The Rycke (Monstrous, #3)

by Lily Mayne

Why did humans have to try and ruin and torture and hurt everything that they didn’t fully understand?

“I don’t know,” One admitted eventually, his voice soft. “I heard your voice and it… cut through everything else—through all the noise in my head. It sounded… important.”

“Wait… what’s your real name?” 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.

And then, for reasons known only to the deepest, darkest recesses of my anxiety-driven brain, I blurted out, “I love you.” Aury froze instantly. When I realised what I’d said, my entire body went hot with embarrassment. Panicking, I ripped my hand out of his grip and fluttered it uselessly, casting about for something, anything, to say to distract him. “Gage.” Aury turned me to face him, his black eyes so beautiful and warm as he smiled down at me. “I love you too.” He laughed, and my throat ached at the sight of his happiness. “You have terrible timing. I can’t even kiss you.”

When Gage’s human life came to an end, I would follow him. I knew it deep in the core of me already—there was no question. He was my mate.

I liked the thought of giving my life, my memories, to the next rycke, because Gage would live on in them forever. He would be a balm, a reprieve from all the darkness. A sweet, delicate bloom that stayed rooted deep in the earth in the eye of a swirling storm of death and rage. I would make sure of it—I would make sure that my memories of him were never lost. I would make them the brightest spot in my mind.