Page 31 of Fathom

I rejected it.

I pointed a finger at one of the hyenas and shouted the first threat that popped into my head. "I'm going to grind your bones to make my bread!"

The words came out like a loud growl, and the hyenas all stopped laughing, pausing as they looked at me. One of them tilted his head to the side and said something. Then they all started laughing again.

I opened my mouth to scream again, my hands clenching into fists, rejecting flight, freeze, and fawn in favor of fight.

If I were going to die, I was going to earn my place in Valhalla.

A loud snarl echoed through the room as the metal door in the back of the room slammed open. The hyenas only just started to turn when one of them was tackled to the floor in a blur of fur. Claws shredded through the hyena, catching its throat as bright blood sprayed across the dusty boxes. They all started shouting, one of them lunging at Eun as he dove to the side, rolling up to his feet and kicking out to catch another one in the gut.

One of the hyenas didn't join the fray, instead backing up towards me.

I jumped on his back and dug my fingers into all four of his eyeballs. He let out a shriek and reached up, his claws sinking into my forearms as he tore me off of him, throwing me across the room. My back hit one of the boxes, and I landed on the floor, pain ricocheting through my forearms. Boxes tumbled, lightweight as they cascaded down around me, creating a small cave that blocked me from the rest of the warehouse. I heard thesnarls and screams, the crunch of flesh and gurgle. Pain was my existence, jagged holes punched through between my bones. I pulled off my shirt. I fumbled with the fabric before I found a small cut where one of the aliens had already cut it. I dug my fingers into it, and with trembling hands and spikes of pain, I tore it in half.

I wrapped it around one of my forearms and then the other, tying the strips tightly in place, stopping the bleeding as best I could.

By the time I was done, there was silence from the other side of the boxes except for a low, deep growl that repeated with the steady rhythm of someone's breath.

I pushed one of the boxes that had landed on an angle on top of me to form a roof supported by the boxes that had tumbled down first. It fell over to the side, and I climbed out to face my fate.

Eun was crouched in the center of a massacre.

The hyenas were spread out around him, throats torn out, limbs ripped off, pools of blood, and in one place, a pile of entrails that had been torn from an abdomen. Eun was the centerpiece of death, his clothes torn and stained, blood dripping down from his hair as it rose up in the air like legs on a spider, his tail soaked in it, cuts sliced all over him, his body a canvas of violence and survival. One of the boxes had piles of meat spilling from it, all wrapped up. A few of them were torn open, the wrappers strewn about and empty.

He stared at me, his eyes wild, his teeth bared, feral, his gaze glazed over as if he didn't even recognize me, his mouth moving as he chewed something and then swallowed.

There was blood dripping down from the corner of his mouth, and he licked it as he stared at me.

"Eun," I whispered as I took a step towards him.

He didn't move, just stared at me, his entire body tensing.

It was like he couldn't see me, like I was a body, not a person.

"Eun?" I said again as I took another step towards him.

Then he was on me.

His hands were all over me, his tail twining its way up my leg. His hair arched out over us, stretching out as if it could form a cocoon around us both.

His bare hands were on my stomach, one trailing around my ribs, his claws catching at my bra, ripping the straps. He tore through it, the fabric snapping. I had a moment to gasp, and then his hand was on my breast, cupping it, squeezing as his face pressed into my other one, his teeth grazing my nipple, sending shivers of need through me as his other hand reached around behind my back, claws trailing blood up my spine, his touch delicate and dominating, gentle and all-consuming. His slippery tail had found its way under the edge of my trousers and was reaching up, touching my inner thigh. I gasped with the assault, the sudden aggression that straddled the border between violence and sensuality. Then he was sweeping me off my feet, his hands lifting my legs to put them around his hips as he bent me back and put my shoulders down on the ground.

He was between my legs, pressed against me as his teeth closed around my throat.

I froze at the feeling of those sharp points, his hot tongue licking my jugular.

He let out a snarl that was almost like a groan, a tormented whimper.

If he bit me, I could die; he was so strong.

I wanted him, but I didn't want to die for him.

I asked for what I wanted.

"Eun," I said, unable to keep the need and fear and desireout of that single word. I angled my hips, shifting them, rubbing myself against his length, showing him what I wanted, what I needed.

His entire body trembled as a gasp whispered from his mouth, the tightness on my throat easing until he let go.