starts to turn to afternoon.

  I catch my reflection in a particularly flat, shimmering cloud. Staring back at me from dark-circled hazel eyes is the face of a girl I have come to fear over time. I look more sickly than I ever have before, as though I have gone a week without a drop of remedy, despite Silver’s feeding of his blood to me. My cheeks wear the shadows o
f hollowness, and the once-fitted dress I wear is now loose against my waist, as if it was made for someone fuller than me.

  I break away my gaze from my horrid reflection and look ahead.

  This time around, Koal keeps a far distance.

  He stands where the creamy hues of the clouds are thickest and swallow him up to his knees. He’s forgotten his cloak for this dream, wearing only an ordinary ash-grey suit that—with a stab in my chest—reminds me fleetingly of Silver’s eyes.

  Koal inspects his neat fingernails. He doesn’t bother looking my way.

  His voice is a glazed-over distant sound; “Did the aniel tell you what will happen if you do not return?”

  My mouth pinches. “You’ll keep hunting me?”

  A dark smile whispers over his lips. He drops his hand to his side and brings his coal-black gaze to me. In the tangles of thick, beige clouds, his eyes are like yawning pools of nothingness.

  “Convenient that it seems to have slipped his mind,” he drawls, sounding too pleased for a Daemon. “I have bitten you,” he adds. “My venom runs through your veins. Before the full moon, you will need another dose.”

  My nose crinkles. “Of your venom?”

  He wanders closer to me, the fluff of the clouds parting and writhing around him like disturbed shadows. “I have started the bonding process with that bite—” His dark smile twists wider in to a cruel grin that flashes too many sharp, pearly teeth. “—and if you want to survive, you will be by my side before the coming full moon.”

  I blink at him, my hands balling up in the layered skirt of my dress. My index finger slips through a rip, tearing it wider, even in my dream. “What are you saying? I will die without your venom every round moon?”

  He flicks his head to the side in a noncommittal gesture. His dark hair brushes over his temple. “You will become comatose,” he says. “Until I find you.” He leans closer, the sharp points of his teeth revealed with a crooked smile. “Consider it assurance that no mate can flee its Daemon.”

  I shake my head. Loose strands whip the flush on my cheeks. “Another lie,” I decide. “You’ll say anything to get me to come back.”