An Invocation of Monsters (The Void Book 2), page 17
I sank to my knees, enjoying the surprise in his six eyes as they widened.
Then I ran my hands over his stomach, feeling muscles flex under my palms. As I trailed over the heavy V at the base of his stomach, I wrapped my hand around his cock.
Or as close as I could get. He was simply too thick to fully grasp; it took both hands to get all the way around him, and I massaged the swelling knot at its base.
Then I lapped gently at the beaded crown, and swirled my tongue over the tip, tasting the sweet-saltiness of pre-come.
He made a guttural sound, hips jerking.
The next time I swirled my tongue around him, I felt tentacles creeping over me, exploring the sensitive parts of my body. Drazan sent his enjoyment into my head, and I knew he was behind me, gripping his cock while his tentacles moved over me.
They clamped over my nipples, squeezing gently, and one of them slid between my legs.
I moaned, opening my mouth wider and sliding the tip of Kiraxis’s cock into my mouth.
The monster above me was breathing heavily, his gaze fixed on my mouth as I sucked and licked him.
Another hard suck, and I managed to fit a little more of him into my mouth. He was too thick, too long for me to take the whole of him; my jaws ached a little from how wide open they’d stretched.
But I slid my tongue along the sensitive underside, and was rewarded with a purring grunt, the massive organ twitching in my mouth.
Drazan pumped himself, the head of his cock resting on my ass, his tentacles probing into me. I wanted to gasp as a thick tentacle slipped inside me, suckers latching onto my clit, but my mouth was too full.
Impulsively, I glanced up at Kiraxis, and took another inch. My hands worked at his knot, kneading and stroking, and the tentacles wrapped around me slipped in and out of me in time with my own movements.
God, I could do this for the rest of my life and die ecstatic about it.
The tentacle on my clit pulsed, sending a rush of heat through me; Drazan knew exactly how to tease me to the very edge, his suckers leaving pink dots on my skin from how intently he gripped me.
I managed to keep sliding down Kiraxis’s cock until my entire mouth was full. He nudged the back of my throat, and I closed my eyes, trying for deeper.
He was simply too big, but he seemed to love it no less for all that. His hips moved slightly, thrusting gently into my mouth with a growl on every stroke.
I grazed him softly with my teeth, and felt as much as heard his rumbling groan.
The tentacle in my pussy thickened, Drazan plunging deeper. His hand was working faster now, his cock pulsing against me.
Fire simmered through me as he plunged in faster, the sucker on my clit contracting hard. All I could do was hum my pleasure, the vibrations making Kiraxis grunt. His claws were tangled in my hair, gently stroking me as I sucked him down.
When the tentacles around me all contracted at once, suckers fluttering, I couldn’t take anymore.
I arched against them, feeling them slide deeper, and the orgasm shattered through me. My hips bucked against my will, my body turning to liquid as I shuddered through it.
Kiraxis’s cock muffled my screams, but he felt the vibrations. I felt his cock pulse in my mouth, and he tried to withdraw—but I squeezed his knot, and was rewarded with a flood of hot seed down my throat.
I swallowed it, lapping his cock for more, moaning breathlessly as Drazan’s hips jerked against me.
Hot ropes of semen sprayed out of him, coating me thickly. His thoughts were wordless, nothing but mindless pleasure and heated lust, and…
I felt the edge of his thoughts that he sent me… and that last one had felt remarkably like… love.
I ground against his tentacles, my pussy contracting in another orgasm as he squeezed my oversensitive clit, and then my eyes rolled back and I rode out the wave.
My monsters were panting heavily when I came out of the orgasm into a warm afterglow.
Kiraxis was still rumbling with every breath. “You are a very talented mate, Elle. I have not felt anything like that.”
I smiled, licking his seed off my lips. “Don’t worry, big guy. We’re gonna be doing a lot more of that.”
He exhaled, the fur of his ruff standing straight up. “I must tend you now, and we will return you to your world. It is growing dark.”
Ah. Night time, the monsters-tucking-me-into-bed time.
I returned the favor of tending as Kiraxis and Drazan washed me clean, peppering them with lingering kisses.
Do not forget to call for us, Drazan said sternly as I pulled on my clothes.
“I won’t.” I looked up at him earnestly. I really, truly meant that promise. The last door had been a nightmare. “I’ll be back soon.”
I hated leaving my monsters, but until the creature was gone, they wanted me firmly back in my world and out of the danger zone.
I let Kiraxis lead me back to the shed door, kissing him again before I vanished through it.
It was twilight in my world. I managed to slip through the shadows without seeing anyone.
Before I returned to my room, I crept upstairs and retrieved my phone from the top of the wardrobe. I checked my messages; most of the pictures had gone through to Juno.
As I made my way back to my own room, I re-sent the ones that had failed. The Society’s internet connection really sucked.
It was only after my door was firmly locked behind me that I finally removed the planchette from its ribbon. I draped it over the latch on my window, so I could see the lake through its center.
It swung there as I dressed for bed. Juno would want it for her museum-like collection.
Thanks to my monsters’ attention, my muscles were relaxed now. It didn’t take me long to drop off into a true deep sleep.
After all, Kiraxis would be on the other side, ready to stand between me, and whatever wanted a piece of me.
24
Elle
I woke up at four in the morning, sitting up straight in bed with sweat pouring off me.
The nightmare of the creature’s screams still echoed in my head, but I was here. Safe, with Kiraxis to stand guard over me.
I slipped out of bed and knelt on the floor, shoving aside flowers and lifting up the cover to peer underneath. “Kiraxis?”
The sweat on me dried quickly, making me shiver in the cold air. There was no answer.
Fuck this. I was cold, freaked out in the dark, and I wanted the comfort of my Mlul’dra mate.
I shimmied under the bed on my stomach, reaching out for the sensation of a door—
And felt it against my fingertips. It was like the entire floor had vanished, leaving nothing but blackness beneath it.
I sank into it, clawing my way through the Void’s door, and went tumbling out of the air to land on heavy cushioning.
“What the fiddly fuck?” I peered around. There were at least two mattresses underneath me, piled with various neatly-folded blankets. The doorway back to my world was well above me, set in the ceiling.
And all around this cozy bed were flowers and glittery things. The walls were in-set with thousands of gems. A full-size chandelier hung off to the side, swaying slightly from my wild, flailing entrance.
I reached out and tapped one of the crystals with a fingernail, making it chime. So this was Kiraxis’s den, the nest he was so proud of.
I had to admit, he had maximalism down to an art.
But where the hell was he?
I had to fight my way free of the nest, getting to my feet when I found solid ground. I followed the winding corridors of Kiraxis’s den out to the open air of the Void, and as soon as I stepped foot outside the cave…
All of my muscles froze in place. My body wanted to move, to find out where my Mlul’dra had disappeared to, but my brain remembered the feeling of being hunted.
What if it’s still out there? my brain screamed, conjuring images of the many-limbed creature swinging down over the cave entrance.
I cringed a little, but didn’t allow myself to go back into the cave.
If I were missing, Kiraxis would look for me. He wouldn’t cower like a complete pansy about it.
But when something really did swoop down out of the darkness, I almost lost my mind, until I saw the shimmering spread of colors across wings.
“Elle,” Toth breathed. “You’re here. Come with me.”
I wasn’t too proud to admit that I basically threw myself into his arms.
When he scooped me up, I felt the tension in his muscles. “What happened? Is it Kiraxis?”
I had a bad feeling about the emptiness in the cave. He’d promised to stand watch over me, and I didn’t think Kiraxis was one to break a promise.
“Yes. The Hunter has struck.”
My heart froze over in my chest. “Is he… please God, don’t tell me he’s hurt.” My brain refused to think of the alternative. The other word. I couldn’t accept that.
“He’s badly wounded,” Toth said grimly. “But with you here, there is a chance.”
We didn’t go far. Just enough for the breeze to ruffle my air, to clear the hill where Kiraxis’s cave lurked beneath, and into the shadow of the trees.
I heard him before I saw him. There was a thickness to his breathing I didn’t like, a bubbly rasp that sent chills down my spine.
I practically jumped out of Toth’s arms and ran to the enormous lump in the shadows. “Kiraxis?”
“My Elle,” he breathed, trying to sit upright, and my fingers touched something warm and wet.
All of him felt that way. His sleek fur was plastered to his body, the stickiness hot against my palms. I smelled the iron scent in the air and bit my lip.
“Stop worrying, precious mate,” he growled when my hands found the gnarled spear of bone stuck in his chest. “I am beyond pain, ferocious and mighty.”
“Bullshit,” I whispered, my throat closing up. There were many spikes, piercing his chest, his arms and legs…
“The bones must be removed,” Toth said, tucking in his wings neatly and approaching the wounded Mlul’dra.
I withdrew my hands from Kiraxis, realization dawning. If I healed him now, I would only heal him around the sharpened spikes that had plunged into his body. The wounds would close, keeping them buried inside him with constant agony.
“I can’t touch him,” I said, twisting my hands together to prevent myself from doing such a thing.
“No. You cannot.” Toth looked at me, the glow of his eyes flared into an angry scarlet. “I will remove them, and as soon as the last one is free, you do what you must.”
I nodded, wishing I felt less useless.
When Toth gripped the spike lodged beneath Kiraxis’s collar bone, the Mlul’dra made a sound that made my knees feel watery.
What good were my healing hands if I couldn’t touch him and remove them to begin with? The Zizhatl had one hand braced on Kiraxis’s chest, the set of his face grim as he began to withdraw the spike.
There was a horrible grating sound, bone on bone, and then the spike was pulled free. Toth threw it aside, finding the next one lodged in Kiraxis’s side.
I picked up the discarded thing. It was a long bone, possibly from a thigh, knobbed on one end, the other sharpened into a spear-point. The entire thing was slick and black with gore.
Who would do such a thing? Why?
“Keep yourself together,” Toth warned him, when Kiraxis growled and snapped his teeth towards him.
“I am strong,” the Mlul’dra said, his voice hoarse. “I am powerful. Pain is a mere illusion.”
“Indeed. Keep it in mind.”
I slammed the bone spear into the ground point-first, fury bubbling under my fear for Kiraxis.
“It’ll be over soon,” I reassured him. I knelt as close as I could without touching him, gripping my own thighs to prevent my hands from moving towards him. My fingers ached as I dug in deeper. “As soon as they’re out, I’ll help you.”
“I know, my Elle,” Kiraxis said, grunting as Toth began to remove shattered splinters from one of his arms with deft fingers. “You are here. That is all I want.”
I hadn’t fully understood until this moment how the monsters might actually feel about me. With Kiraxis bleeding before me, letting out low growls every time Toth painfully removed a bone spear from his body, I wanted to let the red creeping over my vision take over.
I wanted to find the fucking Hunter, and wring their fucking neck over and over and over again.
The idea of him—of any of them—being in pain was almost too much to bear.
This is what it feels like to care for someone, I thought. Until now, I’d only cared about family. The rage that came over me from someone hurting Kiraxis was completely foreign.
I wished I had sharp fangs to gnash and clawed arms to disembowel the Hunter with.
When I found them, I would make them wish they had never been born.
I would feed them to the creature in the forest, piece by piece.
“It is close to being done,” Toth said softly, interrupting my black thoughts.
He had moved on to one of Kiraxis’s brawny legs. The Mlul’dra’s clawed feet were tensed, his thigh completely soaked with blood. The spear had pierced the large muscle, and Kiraxis exhaled as Toth gripped it.
It was the small sigh that infuriated me. He was strong, and powerful, and seeing him in so much pain that he couldn’t even muster a roar made my heart feel like it was being crushed.
How close had he come to death? If I hadn’t slipped under the bed into his cave, would the extra minutes of Toth racing to find me have made the difference?
“It is done.” Toth threw the last spear aside. He wore blood up to his elbows like gloves.
Before he was even done speaking, I lunged for Kiraxis.
I pressed my hands into the warm, gory wounds, closing my eyes. The power that lived inside me woke up, rushing through me and turning my body into nothing more than a conduit.
Little by little, Kiraxis’s wounds closed. From somewhere far away, I felt sweat beading on my forehead as my hands moved over him of their own accord.
From Toth, I had learned that healing the monsters was easier than healing humans. The power slipped right through me and into them, whereas I had to force it through when I tried to heal people.
It was the struggle that made the extent of Kiraxis’s injuries clear.
Even though the power flowed through me like a river, his wounds closed so slowly. My hands were coated with blood, slipping over him to find the next injury, and I was terrified he would bleed to death long before they closed.
I heard the soft flutter of wings and knew Toth had gone, but I didn’t open my eyes. The Mlul’dra lay like a dead thing under my hands, doing nothing more than breathing.
I moved from wound to wound to wound, absorbed in nothing but the flow of power.
It felt like hours had passed before the sound of his breathing evened out. He no longer rasped and bubbled with every breath.
“Elle. You’ve done what you came to do.” I didn’t remember Toth coming back, but he was there at my side, holding something in front of me.
My bleary eyes focused on it, hands taking it without feeling. He raised it to my lips, and the first sweet-sour taste brought me back to the present.
It was a bottle of lemonade. He’d cleaned his hands and opened it for me.
The sugar hit my veins, waking me a little even though I felt utterly wiped out. I hadn’t realized I was shaking from the sheer amount of effort I’d put into the healing.
The Zizhatl moved around Kiraxis, tipping a bottle of water into his open mouth, then pouring more over the wounds and washing away the blood. Toth examined the healed injuries, and I felt a touch of guilt when I saw the knotted, silvery scar tissue I’d left behind.
Toth’s gaze flickered up to mine. “Do not blame yourself. He is alive, and that is what matters.”
“Scars are sexy,” Kiraxis breathed with some effort.
I wanted to laugh, but the exhaustion was so deep I couldn’t muster one. I shouldn’t have been surprised that Kiraxis would be concerned with his sex appeal.
“On you, they definitely are.” I gripped his clawed hand, running my thumb across his rough palm. His fingers closed around my hand, locking me into a cage.
I was perfectly content to never be set free.
“I owe you, my Elle,” he breathed, his eyes slitting open to look at me, but I shook my head.
“You owe me absolutely nothing for that, and I’d do it again,” I told him firmly.
Toth opened another bottle, and it didn’t register with me that it was alcohol until he’d poured the whole thing into Kiraxis’s mouth.
The Mlul’dra drank it all down and sighed. “Better. Soothes the ache.”
God. He’d been so damaged that even my healing hadn’t taken away the pain. I gripped his hand tighter, thanking the stars of the Void that Toth had found me in time.
It could’ve been the difference of one minute that would’ve changed his fate.
“Okay,” I said, keeping my voice steady. “I’m done playing games over this.”
I looked up and found Toth gazing steadily back at me, as though he already knew what I was about to say.
“No more hiding for my sake. Look at this.” I gestured at Kiraxis’s new scars. “He almost died. Next time we might not be this lucky.”
The Mlul’dra growled, but Toth held up a hand and nodded at me to continue.
I clenched my free hand, my nails biting into my palm. “Who the hell is the Hunter, and how do we kill them?”
25
Elle
Toth exhaled slowly, then reached out to grip my clenched fist. He pried his way between my fingers, forcing me to unclench, and laced his claws through them.
“Elle, please believe me when I say we do not play games with you,” he said quietly, and I felt a brief rush of shame.
I trusted these monsters with my life. Surely that had to count for something.
I didn’t truly believe deep down that they would hide the identity of the Hunter from me, especially since I was living in the Hunter’s house.
