Ugh. Pregnant. I still have a hard time wrapping my mind around the idea that there's a tiny, squirmy thing growing inside me, that it's only a matter of time until I can feel it. Writhing. Kicking. Distending my belly, squishing my insides out of place, making it impossible to ever be comfortable. I already feel fucking crazy, flipping back and forth between exhaustion and raging, restless discontent, a hunger I haven't been able to pin down or sate.

God, and then – nope, nope, it is way too soon to think about the and then part. About having to shove something that size out of my body, through parts I'm still pretty damn fond of. Parts I'd really like to be intact when all this is over and I've managed to expel the kid from my insides. And after all that? After the way the little parasite is going to wreck my body, it'll be...there. Existing. Forever. Well, or at least for a good couple of decades, assuming I don't completely fail at the whole, horrifying mommy thing. It'll be alive, and needing me for at least a while.

Here's hoping the thing inherits my comparative independent streak and not that clinging, cloying, ferocious family is everything bullshit from my hypocrite of a mother. Oh, she'd drop everything for her precious firstborn, her lost boy, her firebrand. Forgive him anything, even setting another of her children on fire. On fire! And why? Because my hormones kicked in a little earlier than he would've liked. Boo mother-fucking hoo. Set out to hunt him down as soon as she found out, sure, but to avenge me? Of course not. No, to rescue him from a karmic bitchslap. He left me feeling like a monster, like I had ruined our already shattered family, ground it into dust beneath my heels, like I deserved to burn.

Well fuck them all.

This body is mine. I just found a way to have some fun with it, just started to feel like I had a damn right to it, and this little monster comes along and thinks it gets to take over? I don't fucking think so. So even though I feel like shit, even though I'd rather curl up in a ball and sleep for a week, even though I feel about as sexy as a goddamn hippopotamus and the idea of anyone touching me right now makes me a little nauseous, I grit my teeth and drag myself out of the shelter of a far too cozy willow tree to hunt for anything, anything to chase away the feeling that my body isn't mine anymore.

As if summoned by my silent demand, she is beside me. There is nothing right about her, not the waxy grey of her skin or the lurching of her stride or those dead eyes too bright, too intent as she looks at me. Her voice skitters along my spine in a sickening caress, and I can't quite tell if the tingling in its wake is horror or hunger and right now I don't care.  “Chantale.” Her name is honey on my lips, if only because I need it to be. “A pleasure,” I croon, forcing my body forward, painting a sultry expression on my face as I draw near enough to touch her.

A teasing brush of my lips along her neck is enough to feel the unsettling cold of her skin. I offer her my name in return, matching that purring tone of hers. “I'm Ryss.” Not happy, curious, wide-eyed gypsy Dare-baby. Not caged, muted, weak little monster Daeryssa. I am Ryss, reckless and ravenous and reveling in the lightning singing in my veins as a lover sinks into my skin. Even if the storm is infuriatingly reluctant to wake back up and play, dammit.

Cold, dead lips brush against my skin, an icy touch that leeches away a little warmth even in just a moment of contact. A delicious little shiver races down my spine in the wake of her brief caress, just a little bit wrong, a little bit wicked in its newness. Every body I've pressed against or arched into or writhed beneath has been warm, and the contrast is intriguing. As long as I don't look too hard at those too-bright, too-dead eyes, it could be fun to play with a snowstorm instead of lightning.

I like the sound of my name on those icy lips, and when I touch her again it's with a hint of fascination just starting to brew. The chill of her flesh seeps into me, siphoning off a little bit of my body heat as I explore the line of her jaw, the flat plane of her cheek. “Well you see,” I murmur, my mouth tracing the edge of her ear, “I'm beginning to like monsters.” Everyone else has been too gentle, too sweet, too soft. Monsters make the best playmates; they're not afraid to use their teeth, to draw blood, to make it hurt in all the right ways. “They're so much better at making me scream.”

Only one has been dark enough to get my heart pounding, rough enough to make me completely come undone and leave me melted into a pool of sunlight, basking in the aftermath, too exhausted even to stand as he walked away. Only one has had what it took to wake lightning in my veins; only one has lingered on my skin for days, weeks, as the marks we left behind healed. But he can't be the only one capable of it. Maybe I just have to find the right kind of monster. “Why, are you one of them?”