Page 64 of Monster. Me.

He nods.

I notice Reed fastening metal restraints around Fenn’s wrists.

"Don’t forget to lie down for an hour and take a nap so you can regenerate properly," the doctor calls after us, then sneezes loudly once again.

We leave the lab and ride in silence toward Fenn’s room.

Reed says nothing, his expression hard to read.

As we approach the door, Fenn’s eyes are still locked on me.

At that exact moment, I notice Wilhelm stepping out of a nearby room.

He freezes in the doorway when he spots us.

Seeing me holding Fenn’s hand, he twists his face into a disgusting grimace and, thinking Fenn can’t see it, lifts his hand to his mouth and makes a series of vulgar gestures, miming jerking someone off. At the same time, he opens his mouth wide into an "O" and rolls his tongue in an obscene, swirling motion.

No idea how Fenn even catches it…

Without any visible effort, he yanks both arms up and tears the metal restraints off their mountings with a loud crack. Thick industrial bands, around three inches wide and half an inch thick, solid steel. And yet they are like paper now.

Reed hisses in protest, but if he thinks he can stop Fenn Drax, he’s delusional.

His movements aren’t human.

The leap he makes toward Wilhelm covers about thirty feet.

Seven feet six in height, a massive body, and yet he moves like a flash of light.

What the fuck? Even I couldn’t jump like that. So what the hell is Fenn?

Of course, I rush after him right away, afraid of how this ends.

Wilhelm is suddenly under the ceiling of the small storage room he was trying to leave earlier, lifted by one of Fenn’s arms, his head slamming into the wall, blood splashing…

Immediately, I grab Fenn’s shoulder and shout:

"No, please! Leave that trash. He’s not worth it!"

My touch seems to calm the violent, almost unimaginable surge of aggression in Fenn Drax’s body; its energy reads so strong, almost palpable, radiating from him in a wide, red aura.

What fills him now feels so intense and completely wild, that it makes me shiver. As a cat, I am a predator myself, but Fenn seems to be on a whole different level.

Looking at his profile, it appears to shift slightly, his face elongating somewhat and his teeth protruding more, but maybe it’s an illusion.

But the longer my hand stays on his shoulder, the more that energy softens and recedes.

Wilhelm hangs limp in his grip, blood dripping from his temple.

Fenn slowly steps back and lets him fall to the ground like a sack of potatoes, then turns toward me.

His three-dimensional purple eyes lock onto mine.

"Nobody… nobody offends you in my presence," he says slowly, leaning slightly toward me, his gaze dropping to my lips.

In a split second I close the distance, rising onto my toes, and our lips meet in a heated, passionate kiss.

His hands pull me against him, into his hard-as-stone body. I press into him, fire igniting inside me. I feel his hardness, mine meeting his…