Captured by the Monsters

by R.L. Caulder

It was everything that accompanied the stereotype of a female saying they liked pink. That it made us girly, housemakers, and one day mothers. It was “femininity” personified in a color, and I fucking hated it.

I hated being told that I would be an incredible mother and wife one day, even though I was as single as it got. Couldn’t I be more than that? Or was I not enough as I was right now?

Forty-eight hours until I would no longer be eligible to be offered up as a sacrifice to uphold the treaty between The Above and The Below.

Being a mom just wasn’t for me, I had quickly realized. I’d mom the fuck out of my cat, but human babies? No.

The deal had originally stated one batch of ten human women per year, to uphold our end, but in my lifetime, it had increased to whenever the monsters demanded it.

“Report to the loading zone at the Citadel within the next four hours. Bring nothing with you. If you do not report on time, your family will be subject to the defector clause of the treaty.” Basically, if you defected and ran, your family would be killed.

“I refuse to be another woman added to the statistic of sacrifices that never return. My name is Serafina Adler, and I’ll be back.”

I couldn’t keep the lid on my mouth at this point. I had been quiet my entire life, accepting the mannerisms I was forced to adopt, but no more. If I was going to survive down here, I needed my fire. No more hiding it.

“We must protect you, precious.”

“You would slay your brethren?” Azmunch scoffed, acting like he was calling their bluff. My Trifecta responded instantly and with unwavering certainty. “Yes.” “Without a second thought.” “She is ours.”

I’d heard tales of the other trifectas finding their human mate, only to have her cower in fear. Some were even said to die from the horror.

“I don’t just want to immerse myself in your body, Sera. I want to immerse myself in your heart.”

I flipped him off, not that he could see it. But it’s the thought that counts, right?

“Obviously we won’t be forcing her,” Sylan scoffed. “This is her heart—her trust in us—that’s on the line. We cannot abuse that when we’ve given her this promise. Even if she says yes right now, it’d be the ‘yes’ of her body, not the ‘yes’ of her heart, and that’s what we want.”

Deep down, even if it was a forced feeling, the thing that I longed for was Sera’s heart, but I didn’t deserve it. I couldn’t give her mine, so I shouldn’t—couldn’t—demand hers…right?

It was clear he liked me enough to fuck my mouth, but there was no way he’d cooked food for me.

It seemed that my body knew what it wanted and what to do. For the time being, I let it take charge. “Careful, Sera,” Rowen cautioned, almost mocking. “You're playing with fire. Don’t let your body make a decision your heart’s not into.”

“Thank you for making it perfect,” I whispered against his mouth. “Thank you for trusting me,” he answered back before kissing me tenderly.

If he had asked me to steal the moon for him right now, I would have promised that I would in a heartbeat, despite knowing damn well I couldn’t.

“I don’t know about humans as a whole, but there is one in particular who’s pretty amazing. She has a smile that lights up a room and is the most beautiful creature in all the lands. Her heart far outshines any of our kind.”

“Are you trying to flatter me to get in my pants?” It was totally working, but he didn’t need to know that.

“It’s nine against three. There’s no way they will be able to protect their mate. We all know they will fail, so why do we have to bear witness to the once revered traditions being ruined?”

“The guards took your mate. If you cared that much for her, you shouldn’t have left us alone. But you were all nothing but a bunch of savages, chomping at the bit to steal human women and use them to repopulate your species.”

Two women had been sacrificed by their society to appease a bullshit treaty, set up for failure with the lies we were taught of this world, then were killed by traitors here.

She would still crave our touch, but only because she fed the crystal with that primal energy—it was her life force that sustained it, literally—and because so much was taken from her as Queen to feed it, she would never be able to have a baby. No Queen of the past had been able to.

Sera sighed. “I don’t really have a choice, do I?” I hated that phrase with a passion, simply because it crossed her lips too often and was a recurring theme in her life. I didn’t want her to hate this life that had been thrust upon her.

We had gained much by claiming her as our mate, but in contrast, she had lost much—her family, the life she knew, her choices, and today, a friend she had just made.

I knew that they were worried about me, probably concerned that I would balk at this new responsibility—that the choice had once more been taken from me, and it had—but by becoming Queen, I might have been granted my greatest wish.

If I was going to help fix their world, they couldn’t be surprised when I decided to fix where I came from as well. There was no way I could move on and act like The Above didn’t exist or that those who lived there had amazing lives. They didn’t. They deserved to be free and happy just as much as the Specters and Rumilus.

“Sera, I can’t lose you because…I love you. You aren’t just the Queen. You are our everything, gem.”

Fuck, I had already scared her with my proclamation, and here I went word-vomiting my feelings again.

Heroes to me aren’t special people who have superpowers. Heroes are the people who just choose to do the right thing, not expecting a reward in return.

I was sure he was plotting murder, too. The rebel leader had no idea how many targets he’d just painted on his back, but knowing my mate, she would be upset if we did anything to him. I wondered if maiming him was still an acceptable option, given the circumstances.

None of the castes were allowed to have anything that resembled a weapon, for exactly this reason—so there couldn’t be an uprising. I supposed the joke was on them because the rebels turned everyday household items like pens into knives and caused a riot in the Unified Capital,

The leader of The Above had been in cahoots with the usurpers all along. Of course they had. They had a similar goal.

In retrospect, I assumed the leader did this on purpose, sending us in a shuttle with no lights into an unknown, black cave where we couldn’t see anything as we descended into—what we thought was—hell. Fear was his supreme means of control, even as he was getting rid of us. The more I thought of it, the more it sickened me.

“It’s a girl.” All three men froze, torn between horror and awe, and I felt a moment of panic for our unborn baby girl. The first of her kind. Three possessive monsters for dads… Our poor daughter was never going to be able to date.