Rage (Her Monsters Book One) - K.A Knight Page 0,4

I have to breathe through the panic. That motherfucker killed and buried me.

Wait, I felt myself die... how am I alive?

Something calls for me across the forest, which is my home. The trees move for me, the ground welcomes me, and the animals flock to me, but this is something else. Something dark, primal, and filled with power. It curls around me, restarting my cold dead heart, and yanks on the lifeless muscle. I don’t bother changing back to human, I can’t even remember the last time I was in that constricting form. I prefer the solitude of the wild where I can be me. I venture into the modern world every now and again. I read the stories they write about me, the tales and scriptures. They have it all wrong, but it is amusing, humans are such fragile creatures. They are born, and then they live for a few years, slowly rotting away. They cause wars, they use words instead of weapons. It all seems so... contrived. They won’t last, if only they knew what lingered in their world. Monsters, like me, walking in the dark, the nightmares they whisper about and the stories they use to scare themselves.

The tug comes again, harder this time, bringing me out of my thoughts. It has been so long since I felt anything but numbness, so I must admit, I am curious. What creature could call me? They would have to be powerful. I have spent the last thousand years gaining so much power, I am almost untouchable, practically the boogeyman even amongst monsters. It’s the intrigue that gets me moving, leaving my cave and following the feeling. I resist it for a moment, just to see what the power will do, and pain ripples through my body, like a vice tightening around me, making me grunt. Strong indeed.

Even the pain is better than this indifference. As I wander through the woods seeking the call, I debate my life. I could be like the other ancients, I could retreat from the world they no longer understand nor rule. Hide away and remember the good days, let my feelings rot me from the inside out like a diseased tree, but something always kept me tied here. The thought of leaving it causes an almost physical ache, and I never understood why.

I have to duck under a low hanging branch so my antlers don’t get caught, as a rabbit hops out from behind a tree, freezing when it notices the bigger predator. Even the wolves in the woods hesitate to venture near me, sensing the power. Yet I am at one with the forest, even if I don’t blend in wearing my true form.

The feeling stops suddenly as I reach the edge of a small break in the trees, and linger in the shadows. Blending with the dark, I watch and wait. My nose twitches at the smell of burnt rubber and smoke as a car rumbles away, speeding as if being chased. Silly human. My eyes rove the ground, noticing the upturned soil and sensing the disturbance in the air. Someone has defiled my land.

I freeze when a pale hand shoots from the ground, its long slender fingers tipped with red nail polish and adorned with rings that sparkle in the night. It is too delicate to be anything other than human, but for it to be buried, it must be dead.

Interest gets the better of me and I stalk across the clearing, silencing the animals close by. Leaning down, I capture the wiggling hand and pull. The soil parts for me and I send a tiny drop of power to help it.

A head and body breaks through the earth and I let go, stepping back and watching in rapt interest. The human is naked and female. No, wait, not human. Dragging air into my lungs, I try to work through the smells assaulting my senses. It is other, something I can’t identify. I don’t know whether it is the comforting aroma of death, but I find myself taking a step closer, only to still when another scent hits me, stronger than before, sending a bolt of lust and longing to my black heart, and hardening my cock. It smells like the forest, like nature itself. Floral but strong, fresh like the air after a storm.

The creature lifts its head, long golden, bloodstained hair covers its face, but I can still see the beauty. Her beauty. She sits back on her heels,