Monster Song (My Beautiful Monsters #2) - J.B. Trepagnier Page 0,23

experiment.”

I flipped her on her back and pinned her hands above her head with mine. She easily could have gotten free and kicked my ass, but she laid there with hooded eyes.

“Then I guess I have something to prove,” I growled, kissing her.

Pavlina bit my lower lip pretty hard.

“Bring it on, monster whisperer.”

I didn’t just need to make this good. I needed to let Pavlina know she was just as important to me as the monsters who happened to be men. I stroked her cheek and looked down at her.

“You’re so beautiful,” I said.

She really was. Her body was long, lithe, and muscular. She was more exotic than anyone I’d ever seen back home. I knew about her previous lover she killed in the ring and how hard it must have hit her when they broke up. Pavlina was sarcastic and could throw barbs with the best of them, but I got the feeling when she fell in love, she fell hard and usually got her heart broken.

I knew I was asking a lot from her. I was asking a lot from all of them, not choosing between them. I needed to make all of them feel special.

I intended to worship every inch of Pavlina’s body. I would take my time and make sure there was no doubt in her mind that I cared for her and would never break her heart.

Chapter 14

Demos

I

loathed sleeping alone and knowing Pavlina was in there with River. Yeah, I trusted River about as far as I could throw her when she first showed up in the Underworld. Only monsters could talk to other monsters like that, and I could sense from her she wasn’t one of us. I didn’t know what she was, and yeah, I said some nasty things to her because I just wanted her to leave.

An unknown creature I couldn’t burn with so much else going on in the Underworld? I wanted that as far away from me as possible. I didn’t get why my entire team didn’t see her as dangerous. They were all falling over themselves to kiss her ass, and I thought they looked like fools. I knew I was the only one that would come back if she ended up killing us all.

But she grew on me. It didn’t matter what I said to her, she never had a Pavlina reaction towards me, and if I were honest now, I totally would have deserved it. I could be an asshole if I thought someone deserved it. For a time, I actually thought she did.

She really didn’t. I had a lot of time to think while I was watching Demeter’s temple. She didn’t ask to come here. Hades kidnapped her. She could have totally lost her shit when he brought her down to a prison full of monsters. I didn’t deal with hysterical women very well. If she started shrieking and crying, I would have been cursing those collars all over again because I didn’t have hands to shove a pillow over my head and ignore it.

I’d never met a human who saw one of us for the first time and immediately didn’t run away screaming or trying to kill us. Maybe that’s why I didn’t like her at first. She wasn’t adequately scared of us, and that wasn’t natural. Things in the Underworld had changed for us, but she was an outsider, and she should have at least had the decency to look a little afraid.

My opinion changed the more she refused to just up and leave. She really was just trying to help and get answers about herself. She’d brought more allies to our side than Hades did, and after I got here, I thought Hades could do anything.

I was pacing my bedroom going crazy. It wasn’t just that I wanted to see River; it was that fucking Pavlina was in there with her. I could tell River liked Pavlina too, and if Pavlina could even smell the hint of someone wanting her, they usually ended up naked.

I wanted to go barging in there and demand my own alone time with River, but I knew she wouldn’t like that. And I had no desire to see Pavlina naked. Sure, Pavlina was gorgeous, but she’d eaten people for less, and I had no desire to get eaten by a massive spider because I accidentally saw her tits.

I heard a soft knock on my door, and it better be good because I left word with anyone who would