Dark Empathy by Archibald Bradford (inspiring books for teens TXT) 📕

it, like yesterday. I’m concerned that it might get lost or delayed somewhere along the way, so I was hoping that you might be able to keep an eye out for when it comes into the sorting center?”

The Lapine thumped her foot in thought against the baseboard of the bed; it wasn’t a small ask, as many packages go through sorting every day, and technically she wasn’t supposed to remove any before they had all been inspected and cleared. But with her still basking in the afterglow of their night, and morning, together she really didn’t see the harm.

“If it shows up in the center, I’ll find it! Promise!”

Carol smiled with one side of her mouth.

“Perfect.” She lifted her head slightly as a familiar look of hunger took her features; “And now I believe it is I that owe you a favour.”

With the practiced ease of an experienced lover, she rolled the Lapine onto her back and began to kiss her way down the bunny’s body.

Rebecca’s breathing hitched at the abrupt turn of events, the feel of Carol’s lustrous hair trailing down her body enough to make her shiver in anticipation.

Sure her privates were more than a little sensitive from their activities from the last several days, but she wasn’t about to complain about it.

__________

Far away from the cozy confines of Rebecca’s room in Algrade, another monster girl was also in bed, though her thoughts were far darker than the bunny could ever manage.

Evadne the Chimera sat on the cot in their hideaway; her shirt pulled up and over her shoulders as black bile and oozing pus seeped from her stomach and back, the taint of entropy still preventing her wounds from closing properly and healing as they should.

With his lips pressed tightly together Jonathan worked to clean the messy injuries around his original stitches, pinching his fingers together to force out as much pus as he could before wiping it away with a wet cloth.

The Empath was guilty of many things, but having a weak stomach wasn’t one of them.

He sighed as he finished his work, pulling back from her and tossing the mess of gauze and soiled cloth into a nearby bin.

“All my contacts have dried up and we’re running out of supplies. The girls we have are half-starved, I tried taking them out to hunt for game in the woods. It was a nightmare, once their blood was up, my grip on their minds slipped and I lost control of them.” He heaved another heavy sigh; “We lost two, the Faun and the Harpy, they tore each other apart.”

“Then the others should have been able to eat their fill.” Evadne said flatly.

Jonathan paled and swallowed the lump in his throat, choosing to ignore her ghastly observation while washing his hands at the basin by the bed.

“If you don’t recover soon, we won’t make it through the rest of the winter.”

She hissed at his grim prediction, but did not argue with him as he went to the table in the middle of the room to fetch fresh bandages.

He paused, taking a moment to lean against the table, though he drew no comfort from the solidity of it.

“It all went to shit didn’t it?” He murmured.

He was exhausted. Evadne’s emotional landscape was as bare to him now as it had ever been, a constant reminder of how far she had fallen, and how much work it would be for him to get her back.

Add on to that the constant anxiety of keeping the Tenebrae under control...

His eyes were red rimmed and bloodshot, and he was getting dangerously thin, he had been giving most of his own rations to the wretched monster girls in the next room.

With no response forthcoming from Evadne, he did his best to rally himself for the next challenge and turned to finish tending to her injuries. His hands were fumbling with the rolls of bandages on the table when one of them rolled out of his grip and fell to the floor with a barely audible thump.

As it turned out, dropping the bundle of bandages saved Jonathan’s life.

A spear, cast with deadly force, shot out of the darkness of one of the side tunnels and would have driven straight through his heart had he not shifted while trying to keep himself from likewise dropping more of their precious medical supplies.

Instead the weapon impaled him just below his collar bone, making him cry out and spin to the stone floor with a crash.

Like lightening, the towering warrior woman that had thrown it charged into the room and was almost on him before he even comprehended that he was hurt.

In all her years Evadne had never seen an Amazon move so fast.

Her blonde hair was cut short for battle and a band of her own blood was painted across her eyes.

The mark of a death oath.

If the Chimera hadn’t already been sitting up she wouldn’t have been able to intercede, as it was she barely managed to scramble to her feet in time.

She collided with the deadly Amazon in an awkward tackle from her flank and the two monster girls crashed into the heavy table right beside Jonathan, knocking it on its side as they grappled over the top of it.

The wounded Chimera grunted in pain when she hit the stone floor and the stitches in her belly tore, her black blood flowed freely. Meanwhile the Amazon was unhurt and deftly somersaulted backwards, rolling to her feet in one fluid motion.

Evadne heard Jonathan let out a clipped scream, having recovered his faculties enough to discover the spear sticking out of his upper chest.

If he died, her plans were dust.

So with desperate effort she unfurled her wings beneath her and leapt to her feet to meet the Amazon’s renewed assault.

Even