The king smiled at her and chuckled. “You see even your little huntress agrees. She understands the allure of the forbidden appetites these creatures possess. It spices up the fucking to see a monster’s inhuman cock plow whatever pussy or ass that they decide to rut.”
Abby gave him a brittle smile in turn as Zayman continued to back away, a cruel and angry sort of glee rising within her as she anticipated what was to happen. “No, I don’t think youunderstand, King Decort. I came here with the intention of ridding you of monsters. It is why he is here as well,” she said nodding toward Samir. “And now I see that we get to do exactly that.”
The king’s smile fell. “I don’t understand,” he murmured but his eyes widened with a satisfying amount of fear as she whipped her blade from her belt.
She had the key for Samir’s chains, but she ignored them for the moment, focusing on the greatest weapon at his disposal. Summoning all the brutal force she possessed, she slashed through the strategically placed ties keeping the binding straps in place. A broad grin stretched across her face as his tail whipped free through the air and buried deeply within the broad chest of King Vincent Decort. The king’s eyes glazed with the force of fiery venom pumping into him, and his mouth gaped in a silent scream as he reached for Zayman as the gutless worm fled.
Abby shook her head as the screams began but she ignored them as she bent to her task, quickly unlocking clasp after clasp, the clatter of the chains falling away mingling with the sounds of terror from the courtiers. They had clearly emerged from the blissful fog of lust and whatever drug they were imbibing long enough to notice their king laying prone on the gold floor, his face swelling and discoloring, and they were now rushing in a blind panic to flee. Samir’s tail whipping through the air stirred them to a greater frenzy and she blinked in surprise when several were brought low by projectile barbs viciously flung from the thick ridges of Samir’s tail.
He rose above them all like a shadow of death. With one hand he stripped off the gold binding covering his mouth and let out a deep roar that shook to the foundation of the palace as flames spewed from him, rushing over the nearest piece of architecture. It was no mere roar but was laced with magic that she could feel ripple and spark in the air and borrow deep into her bones.Her mage blood responded to it, captivated by its power as he bellowed again, and flames rushed over the surface of the floor as he leaped forward in his attack.
Screams filled the air as he ripped through the courtiers. He ignored the servants, leaving them to go in peace as they gathered up the girl from the altar and hurried away fearfully. Even in his rage he protected them. Abby smiled and holstered her to javelin to pull out her crossbow—another treasure from Samir’s trophy wall. Drawing back the bow, she locked an arrow into place. She shot the gilded courtiers who would have gladly feasted and fucked while an innocent girl was torn apart until she ran out of arrows. At that point the brutal death from her javelin suited her fine. She pulled it free once more from her harness, sending it flying through the air to bury into the naked chest of a mostly nude male with gold paint applied to his loins, emphasizing the piercings that run up his cock, many of which were connected by delicate chains. She gave them a curious glance as she stalked past him, wrenching her weapon from his flesh.
Strange how she felt nothing. There was no sickness that rose within her at the sight of his gore. Monsters. They were the true monsters. Every single one of them. She killed until blood became like a second skin, until she at last stood above the one man who had brought her out there.
She smiled down at him and lowering the tip of her javelin on the floor at her side as the sound of pillars cracking from the force of magic and rising heat of the fire filled the throne room. “You didn’t expect me to return, did you? I wasn’t supposed to. You were so surprised when I appeared at the gates and that was because I was supposed to be murdered by your henchman—whomever you had planned to send once I finished the job.”
“You should have died,” he spat out, blood gurgling from his lips.
Her eyes drifted over him casually. Was he wounded already? Ah, there it was. Although small compared to the size of Simar’s stinger, one of her lover’s long barbs stuck out from her employer’s chest.
“You traitor. You are no huntress,” Zayman gurgled weakly.
She cocked her head as she considered him, drawing out a long knife from her belt, her smile widening. “No, you are right.” With one deft motion, she sliced through his throat, enjoying the sight of his blood welling up and spilling forth, purifying the depravity of the palace along with the other blood drenching the stones. She leaned down as the light began to go out of his eyes. “I’m a monster.”
Chapter
Twenty-Two
Samir was as anointed as she was, blood coloring his fur crimson. To Abby he was still the most magnificent male she’d ever seen. He stood before her regal as a king, his mane dripping and his green eyes burning with a fire she wanted to be remade in.
Zayman had been right, she was no hunter. Deep inside she’d been a monster all along. Perhaps that was what her own mother had seen inside her only daughter. Perhaps seeing it had convinced her that Abby needed to be controlled and tempered by marriage to another hunter. Perhaps even her father and brothers had seen it hidden behind her eyes, waiting to be set free. And now that it was, there was no going back. She understood that now.
Abby Sinclair,monsterand huntress extraordinaire, stepped into Samir’s open arms relishing the connection that she felt with him and only him. She had made her decision in the desert and hadn’t even fully realized it, not until confronted with the evidence of what she would have been forced to defend no matter how sickening it was. She didn’t want that life. She wanted to protect the desert with Samir and to fall in love all over again with him every day.
“Samir?” she whispered.
“Yes, Abby?”
“I’ve already decided. Give me your sting. I chose you. I love you and want to remain in the desert with you forever.”
A soft growl echoed from his chest and his eyes slid shut as a tremor rushed through him. “Then forever you shall have, my mate,” he rasped. “And with it never shall my fire harm you for you shall be of my magic for as long as I breathe, and the salamanders roam the vast deserts.”
She heard an almost musical sound of his tail whipping through the air and the painful bliss of heat that drove deep into her belly. She knew it was his stinger but all she knew was pleasure as she fell into his arms, her fingers curling around the manacle still fastened around his neck. She continued to cling to it as he spread her beneath him, his massive body covering as he pulled free her clothes and his thick cock, already eager for her, drove between her thighs. She cried out her pleasure, her body rocking rapturously with his as the palace burned, and the columns and walls continued to crack, and stones began to fall.
They fucked to the purifying destruction of the palace, reveling it and screaming their release as the palace groaned with its final death tolls. No one saw them leave afterward or strike out across the desert, heading back to their cavern, but word of mouth spread of a monster and his monstrous wife who lived deep in the desert. That they came to the city to topple a generational legacy of cruel kings had also spread, and the people by and large believed them to be those who still continued to safeguard and preserve the people, destroying anything that threatened them that attempted to cross the sands.
They were feared and they were heroes, and in the desert Abby Sinclair and Simar reigned—with a supply of chocolate, coffee, and tea left regularly in offering, for the people had notforgotten the manticore’s favorites. Even the merchant he once accosted came to believe he was their special guardian so long as they left him offerings up on a high rock that stood well above the sands along their trade route.
And as for Abby—her parents gradually came to terms with the fact that she was mated to a monster-destroying manticore and worked to push reform through the guild that held hunters responsible for recklessly destroying sentient beings without thorough investigation to determine if an execution was warranted. Her family even made frequent desert-crossings to visit, especially once their cub came after many years of mated, monster-destroying bliss together. Abby had everything she wanted, renown as a skilled huntress, her duty, and a male and cub that she loved. Abby Sinclair lived happily ever after giving a “little death” to the monster she loved at every opportunity.
