Savage Retribution

by Lexxie Couper

  “I don’t think you’re a freak.”

  “Yeah, right. And monsters are people too.”

  “Most of them,” he agreed. “But that’s not what I mean. You’re special.”

  Benie flushed, her index fingernail instantly going between her teeth. “That’s me. Special all over.”

  “I’d like to find out.” The corner of his mouth tugged into a crooked grin.

  Benie snorted. She bet he would, and God, she hated herself for thinking it, but she’d like for him to find out too.

  “Look, your normal color is returning.”

  She gazed at her hands. They were shifting back to sun-kissed and freckled. “None of this messes with your head?” She shook her own, remembering he was an other worlder. Of course, he was used to crazy.

  “Is that how you see yourself? As crazy?”

  Benie shrugged. “I’ve got a shrink.” She relaxed. He had that effect on her, and now that her brain wasn’t sex addled, she didn’t like it. Not one little bit.

  Trace reached for her.

  “Don’t.” She got up and moved to the front window, putting space between them.

  Trace stepped toward her. “It’s okay.” Suddenly, his facial expression and body language changed to alert, defensive. “Move away from the window,” he shouted.

  Glass shattered around Benie as she lunged sideways to avoid the body flying past her into the house. “What the fuck!”

  “It’s a polandrial,” Trace said, crouching, his legs a little more than shoulders’ width apart. “Watch his spikes. They’re deadly poisonous.”

  Benie took up a similar stance. She’d never seen this kind of OW before. His skin was mottled gray with quills poking out of his face and neck. She did, however, recognized the swirling tattoo on his upper arm at the base of the quills. Another fucking tracker! The beast ignored Trace, focusing his cold eyes on her. The quills lifted, jutting outward like a porcupine in attack mode.

  “Holy shit.” She let out a long breath. Head blows were out of the question. “Do you have a gun?”

  “No. I don’t like guns.”

  “Brilliant,” Benie muttered. Trace Calder wasn’t only a card-carrying, tofu-loving, telepathic OW—he was a goddamn pacifist.

  A spike shot out of the hissing creature’s neck. Benie barely ducked in time for it to miss her head and bury itself into the wall. She yanked her knife from the sheath under her arm and held it out toward spiky jerkface.

  Trace jumped forward into a tuck and roll, came up near the monster’s position, and kicked the back of the attacker’s knee.

  Howling, it dropped down to the floor on all fours. Benie seized the opportunity, throwing the knife end on end at its big, ugly head.

  It ducked. Lightning quick. The knife buried itself into the wall.

  “Fuck’n A.” She ran across the living room to the hallway as spikes from the beastly OW marked her trail like a spray of bullets from a machine gun. “Does this thing ever run out of ammo?” she yelled as she ducked into the guest bathroom. Partly because she wanted to know, and partly because she wanted to know if Trace was all right.

  “I have no idea,” he shouted back, his voice coming from farther away than the living room.

  “Not comforting.” But she was pleased he wasn’t out there all by himself like a sitting duck. “How do we kill it?”

  “It can hear you,” came the polandrial’s inhuman voice.

  “Son of a bitch.” Benie scanned the small bathroom for anything she could use as a weapon. There wasn’t much. A pump dispenser of soap, a hand towel on a ring, and a large mirror. No medicine cabinet, but there was a plastic shower curtain on a spring-loaded rod.

  The rod. It would have to do. She yanked the curtain down, rod and all. It fell apart when it hit the tiled floor. “Excellent,” she whispered, picking one pole up in each hand.

  “Come out, come out, girl. Wherever you are,” the beast beckoned.

  Great, it wanted to play hide and seek.

  Benie heard its heavy footsteps coming up the hallway. She looked in the mirror. Her skin had changed to match the small surroundings. She needed to strip to nothing and fast. Setting the poles on the sink, she yanked off her shirt and bra, kicked out of her shoes, and shoved her pants and underwear to the floor.

  The creature’s heavy breathing grew closer with every step. Benie crouched inside the doorjamb and waited—surprise her only hope.

  The polandrial charged in, spraying spikes in all directions. Luckily, they hit above her head.

  “Where are you?” the creature snarled. He lifted his snout and sniffed the air. “I know you’re in here. I can smell your cunt.”

  Benie’s eyes widened. That was fucking rude for…anyone! Man or beast. She would rip out its tongue for that remark.

  When it turned its back, Benie grabbed the plastic curtain from the floor and threw it over the asshole’s head. It thrashed around, but before it could knock the curtain off, she tackled him into the tub. She dropped an elbow down hard on its shoulder, making the beast cry out in pain.

  Good. It felt good to hurt it. An overwhelming urge to kill the tracker coursed through her. She literally saw red. Screaming out a battle cry, she went into a berserk-rage, wildly punching, kneeing, kicking out, and making as much physical contact as she could with the monster. She wanted it dead, but she wanted it to suffer first. Benie couldn’t think. It was as if her brain had shut off and only the animal part of her existed. Her hatred fueled her rage with pure adrenaline and instinct.

  Unfortunately, the spiked tracker managed to remove the curtain from his head and three darts pierce her forearm. The effect staggered her. A sheer burning pain where the quills had hit traveled up her arm like all her veins were fuses and someone had lit a match.

  The monster threw her off, and Benie’s backside hit the vanity doors. She rolled onto the tile floor. Even though she’d been hit in the right arm, her left started aching as the pain reached her chest. Her heart.

  A guttural laugh cut through the fog building in her mind. “The prize is mine,” the tracker declared, leaping from the tub.

  She braced herself for death. So, when its decapitated head went rolling past her body and out the bathroom door, she couldn’t have been more surprised.

  Trace stood over her, looking magnificently warrior-ish with a bloody sword in hand. “I’m not a pacifist.”

  “Good…to…know,” Benie managed, right before pain and darkness swallowed her whole.