Moth (Monstrous, #5)

by Lily Mayne

Now, I relished telling Hunter—my best friend of twelve years, the only guy in the world I trusted wholeheartedly with my life—that I preferred his big monster boyfriend over him.

“I don’t have a gut,” he snapped, but his voice had an edge of worry. Edin boomed out a big laugh. “Don’t worry, josdo.” He pulled Hunter into him with a thick arm around his neck. “I still love you, even with your gut.” “I don’t have a gut!” “Gah, and if you did?” Edin waved an imperious hand. “What is so wrong with a gut? It means I am feeding you well. Providing for my mate.”

Seemed like it wasn’t just Hunter chasing monster dick, then. Well—and Danny. I’d only met him briefly, but he had apparently decided on the most monstrous dick of monster dicks. The Soul Eater was… terrifying.

The grey monster had two small, dark horns protruding from above his temples, unnerving eyes with goat-like irises, and thick cabling under his skin. His long fingers gripped the handle of his war hammer, but he kept it resting on the ground, which let me breathe a little easier. “Tiny horns,” Edin muttered in a conspiratorial tone to Hunter as we approached. He snorted. “So?” “Just saying.”

“Aury is in control. He wouldn’t lie to you. He doesn’t want to hurt anyone.” Edin cast a glance at Hunter, brows pinched. Slowly he nodded. “I trust your word, friend,” he said, then looked at Aury with a smile. “You are strong, to control it.” Aury flushed and gave a little shrug. “Because of my mate. He helped me.”

“Hunter left it all behind to stay with me,” Edin rumbled, kissing the visible line of Hunter’s scar at his temple. “Didn’t you, josdo?” Hunter’s eyes creased with a lopsided smile as he looked back at him. “That’s right.”

“That dude with the white hair is creeping me out a little,” I muttered to Hunter as we followed Gloam and Rig. “He’s giving me uncanny valley vibes. Something’s off with him.” “Yeah?” Hunter cocked his head as he looked. He shrugged. “I guess. He’s hot.” Edin let out a disgruntled snarl from the other side of him and smacked Hunter in the chest. It was immensely satisfying for me—and I suspected for Edin—to hear Hunter wheeze at the impact. “I just meant objectively, scratch.” His voice was tight, like he was trying to mask the discomfort. I snorted. “Yes, well.” Edin grunted and lifted his chin imperiously. “Just remember who you said was the hottest thing you’d ever seen when I was riding your—”

He was too perfect. Too stunningly beautiful to really look human. He looked more like what an artist would picture the perfect human to look like.

And they were aimed at Ghost with an embarrassingly obvious expression. Christ, his pupils had practically reshaped themselves into cartoon hearts. I suppressed my wince, glancing down at Ghost’s hand firmly tucked inside Aury’s. Tough break, dude.

“Ghost here is a bit of an introvert, too.” “Hunter’s not an introvert,” I said cheerfully. “He’s just an unlikeable asshole.”

Everyone just fucking loved the new human in the camp. Edin’s surly human lover didn’t really speak to anyone or make an effort to ingratiate himself with the raiders, but the one with dark hair and grey eyes—Charlie—seemed to effortlessly draw attention and make people want to flock to him. With his big, stupid smile and smooth, low voice with a southern accent.

My human mother had died in childbirth, as far as I was aware. It had been before the monster apocalypse, and at first, no one had noticed anything different about me. I’d been placed into care. They thought I was a baby girl, but when my body started changing, the people looking after me didn’t want me anymore. The ones after that tried for a while, but they didn’t want me either. They found me horrifying to look at. They thought I had some awful disease or congenital malformation. The monsters rose when I was five. When it happened, the couple who’d been caring for me just… left. They packed up and fled, leaving me in their house.

He’d had a cage on his head. He couldn’t talk. But then he’d arrived at the camp with Rig all those weeks later, with his head free and his voice back. When our eyes had locked in the diner that day, terror made me break out in a cold sweat. I’d been convinced he was going to tell them all, and I didn’t know what they’d have done to me if they’d found out.

My face burned as Hunter and Edin fussed over me like I was their only child getting ready to go on his first school field trip.

Aury and Ghost joined them, and I saw the way Moth’s eyes softened as he hungrily stared at the raider before looking away. Jesus, he had it bad. I wondered if Ghost even knew.

Moth is… He keeps himself at a distance from everyone, but he is good. I trust him.” That made me feel a little better, and I gave Edin a small, grateful smile. He returned it with a big, fanged grin, palming my head to jerk it closer and rub his cheek over my hair. “Edin,” I muttered, my cheeks on fire as I glanced over to see if Moth and the others had seen. They had. They were all watching. Gloam’s lips were quirked into a little smile, but Moth just huffed in disgust and looked away.

He was irritatingly attractive. Even the back of him was. The wide shoulders and long legs. The sword. Why was the sword so hot? He should have looked like a douche.

“If any of you survive, maybe you’ll learn to just leave people alone.” His voice was steady, and his face was almost emotionless when he turned and walked back toward me. I stared at the four people all thrashing on the ground, moaning in agony, blood pumping from their various severed appendages. Okay, so… the sword wasn’t just for show.

“Seriously, what the fuck have I done to you? Or are you just angry that I offered to come with you before Ghost could?” He stiffened, face going pink. “What are you—What’s that supposed to mean?” I snorted. “Come on. If you wanted to keep it a secret, maybe you shouldn’t gaze at him like a lovesick teenager all the time.”

I, uh… I tend to ramble when I’m nervous.” He quirked a brow at me. “You must be nervous all the time, then.”

“You were there for less than twenty minutes before you had them all eating out of the palm of your hand,” he burst out, breathing hard, making my brows hike up. “You just waltzed right in and they all fucking loved you. I didn’t offer to do this because I wanted to be a fucking hero. I offered to do it so Ghost wouldn’t have to.”

Yeah, I was attracted to Moth, even though he was an asshole most of the time and in love with a raider. And I was pretty sure that he was attracted to me too, even just a little. I was also pretty sure that he hated it.

“You got me a scarf?” I let out a blissful sigh, my warm breath heating my cold chin and nose under the fabric. “Thanks, Moth.” He grunted, pale eyes flashing to me before he started walking again. “So you stop bitching about being cold.”

“You couldn’t tell there was something when you saw me?” I could, but again, I didn’t want to say that. “I was mainly distracted by how hot you were,” I said in a joking tone—but it wasn’t entirely a joke. The visible part of Moth’s face flamed pink. He didn’t seem to know how to respond for a few seconds, but then he snorted and muttered, “Whatever.” I shrugged and chuckled, trying to ignore the way my heart was beating a little faster. “Just calling it like I see it.”

“I’m sorry,” I heard Moth whisper. My brows pinched. He sounded… broken. Defeated, like he was fully aware that I didn’t trust him anymore and he hated it. Which made no fucking sense. “Will you tell me where you went?” I asked, voice still tight. There was silence for a long moment. “I can’t,” he said hoarsely. “But I didn’t want to go. I wouldn’t—I didn’t want to just leave you, Charlie. I mean it.”

“I want him to be happy. Aury makes him happy.” God, he sounded so miserable. Tentatively, I reached up and rested my hand on his back. “I know it hurts, but that makes you a good person, Moth. You’ll find someone who wants you as much as you want them.”

“Whoops,” he said. My lips parted on a stunned little puff of breath. I turned to face him. “Whoops?” He quirked a brow at me. “Well, did you mean to kill him?” “Of course not!” “So it was an accident.” I clenched my hands into fists. “That doesn’t mean you can just be so… cavalier about it.” Moth folded his arms over his chest. “I didn’t kill him.” My face burned. “It was an accident.” “I know. I just said that.”

Try and think of him like you do Edin, my brain suggested, and I almost physically cringed at the idea. I couldn’t. Mainly because I definitely did not want to fuck Edin—I’d seen what he was packing beneath that kilt; there was no way in hell I’d ever let that baseball bat anywhere near me.

But when I looked at Moth, I could never decide if I wanted to strangle him or start tearing off his clothes. He was infuriatingly attractive. His face was like a work of art—almost too perfect to be real. Definitely too perfect to be human. Didn’t stop me wanting to punch it, though.

“I’m really attracted to you, Moth. Like, really attracted.” I chuckled even as he went completely still, staring down at the bed with his back hunched. “And… maybe I’ve got it completely wrong, but it feels like… you’re attracted to me too?”

“I… Y-yeah. I guess.” I paused, then snorted before teasing, “You guess? Real flattering.” His face went pink, but he still didn’t look up at me. “Yeah. I am,”

“I’m attracted to people, Moth,” I told him. “Not… specific genders or body types or whatever. I know you’re not all human. That doesn’t factor into it one way or another. I just…” I shrugged. “Want you.”

“Okay,” he said quietly. I stared at him, my gut squeezing tight with anticipation. “Okay what?” I said, even though I knew what he was referring to, but I needed him to voice it out loud. To remove any doubt. Moth huffed again but didn’t move. “Okay to your… proposition.”

“That doesn’t mean I won’t want to lick every inch of you,” I told him with a little grin, pleased when his pupils expanded in a rush. “When you’re comfortable with me doing it, that is. I guarantee, Moth, I’m going to love every part of you.”

The things that made him different from humans fascinated me. Intrigued me. But not in a fetishistic way. In a way that made me want to force him to see how those differences were good, not bad. I wanted to make him feel good about himself, for seemingly the first time in his life.

“Why don’t I take these off and get on the bed? You can look your fill and see what you’re considering getting up close and personal with.” I gave a little shrug. “Maybe you’ll hate what you see and we’ll call it quits.” Moth snuffled out a little laugh, and the sound of it softened me. “I don’t think that’s going to happen,”

“Kissing me really… did that?” I chuckled. “What, made me this hard?” My fingers twitched again with the intense urge to fist my cock and give it a stroke, but I held myself still. “Yeah,” I told him, staring up at him as he stared at my dick. “Kissing you made me really need to come, Moth.”

“I’ll just make myself come when you go. It’ll still be great.”

“Can I stay?” he asked in a rush. My brows twitched at the question. “I didn’t mean I wanted you to go.” I sat up a little, leaning on my elbow. “I just meant—” “No, I know,” he blurted. His cheeks flushed. He licked his lips, drawing my gaze there, making me want to kiss him again. “I meant… I meant… can I stay and watch?”

the military had wiped out an entire city district because some people were sick—and they’d used monsters to do it.

Charlie didn’t care about my monster side. Charlie had seen me naked, for fuck’s sake—though not all of me—and he still… wanted me. Despite what I looked like under my clothes.

It had all felt so much… better, because I’d felt like I actually had permission to stare at him. To want him. There hadn’t been the fear that if I stared for too long, he’d sneer and ask me what the fuck I thought I was looking at. He wanted me back. He’d wanted me to look at him.

“I really hope I at least get to kiss you one more time before we both possibly die painful, parasitic deaths.” Uncertainty flitted over his features. “If you want to, that is.”

“Are you sure your pack’s not too heavy? I can carry it.” I grinned over at Moth as I adjusted the straps of my backpack to tug it higher. “Are you gettin’ sweet on me, Moth?” He flushed pink and looked away. “You’re so annoying.” There was no heat behind it. And when I wrapped an arm around his shoulders and tugged him close to place a big kiss on his cheek, he let me. “I’m good,” I said, releasing him. “Feel great. Having a sexy nurse helped speed up my recovery immensely.”

He was so beautiful. Way more beautiful than anyone else I’d ever seen—even Danny, the Soul Eater’s human partner, who was a total hottie and had for some reason decided that the creepy, ghoulish Wyn was the one deserving of all that male beauty.

“Moth, I’ve already told you,” I began hoarsely, “I want you, exactly as you are. You don’t need to do anything you’re not comfortable with.

“You’re perfect,” I croaked, forcing myself not to dig my fingers in and hold him tighter. “I want to touch you so much, Moth. If you still want me to.” He made a hoarse sound in his throat and finally pulled his arm away, his eyes tight when he looked at me. My chest ached at the weak, fearful hope I could see in his gaze. He licked his lips. “You… I want you to. If you want to.” I choked out a laugh and squeezed his hip before wrapping my hand around my cock. “Think it’s pretty obvious that I definitely want to.”

“I’m s-sorry,” he got out. “I d-don’t know w-why I’m c-crying.” But I did. He’d finally let himself be vulnerable with someone for the first time in his life. He’d forced himself to push aside all his fears and insecurities about his body and let someone touch him. See him.

“It’s always overwhelming, the first time you have sex with someone. There’s nothing wrong with having an emotional reaction to it.” “But I ruined it,” he said miserably. “You didn’t even get to…” My mouth quirked up. “So? It’s not a trade. Trust me, Moth, I loved it. You didn’t ruin anything.”

still wanted Moth fiercely, but it was more than just sexual gratification. I wanted him to see how desirable he was. How there was someone who wanted him just as he was, even if he didn’t want anything more with me.