Page 40 of Zodiac Monsters

I rotated slowly, at a total loss to fight against anything that was happening. When I faced the large window pane, the darkness of the night paired with the mirrored glass reflected my perfect, vivid image back at me.

“What do you see, Lila Denton?” Adrian asked as he held me in place by my hair. His image leaned over me, encompassing everything that I was in his large and strong frame. “I want to hear you describe it.”

It was my own eyes that I saw first. Eyes that were near glowing in their soft golden brown. The unusual color could have been explained away by lighting, reflection, or a glare, but the rest of me could not.

“My ears.” I touched the lobes, following the once rounded contour to now pointed tips. “W-what the fuck is wrong with my ears?” Distorted glass? A fun house mirror? What was I looking at?

“You’re a shifter, Lila.” Adrian said, firmly and leaving no room for argument. I couldn’t have made a case against him if I tried. “You’re a Virgo hybrid. A Beta Virgo hybrid.” He dropped my hair to my shoulders, then he cupped his hands over each side of my head, covering my elf-like points. “You’re a monster, just like me.”

“I’m a monster.” I parroted him in idle disbelief, hoping my brain would catch up to my words. “I’m just like you.”

“Only, you’re not an Incubus, not a Vampire, and not some other shifter.” He didn’t move away. I didn’t know if he physically could will himself to separate from me at this point. “So tell me, Miss Denton: What are you?”

The reflection showed the gloss of moisture in my eyes. No words came to me. Not in my mind, and not to my lips.

I’d lived through countless moons on countless nights in my twenty-two years on this earth, and this had never happened. I’d never felt like this or looked like this. I’d never shifted. I’d never seen my mother or my father shift either. This didn’t make any sense.

Why now? Why here? Why tonight?

What changed?

Did he do this to me?

Maybe he really was like a werewolf. He infected me. That had to be what happened. I’m not—I’m human, goddamnit.

A tear trickled down each side of my face, and still I couldn’t make myself speak. I was in such utter shock, that my mind was already working to shut down the reality I was witnessing, finding a way to spin it into a lie.

“What’s going through your head right now?” Adrian asked, his voice a low, dark rumble in my fog. His hands still rested on my bare shoulders, and I hated the way my body took pleasure in the warmth of his contact right now. “Are you regretting it yet? Getting mixed up with me?” He drew his hands down my shoulders to my arms again, nudging the straps of my dress on the way down. It was an accident, yet offered more than enough suggestion to paint a vivid mental picture of him intentionally undressing me. Because under this moon, paralyzed by every command of his voice, while his reflection towered over mine, and my brain was a war of shock, realization, and a need to…

To…

“I can feel your fear, Lila.” He whispered into my hair. “I can taste it.” He nuzzled into me like he couldn’t help himself. “My beast may make you nervous, but it’s your own that truly terrifies you, isn’t it?” His slow breaths shook through his lips. “My little Beta Virgo.”

My whole soul froze under that small and powerful declaration. His grip was tense, like he was trying to catch himself after letting those words slip. Like he was losing control.

Like I was making him lose control.

And I latched onto that weapon with every ounce of fight or flight pounding through my veins.

“Prove it.” I demanded, with all the bite I could manage. “If that’s really how this all works, show me your Alpha form. Show me that we’re truly not the same tonight.”

“What?” His turquois eyes widened, and his tight expression slacked.

Fire. I was playing with napalm in a dress soaked in gasoline. I was fucking reeling and confused and terrified and impossibly fucking turned on all at the same time, and I didn’t understand a single damn bit of it, so I was giving up and shutting down and letting instinct dictate everything.

Tomorrow, I would have a lot to sort through. Tonight, I just wanted everything about my life to shut up and go away.

“Fucking prove it.” I repeated more harshly now. I could feel his heart pound a beat faster. I couldn’t say if it was his proximity or a result of the mark on my skin, but I could FEEL it. His grip tightened on my biceps until he was bruising my skin. I didn’t care. “You think I’m so far below you? That you can intimidate and control me? Then trigger your transformation, and show me you’re really this Alpha Hybrid and not some Zodiac Monster who infected me with your disease.”

The slipping control was visible in his eyes, his breathing, his heart rate, and fluctuations in his grip strength. He was calling me a Beta—a servant, an impressionable mutable sign, and something less than him, and I couldn’t accept any part of that. I wouldn’t. I’d show him I had control by making this one, single demand. When he gave into it, it would prove he was wrong about me.

Please let him be wrong about me.

“Is that really what you want?” He asked through gritted teeth.

“Yes.” I stated firmly. He was always questioning me, always expecting me to withdraw my consent. He thought I didn’t know what I wanted, and I was sick of being belittled. Maybe I was shifted, and maybe I was out of my mind too. But right now, I felt bold and strong and confident enough to make my own demands.

I’ll show him a fucking Beta.

“What are you waiting for? Trigger your transforma—” I didn’t even get out the words before his claws started to extend from his fingertips and dig into my arms.

I stood completely still as powerful, massive blue wings shot from his back at the same time that scales formed on his skin, cascading down his body in a shiny blue wave. His ears sharpened, his hair darkened and fell around his face, and gill-like slits opened along his neck.

Knowing and anticipating it didn’t change the impact of witnessing his new form in person.

All I could do was stand in stunned disbelief as the man at my back, holding me captive, took on the form of an incubus…

And the Pisces.