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?

our old leader, Cat,

Six months ago, Cat had gone missing. I’d been searching for him since, but it was like he’d vanished into thin air.

Something had watched me that night. As I huddled in the corner of the dusty house’s living room, too petrified to move, my eyes open wide against the absolute, pressing blackness, I’d felt it. I’d felt something watching me.

They were covering us, I realised. With their wing. They had protected us.

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.

Even filthy and injured, the beastie was… breathtaking. Their features were unusual, almost alien, but they worked together in perfect harmony. They were fascinating.

Lilac had a nurturing side, despite the fact that he was the one in our camp who Anchor sent out to ‘dispatch’ any monsters or raiders who attacked or threatened us.

One was trembling, long fingers gripping the sides of the metal gurney, dark eyes somehow bright with fear.

SWEET BABY. OH, MY HEART

My stomach twisted at the thought that maybe he was just used to it. To pain. From humans.

he hadn’t gotten himself out of those chains at the military base? Surely, he was strong enough to have gotten out of any cell the military had put him in. Why hadn’t he?

He smiled at me—directly at me, for the first time—and my throat closed up for a second with nerves. Then his head twitched, and he looked away again quickly. I could have sworn I saw his cheeks flush.

“He likes your voice,” Rig said, like I was a moron for not realising it. “It was obvious. You were keeping him calm.”

his girlfriend had gotten sick. He said he still didn’t know what it was, to this day. Just that her fever had gotten worse and worse, until it had killed her.

Come get me if One… if he needs anything.” I felt myself flush self-consciously and felt ridiculous. I wasn’t being weird or… too eager, right? It was a perfectly normal thing to say. Right?

Why was I getting like this over One? I didn’t know him. Was it just because he was unusual? Was it because he really was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen in my life?

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 couldn’t have been more forgettable if I tried. And that was the problem. I did try.

:(

I grabbed the one at the top of the stack and lifted it, glancing down at the cover. “This one is—” My face flamed and I immediately put it back down. Gay erotica.

We stared at each other, and I felt an almost overwhelming need to hear his voice again. To have him say something to me. Anything.

My eyes snagged on a coat hook in the corner of the room, a black coat hanging there. I pictured the ragged, ruined coat One had been wearing.

Aww :')

There was an old box of tissues in my nightstand—for other reasons—and

Lmaooo

His tongue was black. And forked. My brain blanked while my body had a bewildering reaction, my cock twitching in my pants as it started to get hard.

Hot

“I read one of the others while I waited for you.” While he’d waited for me.

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

“The thought of you seeing me like that; bound and weak and helpless.” He shook his head, looking down so his hair covered his face in a soft, jewel-toned sweep. “You were injured, and you’d been tortured,” I said fiercely, my throat on fire as my voice grated. “You’re not weak.”

“My kind are… we abhor violence. We try not to hurt others, even if they are hurting us.”

“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.

“Aury,” I repeated, trying to say it just as he had—ow-ree.

“I haven’t heard anyone say it in so long.” God, he was killing me. “Aury,” I repeated, more confidently, and smiled when Aury grinned again, showing off his even, white teeth. “It’s… I like it,”

Three big shapes—a large, long vehicle that looked like a bus, and two huge, monstrous forms pulling it.

“Hello, pets,” she said in a saccharine, high-pitched voice. “My name’s Mary.”

knew she was about to say the very last thing I wanted her to. “We need Moth.”

Moth had never screwed him over and left him for dead—shrugged.

Tea

“Moth will know what to do.” Anchor shot me a brief, stern look that said she understood I wouldn’t be happy, but it was her final decision. “We’ll get a message to him.”

Moth was a nomad who stuck around this area, occasionally appearing to trade with us or share information or pass messages on from other camps.

“It’s not a person,” Cutter snarled back. “It’s a monster.” He pointed directly at Aury, whose big black eyes widened a little.

OH HELL NO

I wanted to wrap my arms around Aury and drag him into my bed, to hide under the covers. I wanted to protect him from ever being hurt again.

He looked so beautiful and joyful—so grateful to me—even though all I’d done was give him a coat. It made me want to give him anything he wanted. Everything.

Aury. He was so kind and gentle and sweet. But because he—what, had wings? Looked different?—people treated him badly.

I was going to do everything in my power to keep Aury from being hurt again.

“The one with the war hammer. Did he say anything when they got here?

And don’t punch Moth when you find him.”

face already hot, because I was a total loser.

Not to mention that his forked tongue was especially talented, making me want to whimper as it played with mine.

I was momentarily shocked by his assertiveness, so at odds with his usual gentle nature, but… shit, it was hot.

Aury’s tongue slid back up my length. When I felt the twin points tickle either side of my cockhead, the sensitive V cupped in the split of his tongue, I actually whimpered.

“I want you. I want to—” “You don’t have to do anything, Gage.” Aury kissed me, agonisingly soft, his tongue brushing the ticklish, sensitive part of my top lip. “I don’t expect you to—” “God, I want to.”

I wanted to replace every bad memory he had of humans with good ones. With memories of me.