Among Monsters Read online

  I feel the sting of heat on my cheeks. “Wash ourselves?” In front of each other? In the open shallows?

  My heart hammers in my chest and, slowly, I wrap my arms around myself, as if to shield my drenched clothes from him.

  Silver unbuttons his shirt with slender fingers. “You have blood all over you,” he says, not looking at me. “And the stink of that ship has seeped into our clothes.”

  He throws the shirt off his chest, and my cheeks burn with a thousand candle flames. I shouldn’t, but I can’t stop my gaze from dropping to his body. A body so very unlike those I saw on the pirate ship.

  From this angle, I can only see the side of his build, and most of his back. But it’s enough. Muscles press firmly against the marble-likeness of his skin. Lines shadow his paleness into clear-cut definition. But, what hikes my eyebrows, is the surprise of his black markings. Tattoos, I think they are called. Ink-black marks spiral down his left arm, cutting off at the wrist, and the closer I study them, the more I suspect the markings to be words. Perhaps an aniel or God language, hidden from the vilas world, or a language that came before our time. He has them etched into his skin, all-over. They litter his side, reach over to his muscled chest, and his back is covered with them, disturbed by an inky pair of black wings that stretch up and over his shoulders.

  Without his shirt on, he suddenly seems bigger. More broad-shouldered, taller even.

  The sight of him stirs something deep in my belly. A heat swells between my legs.

  I press my thighs together as if to douse the fire that dares to spark there.

  Silver’s is the sort of body painted in the Museum of the Divine. It was so carefully crafted into marble and adored before he came to be born. And then, as he grew into a fully mature aniel, he only filled out.

  Running his hand over the nape of his neck, he turns to look at me.

  My widened eyes snap up to his and I choke on a mortified sound.

  “I’m so sorry,” I blurt out, feeling the heat burning my whole face. “I—I couldn’t stop—It’s your tattoos. They—”

  His eyes roll back as he shakes his head. “I truly do not care, Kee. You aren’t the first to stare, and you will not be the last.”

  Can’t say why, but that spears a sharp pain through me.

  “Undress,” he demands, running saltwater over his skin. He rubs in the salt as if to scrub clean all flakes of skin he has. “I can’t say when we will have another opportunity to bathe.”

  I look down at myself. If it wasn’t for the black vest clinging to my wet shirt, he would be able to see the black lace bodice I wear as an undergarment. A risqué one—one that he ordered from Bartel’s Boutique without my knowing, and I only learned that he had it made for me when it came with the rest of my parcels.

  I think of removing the vest, and only the vest, but my body seizes up with a jolt of fright. “I can’t,” I whisper. “I can’t do that. Not in front of you.”

  His back to me, he scoffs a gentle sound and faintly shakes his head. “You will be doing a lot more than bathe in front of me,” he says. “The Wild Woods might be magickal, but that does not mean you will never have to relieve yourself, Kee. Trust me when I tell you this,” he looks over his shoulder at me, his eyes darkened to an ashy shade under the night that’s creeping into the sky, “I have seen all there is to see in a vilas.”

  I don't quite understand what that means, but I do get the feeling he’s hinting at something more than toiletry matters and fumbles.

  “Fine.” I hit a splash of water at his back. “Don’t look.”

  “Are you going to stop me?” he mutters, yet he keeps his back to me and massages seawater over his chest, his broad shoulders set firmly as though he is a tad more anxious than he lets on.

  As I strip down to my undergarments—the black lace bodice that reveals much more than I wish it to, and silk shorts—I drag my bag closer to me and toss my soaked clothes on top of it.

  I let the bag float in front of my chest, using it like a shield should he spare a glance back at me. But he doesn’t. He doesn't so much as steal a look at me as I imitate him and rub the seawater over my body, with a focus on my bloody shoulder. I almost decide I am finished when Silver suddenly drops himself into the water and disappears for a heartbeat.

  He springs back up, his face dripping wet, and threads his fingers through his hair.

  I pinch my nose and dunk myself. Under the water, I use my free hand to scrub the clumps of hair that are matted together with blood, sweat and tears. I only reemerge when I can’t hold my breath a second longer.

  As I rise back up, he is a few steps ahead of me, strolling the rest of the way to shore. And he’s dragging our bags—and clothes—along with him.

  I choke on a gulp of water. It spits out from my mouth before I hurry after him, folding my arms over my chest.

  Before we reach the shore, my teeth have started to chatter so hard that I wonder if they will crack in my mouth.

  The water creeps further and further down my body. I start to bend my legs, keeping my lower half from sight. He is too far ahead of me, only in the sea up to his knees, for me to snatch back my clothes and hide my body from him. I’m forced out of the water in just my undergarments.

  And, despite the icy winds and freezing-cold water wetting me, my cheeks feel like they are fuelled by gas lanterns, they burn so hot.

  I stand, ankle-deep in the sea, my arms wrapped around my chest, my knees bent and legs twisted to shield myself. Silver strides onto the crystal-white sand, dragging the bags along with him. And he wears nothing. No undergarments, no breeches, not even his boots. He has draped his clothes over his own bag.

  I lose my inner battle and my gaze drops.

  I run my stare over his pale, muscular legs, and a lump swells in my throat. The fire burns hot in my belly and all I want to do is turn around and run back into the water. My teeth have stopped chattering and my body has stopped shivering. I simply stand, frozen on the spot, and watch him.

  Silver drags the bags up to the edge of the Woods, where dark-green moss starts to grow over the pulverised crystal-sand, and heavy trees hang above like the willow trees back in the God’s Gardens. It’s unlike any shore I’ve ever seen before. It’s not exactly magickal, but there is a menacing touch to it. The trees grow from the sandy edge and rocks are covered in dark-green moss. It’s almost as though the Woods are eating up the shore.

  Silver dumps the bags under the late-night shadows of the trees.

  He looks back at me. I hug myself even tighter. His lashes lower over his quartz eyes, as though he despises me and my modesty in this moment, and he turns his back on me.

  I stay rooted to the spot as he marches on the treeline. He gathers dry bundles of wood, then tosses them in a pile next to the bags.

  The lure of a fire draws me away from the shallow waters. I wander to the spot he’s chosen for our campsite and snatch the nearest shirt. It’s Silver’s but, for now, I shove my arms through the sleeves.

  Silver returns before I’ve managed to fasten up two buttons. He spares the shirt a fleeting glance before he dumps two dry, fat logs on the mossy ground.

  “Is there anything I can do?” I ask, kicking my heel against the floor, where sand meets moss.

  I try my hardest not to look down at what’s between his bare legs. Though, I’m very aware of what I glimpse in my peripherals, and I see no signs of hair. Fleetingly, I let improper thoughts invade my mind. Does he not have hair there? Is that an aniel thing? Or is his hair fair, like the sand around us, and I just can’t see it out the corner of my eye?

  It’s a confusing thing. I felt nothing but uncomfortable and sickly sensations when the pirates went without clothes onboard. A tinge of embarrassment too. But now, I have to fight myself not to ogle Silver.

  I drop my head with the rush of shame that washes over me. Shouldn’t be thinking things like that—not about anyone, let alone an aniel.

  Silver doesn’t look up at me. “Can yo
u start a fire?” His tone means to mock me.

  “Yes. I start them all the time at home.” And I do, since the servants rarely tend my to hearth. “I just need a matchstick.”

  “We have some,” he tells me. “But so quickly you forget we were in the sea moments ago.”

  It takes my mind a second to click. Everything we have is soaked, through and though. Wet matchsticks are utterly useless. As useless as I’m feeling right now.

  Silver makes a nice stack with dried leaves and twigs, and he crouches down at its side. I watch in silence as he leans closer to the kindle and blows a slow, gentle breath, as though he’s attempting to disturb a candle flame, not extinguish it. I frown as he does this—until a spark of burnt-orange ignites in the middle of the kindle pile.

  His breath gives life to a small flame. And that flame is quick to spread. Between heartbeats, a small fire has begun to devour the kindle.

  Taking a log with him, Silver stands and looks down at his handiwork. He studies it for a long moment before he lowers the log onto the healthy flames.

  “Is this for me?” I wonder aloud, looking between Silver and the fire. Since aniels don’t need food or drink or air, I doubt they need heat to survive.

  Silver moves around the fire, unashamed in his naked form. “I might not need warmth, but I do enjoy it.”

  I throw my gaze away from him and inch closer to the fire. I spread out my hands and kneel beside the warm flames.

  Beside me, Silver unhooks the buckles from my bag and rummages through my belongings. I make a sour face at him, but I don’t stop him. It’s a small grievance, one I’m not certain is worth making a fuss over.

  From my bag, he lifts up a handful of wet jewels. Slowly, he turns to lower his gaze on me. “You won’t be needing these,” he tells me.

  I shrug. Flames dance on my cheeks, but I hope he thinks that it’s from the heat of the fire and not my embarrassment. “I didn’t know what I would need, or what you would ask for as payment.”

  A derisive smirk twists his lips. “I have more than enough jewels of my own.”

  I give another lame shrug and turn back to the fire. I don’t like his mocking tone very much.

  Silver rises from the bag, taking an armful of material with him. I throw him a side-eye. He carries both of our clothes to the tree branches draping overheard and, piece by piece, throws them over to hang. Setting our clothes out to dry above the heat of the fire, I realise.

  “Even in the Wild Woods,” he says, “you are not safe from a cold.”

  I flatten my mouth of the disappointment that sprouts inside of me.

  I should have thought of that—drying out our things.

  Since we left the Capital, I’ve been completely useless to him. So useless that I wonder if he will decide that helping me is an utter waste, and abandon me on this shore. He seems to want to do that.

  Silver speaks no more words to me as he sinks down beside the fire, across from me. He hikes up a knee, drapes his arm over it, and watches the flames devour the log. Across from the fire, I can’t help but study him; the mask that’s cracked on his face, the distant glaze of his eyes, and I know his mind is faraway from us in this moment.

  How I wonder what he thinks about. What plagues an aniel’s mind when there is only silence at the edge of the Wild Woods? Is it the mysterious price I owe him for helping me? Is it that the deadly Daemon hunts us still?

  Koal might not be able to track us in the Wild Woods, but does that mean we are free from the threat of him? He bit me, after all, back in the basement. And that means we are bound, now. Silver and the tales of Daemons and their mates told me as much.

  But what that bond means, I have no idea. It’s best not to work myself up over something I cannot change or understand right now. I just need to hold onto the ropes of patience that, soon, I will meet the Originals and they might just help me break the bond between myself and Koal. That soon, I might be free.

  I lift my gaze over the flames.

  Silver’s face is angled away from me, and he stares at the Woods’ treeline.

  My voice is a whisper; “What can he do now that he’s bonded with me?”

  He blinks out of his thoughts and turns to look at me. As our gazes connect, his eyes turn to solid metal, and an icy tendril unravels in my chest.

  After a pause, he runs a hand over his sharp jaw and says, “Track you. Though, not here. He can control your dreams. Perform the rest of the ritual.” He turns his gaze back on the treeline. “He got your blood when he bit you. Now, he needs your parents’s blood.”

  “My parents’ blood?” I blink before a crease knits my eyebrows together. “What does he need with that?”

  “A sort of concoction for the ritual. He will mix your blood with your parents’ and his own, and you will both drink it.” His eyes flicker to me. “By force, in your case,” he adds.

  A wave of understanding washes over me. Breathless, I say, “That’s why he agreed to negotiate with my father. He couldn’t have just taken me from the Twisted Wood. He needed my parents’ blood.”

  And here I thought Koal was merely humouring our traditions.

  Silver’s hair gleams like shimmering streams. He threads a hand through it. “This ritual can only be done under the full moon. And to finish the ritual, he will mate with you. Again, in your case, by force.”

  I feel the blood rush out of my face and gather around my throbbing heart. Normally, the fear I feel is ice-cold. But this is a hot, dizzying wave that swells inside of me, and pulses in my eardrums, as though blood is ready to spill out of me.

  I sink from my knees on the ground to my bottom and bring my legs to my chest. I hug myself, gaze on the fire.

  So, this confirms it then. I’ve never made a better decision than to trust Silver and leave the Capital. If I stayed—

  If I stayed...

  A shudder rinses through me at the thought. I can’t picture it. I can’t spare another moment on the thought. It’s too ugly.

  I look up at Silver. His eyes dance with shadows cast by the dark night.

  “Thank you,” I whisper. “For helping me. For getting me out of there, for getting him off of me.”

  Silver could have just left me in the basement. He could have saved himself a world of trouble if he’d left me behind.

  But then—

  “I had my reasons,” he tells me, tone dark and low.

  “Care to share what they are?” I mumble.

  His silence is his answer. He reaches across the sand to his satchel and dives his hand into his breeches pockets. He pulls out a thin black cigarette and, after lighting it on the flames, brings it to his mouth.

  He smokes, almost lost in the grey haze.

  “So,” I say with a loud sigh that whooshes out of me. My chin rests on my knees and I throw a look at the treeline. “When do we go in there?”

  He traces my gaze to the bloated, black trunks that face us. It surprises me how startlingly still the trees are. The branches don’t rustle in the breeze that creeps over us. I hear no bird chirps or sky-owls hooting, no faraway roars of beasts hidden in the Woods. In fact, I can’t even hear the waves of the sea washing onto shore. It would be totally silent if it wasn’t for the crackles of the fire.

  “At daybreak,” he tells me and knots his fingers in his hair. The near-white strands gleam like his eyes under the night sky. “It shouldn’t take long to find the Never-ending Path.”

  I turn my gaze up at the quiet sky. Stars speckle the pitch-black blanket, and a crescent moon peaks out from a wispy cloud. “Never-ending Path,” I echo. “Sounds gruelling.”

  As I turn my gaze back down at Silver, I catch the ghost of a smirk leaving his full mouth. His pink lips glisten as though droplets of seawater still cling to them, and he smokes the cigarette down to nothing. He tosses it into the fire.

  Silver looks away. “The Path will take us to the Originals. We must seek out the Three Sisters first. They will point the way—for a price.”

>   “Always with the prices,” I murmur, but I expected no less. “I’ll have nothing left by the end of all this.”

  “Only your freedom,” he challenges.

  And he’s right. That’s what it’s all about, isn't it? My freedom.

  But a daunting thought comes to mind, one I never entertained before now.

  “What if he kills me?” I blink at him, a bud of panic blossoming in my heart. “What if, in retaliation for what I’m doing, even if I manage to break the mateship bond, he kills me anyway?”

  Silver considers me.

  A long moment passes before he cuts his gaze to the ground. “You should sleep. We have a long journey ahead tomorrow.”

  I choke on a scoff. How can I sleep now, when I have fresh worries to trouble myself over?

  And Silver has done little to ease those worries.

  With a huff, I reach out for my bag and drag it along the moss. I use it as a pillow to rest my head on as I curl up by the fire. Silver makes no move to lie down. Doesn’t need sleep, not like I do.

  But I don’t sleep for a long time.

  And when I finally do slip away to rest, I fall into a terrible dream.

  4.

  I’m standing amidst the dark light of a cavern, but like none I have ever seen before.

  Stardust-blue limestone walls climb high above me, curving into a fractured ceiling where holes are punched through. From the holes, tunnels of piercing blue light beam down on the cracked stone floor and reflect to illuminate the cavern.

  Breaks in the limestone ceiling spill streams of water, eternally falling into the dark river that runs all around me.

  Rooted to the spot, I look around the cave, but in this dream there is a haze that veils over me, and it suffocates much of my sight.

  Still, I spot something. A few feet ahead of me, there stands the ruins of what was clearly a once-beautiful fountain. A sculpture of a wispy woman looms up on the fountain, emptying out a pot of water into the bath beneath her bare feet.

  I take a step over the damp stone floor, inching closer to the fountain. And as I near, I look into the bath and my blood runs cold. Where water should be gathering, there are the ruins of past sculptures. My face pinches as I realise what the sculptures are—twisted vilas souls, tangled together, with their faces warped in eternal screams.