Page 53 of Mated to Monsters

It burns from his cracked, damaged horns, unnatural and menacing. Horrifyingly hypnotizing, I realize with a start that as I’ve been staring at him, he’s been staring at me. His lips pull back in a mad grin, exposing teeth nearly almost as long as my arm.

And then his tattered wings pull back, stirring a cloud of red dust. My eyes sting, and I’ve barely stopped coughing before he charges.

“Gi-lak! Gi-lak! Gi-lak!” The crowd roars with excitement as he thunders across the field, stopping only a handspan away from my face.

Terror like this is something I’ve never known, and I have spent my life afraid. It’s a terror that rattles my knees, that steals my breath. I’d shut my eyes if I could, but some perverse grief keeps them open.

This is the fate I chose.

I brought this on myself. On my family and friends. Grief, even more powerful than the terror, bows through my body like a physical blow. I’d thought I was leading the human race to paradise, and instead I’ve delivered the most cherished people in my life to a waking nightmare.

Lightning strikes above, casting the monster in blood red light. I should pray to the Mother, or perhaps the Arbiter, for salvation before I die, but all I can think about is the fairytales I heard from the elders growing up.

Humans, they whispered in the dark, far away from our elf masters, had old gods from Before. Some had many, and some only one, but most believed in a dark place where evil dwells.

Hell, they called it.

I think I’ve found Hell.

“Eat her!”

“Tear off her arms!”

“Give her a good fucking first!”

I’m nothing but entertainment for monsters. They’ve given me no weapon, not even anything to defend myself with. No shield. No hope.

What have I done?

I should let him be done with me, but something inside me wants to live, the coward that I am. I turn towards the bloodthirsty crowd, prepared to plead for mercy, but their roars are too loud to hear me if I even tried.

If they were even capable of mercy.

A familiar hooded figure sits in a private box, shrouded in crackling purple magic. His face is hooded, as it was in my dreams, and his red eyes glow ominously.

I tilt my trembling chin and curse him with what might be my last breath. The monster’s breath is hot and hungry, and I turn to see that his loincloth has stretched tight. His cock is large enough to split me open, as the crowd is urging him to do, and the thought of it sends me scrambling back until I press against the slick, oily black wall.

I look up.

Hundreds of demons jeer above me.

I look down.

My filthy feet are bleeding from the blistering hot sand. Fragments of bodies still litter the arena, and I narrowly miss stepping on a chunk of smoking flesh.

I look across.

The beast charges.

It’s a blur of movement, so fast that he’s on me before I can blink. I roll away, but he comes so close that the flames from his horns sear my right shoulder.

“Please!”

I push myself to my feet, and he charges again. Again, I dodge. Again, he burns me.

Again, I beg.

“Please!” My throat burns with the force of my cries, but no one hears. No one cares. “I’m sorry! I’m so, so sorry. Please!”