Page 77 of Tenebrous

They tumble over in my mind as if they'll eventually rearrange themselves into something that makes a single goddamn ounce of sense. My gaze even drops to my stomach in search of whatever he's referencing, only to find nothing there. Obviously.

Just the same flat abdomen I've had my entire life, and yet, a horrible possibility begins scratching at the back of my thoughts.

There are approximately a thousand explanations for what he just said, but none of them involve the thing my increasingly unhinged brain is trying to suggest.

“No,” I whisper, instinctively clutching my stomach. “That's... That can't be.”

Maybe Orion somehow changed me. Maybe this asshole can smell that we've had sex, or maybe I've got monster DNA in my blood. Anything but⁠—

No. Absolutely fucking not.

“It is so.” The beast rises to his full height, one eye glittering in the firelight. “You rejected your mate and yet, his spawn grows inside you.”

“You're fucking lying!” I shout as I curl in on myself. “I'm not… I don’t even have the parts humanly possible for that, what the fuck.”

“You believe your body to be wholly human?” he muses.

“I am human.”

“My mate thought so as well.” His gaze drifts toward Paula for the briefest moment before settling back on me. “She believed herself only human until she carried my son.”

“It's impossible!”

Except the moment those words leave my mouth, something deep inside me seems to recoil from the lie.

My hand remains pressed against my belly, but beneath my palm, there's nothing unusual to feel. No physical proof that anything has changed at all, yet still, I know.

Somehow, I fucking know.

Ever since I left Orion, I've carried this strange awareness of him inside of me. That tether I can't see or explain, but can always feel tugging beneath my ribs, stretching painfully no matter how much distance I put between us.

But now that I'm paying attention to it… there's something else woven through it, too. Something barely more than a flicker of warmth embedded in my soul, but familiar in a way that makes my throat close.

Orion. Not him exactly, but something of him. A tiny spark carrying that same inexplicable pull I've felt toward my monster from the very beginning.

“Oh my God,” I whisper.

“She feared him at first, too,” Orion's father says conversationally, as though discussing the weather instead of dismantling my entire understanding of reality. “Feared what grew inside her. What it made her become.”

I shake my head so hard my neck begins to ache. “You're just trying to scare me.”

“You are already afraid.” He takes a handful of Earl’s hair and lifts his head off the stone. Blood pours freely from the ruined throat, pattering onto the cave floor. “This one tried to end my mate's line.”

Paula lets out a broken sound, and the creature glances at her. With a careless flick of his wrist, he lets Earl's skull slam back against the rock. “So I will use this female to begin it anew.”

“You motherfucker!” I lunge forward on impulse as rage drowns out all my sense of disbelief. The chain snaps taut around my ankle, yanking me violently onto my back. Pain explodes through my leg.

The creature doesn't even flinch, only hooks his hands around Earl’s corpse and drags it toward the fire, leaving behind a thick smear of blood.

“Stop!” I growl, but he ignores me.

Paula finally moves, breaking out of her daze to crawl toward Earl with trembling hands. “No,” she sobs. “Please... don't.”

The beast looks at her with complete indifference as he tosses another log onto the fire. Then, he grips Earl's limbs and digs his claws into flesh as though he intends to tear it from bone. “You humans waste everything. We will eat this meat before it spoils.”

Paula makes a strangled sound, and I reach for her even though the chain prevents me from getting close enough to touch. There is nothing I can do—no way to prevent this.

Hopeless realization settles over me.