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And now here I am, in a demon’s lair, claimed by a god-beast who looks at me like I’m the last biscuit in the basket. It’s overwhelming. And... addicting.

Part of me aches for the girl I used to be. The girl who thought she’d have to shrink to be loved.

But I think—I hope—Mama, Daddy, and Dolly would be proud of me.

Because I didn’t shrink. I ran straight into the jaws of a monster... and he caught me like I was treasure.

That’s when I hear it.

Clunk. Clunk.

Hooves on stone.

He returns.

One horn clips the stone archway as he comes down the stairs and into the pool room. Dead leaves cling to his dark brown fur. His nails are slick. He’s breathing like he’s been running.

In his left palm, he holds a small bundle wrapped in crimson velvet.

His eyes burn. Literally. Flickering flames pulse behind his red irises.

He kneels, putting us eye to eye.

His gaze slides to my bare feet in the water, then my exposed body, then my face. “You were cold.”

It isn’t a question. I don’t know how he knows. “I woke up, and you were gone.”

Something in his face shifts. “I will not do that to you again.” He holds out the bundle like an offering. “A tribute. For what they did to my queen.”

He unwraps the velvet. And I slap my hands to my mouth.

Teeth. Human.

Dozens of them, still bloody, arranged in a perfect spiral like a twisted halo.

My breath stutters.

“These belonged to the ones who mocked you. Who called your softness a flaw. Who told you your body was a burden. I made them tell me the truth, who had called you what, and then I removed the weapons from their mouths. I took… their tongues, too. I threaded them on a second strip of leather, a second necklace for Daddy’s little sacrifice.”

“Daddy…” I hiss, moving my hands to my cheeks. I’m trying to think of how to tell him I don’t want a necklace of tongues, but he shakes his head.

“You will not see the tongues. They were wet, and frankly, disgusting. Besides, tongues smell particularly bad when they rot. Don’t ask how I know, just trust me.”

I stare at his mouth as he talks. At how proud he looks, as if he’s just handed me a bouquet of roses.

My throat tightens. “You didn’t… kill them?”

He shakes his head. “They live. Toothless and tongueless. Humbled. A reminder in every mirror. In every word they fail to form. I wanted you to know you’re sacred to me.”

I look down at the spiral. Some of the teeth are bigger than others. One incisor has a gold crown, and I know exactly whose mouth it came from.

“Tanner Pruitt,” I say.

The fire in his eyes simmers.

“That one did not only mock you.” His voice goes very quiet. “I found him at the Elks Lodge, telling the other men what he would have done with you if your town had not given you to me first. What he always meant to do. In detail.”

Oh. No. No beuno, Tanner.