So why now?
Why this girl?
“These books,” the girl continues.
“Don’t even bother. Grant wrote everything in code.”
He did? No. That’s fucking bullshit. I’ve seen the books. I don’t understand the books, but I’ve seen them. They are written in the common language.
I push the door open and storm in. I reach out towards a table covered in dozens of vials and bottles with various levels of herbs, and salts, and liquids inside them, and I swipe them all onto the floor with a resounding crash to announce my arrival.
It’s all drama. I know that. But I’m feeling dramatic.
The girl stands up, screaming and fearful, while Tomas yells at me. “You fucking beast! What the hell is your problem!”
My problem? He wants to know my problem? “You,” I growl. “You were the reason Grant never broke the curse. You poisoned his mind, didn’t you? You are the one who told him to leave me tonight!”
“Fuck off, you goddamned freak!” Tomas exclaims.
I pick up the nearest potion bottle and throw it at his face.
Bright green liquid hits him and in that same instant he disappears.
So now… I turn to the girl.
CHAPTER FOUR - PIE
I am backing into a corner, hand over my face, mouth open in a scream of fright, when the monster throws the potion bottle at Tomas’s face. And when the bright green liquid hits Tomas, he just vanishes. Poof. Gone.
I panic and start stumbling towards the door, ready to make a run for it. Tomas told me a little bit about the monster of Saint Mark’s. He’s an angry beast. He is vengeful, and cruel, and petty.
And as far as I can tell, Tomas was right.
“Where do you think you’re going?” the beast growls at me.
My breath hitches in a gasp. That sinking feeling you get when something is about to go terribly wrong is real and heavy in my gut at the mere sound of his voice.
I turn to face him. Well, not really to face him. Just to try to ward him off as I take steps backwards. “Stay away from me!” I thrust my palms at him. “Do you hear me? Stay away!”
His eyes go from yellow to orange to red. And I make a run for it, acutely aware that I cannot outrun this thing. His legs—oh, God, those legs! Like a goat’s, or a bull’s, or a horse’s—I’m not sure, but they are powerful and long. And he has already demonstrated how quickly he can snatch me up when I bolt.
But I do it anyway. The only alternative is to just freeze and hope for the best and I’ve done that plenty of times in my life, so I know it never turns out well.
Better to die trying.
“Stop!” he commands.
And even though in my mind I have every intention of absolutely not stopping—I freeze. The exact thing I just said I would not do.
He laughs, amused at my sudden paralysis. “You slaves,” he grunts. “You always think you hold all the power here. But it’s not true. You hold power over Saint Mark’s, yes, but I’m the one who holds the power over you. And the sooner you realize that, the better off you’ll be.”
And he’s right. Because my entire body feels like it’s been filled with cement. My feet are stuck to the floor, my arms reaching out in the direction of the door. Stiff. My eyes are motionless. I can’t even blink.
His steps are loud, his hooves clacking on the marble floors, but they are also slow. It takes an agonizingly long time for him to reach me. To be right up next to me. So close that I can feel the heat coming off his body. And he is so big—so utterly massive—that when he comes around to my front I am face to face with the middle of his bare human chest.
Which… I’m not gonna lie, it might even be better than Tomas’s chest. And if Pia were here, and I could talk, I would make a joke about being right. Hot men do hang out together. Even if they’re monsters.
The beast reaches out and takes a strand of my blonde hair in his fingertips as I concentrate on the hard, corded muscles of his body. I want to shudder at his touch. This is an invasion of my private space, but I cannot move.
He drops my hair and turns, walks a few paces forward before turning again.
I am still staring straight ahead, but his full body is now in view.
Half human, half beast. The lower half is covered in straw-colored fur, shaggy in some parts, but not shaggy enough to fully hide his genitals because he is not wearing clothes. His hooves are black with squiggly bands of cream running vertically. His face—while not fully in my view because I can’t look up—is serious and hard in my peripheral vision, a bit of a blond beard covering his chin and upper lip, and his hair is cropped too short to discern the color, but it’s probably blond too.