The Rycke (Monstrous, #3)

by Lily Mayne

I probably came across as cold, but I couldn’t help it. My job involved being a shadow. Being invisible. Socialising wasn’t something I had to do very often, and I was shit at it.

Not like I was some amazing ninja killer or anything. I really, really hated killing anything, so it rarely happened. I much preferred hiding, keeping a low profile and running if something saw me and wasn’t overly happy about my presence.

Then the beastie turned their head to look up at Rig with big, pitch black eyes, and I got my first proper look at their face. Their dark, greenish-black hair was no longer falling over it in unwashed waves. I exhaled a sharp, quiet puff of breath, glad my mask muffled the sound. They were the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.

What is wrong with you? I thought to myself, feeling my cheeks get hot, glad my face was at least half hidden under my gas mask. They’re clearly traumatised. In pain. They don’t need some random raider creeping on them.

This close, I noticed that his irises weren’t just solid black, but decorated with swirling pinpricks of faint colour. Like galaxies.

I mean, realistically, how much could we have in common? I was a dull, forgettable human raider who spent his time skulking in the shadows, spying on others, being invisible. He was a beautiful, winged monster who’d travelled to this world through an interdimensional tear.

I fell asleep far too quickly, one hand stretched out on the bed toward the monster reading to me in his soft, sweet voice.

“I heard your voice and it… cut through everything else—through all the noise in my head. It sounded… important.”

After a moment, One’s face broke into a huge, beautiful grin, and I knew that was it. I was utterly smitten. Totally, one hundred percent gone for this strange, winged monster with creepy black eyes and ghostly, green-tinged skin. “Aury,” he said.

“Please don’t go,” he said. “I’ll… I will worry for you.”

“What the hell do you mean, took me long enough? Aury’s been here, like, a week!” “Yeah, a week of you two gazing longingly at each other like a couple of lovesick teenagers.” Rig snorted. “I was embarrassed for you.”

And then I did the least tough-raider-living-in-an-apocalyptic-wasteland-infested-with-monsters thing that I possibly could. I burst into tears.

“I knew he wouldn’t have gone far, because he would want to watch over you. So I just walked around until I got the sudden urge to flee in terror, which meant he was nearby.”