Note: sexual scenes, nudity, public shame, dares, physical violence dark
The wind brushed over my bare skin, cool, and damp, whispering the promise of rain. The red moon hangs high, bleeding light across the courtyard. The hills drown in its glow, and I breathe it in, metallic, electric, alive. What began as a dare has turned ritual. Living among monsters makes a human crave danger the way others crave sleep. Every year I dance here, nothing on but a fading tan line and the rhythm in my veins. Stone bites my feet; the air tastes like copper and rain. The courtyard hums beneath the rhythm of my pulse. Shadows lean and sway with me, drunk on the same melody. Every spin sends droplets flying from my hairlike fragments of light, and for one brief heartbeat, I imagine the moon dancing with me.
Every monster was here, pulled by in by my human flesh and scent. Yet the one I wanted to see the most, was keeping his distance. He doesn’t like the way I make him feel, after all monsters should not feel. Little does he know it’s not normal for humans to fall for the monster as well. He’s afraid of hurting me, but little does he know that it is not possible to hurt me. I’ve lived through worse than claws and fangs. What breaks me are the things that pretend to be gentle, the soft words before betrayal, the quiet after screams. Monsters are honest in their hunger; it’s the humans who taught me how to bleed.
“Willa.” The sound finds me before he does. He hides at the edge again, pretending the crowd keeps him, when everyone here would part at a glance. It hurts like a knife stabbed in my back. “Vaerin” I whisper allowing to carry along the wind to his ears. “Stop this,” he says. “Every year you dance. Every year you test how far the wards will hold.” He stepped forward parting the crowd. “It can barely hold me on a good day, let alone on a blood moon.” His dark eyes found mine, fear shivered down my spine, mixing with desire. “And every year,” I whisper, “you come closer.”
He stalked closer, testing the barriers like he does every year. Sparks spit white where his claws touch the barrier. The scent of burnt flesh curls through the rain. Gasps ripple through the monsters, fear, hunger, awe. “It’s like you love the thrill, the feeling of recklessness.” He stalked around the barrier testing. The other monster stepping back as their prince stalked the human. They all knew you never stop a monster once they had their sights set on something. I had just been claimed by the prince of monsters, the worst kind of monster out there, yet despite what I should feel, I reveal in the thrill it gave me to be hunted.
“Vaerin,” turning to follow his every move only made him more frantic. “Willa… Please.” His voice was low and rough; the pain was clear. He was fighting the monster deep inside him. The one that takes over more times than not. Rarely did anyone get to see the side I know exists. His form begins to shimmer; the illusion is starting to break. The other monsters are growing more agitated, once a Veilborn’s illusions dropped there would be nothing to save anyone.
The wind blew again, scattering fallen leaves along the courtyard stones. A werewolf howled in the distance and all hell broke loose. His beauty tears itself apart. Skin thins to ash; stars thread his chest like constellations etched in bone. Horns spiral black and gold; the air bends around him. I should scream, but my pulse only stumbles, half terror, half worship. I have only seen him like this one other time and that’s when a gryphon decide it wanted a midday snack of a fellow classmate.
A chant rose amongst the other monsters, “Feast. Feast. Feast.” Instead of Vaerin turning on me, he turned on every monster who dared utter a word. Roars split the courtyard. Flesh meets stone, the fountain froths red. The moon watches, unblinking. “Willa! you need to get out of there! NOW!”
Then silence, thick as smoke. The wind picked up again, the cool air wrapped around me like a corset. “Vaerin.” I take one step, then another. “I’m still here.” His gaze locks, hollow and endless. The monster breathes me in. The decayed face of stars and darkness homed in on me. “You call yourself a monster,” I tell him, “But I see a masterpiece. Stitched from stars and scars. You are everything the gods feared we’d love.” His breath stutters. The illusion trembles, light and shadow wrestling across his skin.
“They’re not supposed to see me like this,” he murmurs.
“Why?” I ask. “Because your father calls it unholy? You’re proof the world fears what it doesn’t understand.”
A hiss, a dart, a drop of silver light, he collapses, drugged before I can move. Standing behind him was the headmistress with a calming serum. The Headmistress lowers her hand, vial glinting. ‘Protocol,’ she says. The word tastes like ash.
That bitch actually drugged her prince. She had the audacity to use the only weapon that could kill him. She was the one after all who wanted me to learn to control his tempers. What the hell had all that work been if she was just going to use the drugs again on him? “Come Willa,” Tess said handing me a robe. ” I have a few favor coins left, and I think it’s enough to get you into the infirmary before morning.” Tess’s hand trembles against my shoulder, but mine stay steady. I can still feel the ghost of his heat on the air, the crackle of fading magic, the silent question of whether love can survive this kind of ruin. They drag him toward the infirmary. I follow, robe clutched tight, rain washing the blood from the stones. The moon fades pale above us, but the air still hums with his name. When he wakes, the world will burn for this.