Quit Your Waning (Over the Moon #3)

JIHAE

Teachers and kids all leaned into the scent of the bonfire and its crackling light as I told them the tale of my cousin’s horrible headaches and the fortune teller that insisted my grandfather dig up my aunt’s grave in the countryside. I’d been eight years old when I saw the six-plank coffin standing upright in a mound of earth and was confused why all the grown-ups were unnerved by the tree roots growing through the wood and twisting up my aunt’s skull.

But I didn’t tell the kids that we’d moved her grave and my cousin’s headaches went away. Instead, I told them that she had no face, like a talgyal guishin doomed to wander the forests. That she was still in the forests of Korea today with a disembodied voice, a lumbering gait, and eyes hidden all over her body. That if you catch her staring, you’ll die instantly.

My aunt would have appreciated the twist. She and my mom had a great sense of humor, the kind that went well with beer and seafood.

Thanks to my aunt, I’d nailed my story, the kids holding onto each other’s clothes with wide eyes while marshmallow guts melted off their pink biria sticks. A twig snapped beyond the ring of firelight, and I took my chance, gasping under my breath, staring slack-jawed into the forest. When everyone else looked too, I pulled a white stocking over my head, jumped up with a full-throated garble of scary monster sounds, and lunged over the fire in little claw swipes.

“Aegideul ah! Chabatta!” I roared, cackling.

Squeals and shrieks of fright sliced through the glade as the kids all jumped and scurried away from me. They pressed their little hands and faces into a flank of black and red fur as they all crowded against Sizzle. He’d been lounging at the edge of the light all evening.

“Eat her!” Ciara yelled, smacking his shoulder.

His fangs peeled open with laughter and he howled. Siobhan, not too far away, guffawed along with him.

“Yeah, Sizzle, eat her!” she roared.

“Should I?” he asked in a devilish tone.

I crept closer, devolving into zombie noises, tagging children and pretending to eat them.

“Eee!” Soyeon smooshed her face into his fur like it was a pillow as I tickled her arms.

“So hungry!” I groaned.

Sizzle wrapped his tail around the kids and curled closer, growling playfully at me. I extended my claws towards him, hindered by my no-face stocking, jousting back and forth. The campfire became a frenzy of cheers and jeers, until he finally split his mouth open from sternum to snout, latched his mouth claws around my ribs and shoulders, and picked me up like he really was about to eat me. The entire party gasped as I screamed.

And then laughed as I scrunched over in hysterical giggles. Sizzle swirled his tongue against my belly, tickling the hell out of me, pushing against the divot of my belly button where it zinged the sharpest. My abs clenched and my feet kicked. I tried to push him off, but it was no use. He’d thoroughly out-monstered me.

“Ahhh, I surrender!” I panted between laughs. “You win, you win!”

Sizzle set me down on the ground, still writhing. He slurped my stocking into his mouth in triumph, ears standing tall above his head and a proud fluff to his hackles. He was a shadow even in the firelight, but his gold eyes glinted and his teeth glowed like the Cheshire Cat as he grinned down at me.

“The monster is vanquished,” Sizzle announced.

“You did it!” Soyeon yelled, jumping up and down with her fists digging into Sizzle’s side.

“I told you guys he’s cool,” Pom Pom said from her spot on a fallen log. She and Rambir hadn’t jumped up with squeals like the younger kids, instead focused on comparing s’more ingredients and skewering sausages and veggies.

As I pushed myself to sit, the students swarmed the poor bilong, petting him like a horse, pulling his tail and ears. One of the smaller children called him “puppy” and he began to pant. Was that a nervous tick or excitement? They were getting a little too rough though, so I clapped my hands together.

“Alright, alright. That’s enough,” I told them. Some of the children peeled away, but many of them stayed, pretending they didn’t hear me. I struggled to my feet, brushing dirt and decaying leaves off my butt. “Okay, tesso. That’s enough!”

A combination of sugar and jump scares fueled several minutes of tag, shrieks, and giggles. Sizzle lunged his mouth claws at the kids in slow motion, their points scuttling up their hair and pricking at their clothes. I couldn’t tell who was having more fun, the children or the bilong.

It served well to wear them out like that. Before long, teachers and students alike were yawning, packing up the trash and leftovers. Sizzle gave me a look from the opposite side of the dying fire, sitting just within the light, and I joined him, brushing my plastic gloves across my forehead as I hefted my bag of trash.

“For me? You shouldn’t have.”

“I saved the things I thought you’d like,” I said, giving it a shake.

He licked his teeth, then rummaged through, eating each tinfoil wad and plas cup with relish. “Not as delicious as what I had for breakfast, but it’ll do,” he teased.

I smacked his shoulder, and he chuckled sinfully.

“Sorry the kids were so rowdy. Did they pull your fur?” I asked while he ate.

“Yes, but I enjoy their little acts of violence.” He slowed eating, his ear swiveling in my direction. I’d come to learn it was an apprehensive gesture, a way for him to attune to my reactions. “I did not expect you to invite me for the stories.”

“Why not?” I asked, surprised. Many teachers and guardians had joined in the fun, and our tents spread far along the haunted trail with lanterns dotting the path through the trees. Now that it was quiet and nearly everyone was asleep, there was an eerie feel to the silhouettes and dancing lights as the bugs bobbed through them and sang their songs.

He gestured around the decorations: jack-o-lanterns flickering with fake flames, cobwebs and skeletons in the trees. “Stories of monsters that steal people in the dead of night? That eat them, stalk them, and trick them? These are all things that I have done and will do again. Happily.”

“You do seem to love your job,” I agreed.

Sizzle snorted with sass. “Your goal was to frighten children for fun, not terrify them for real.”

His head was down and pitched to the side so his right eye could more closely assess the contents of the bag. It made me a little sad… Not that he was eating the metal and plas debris, but that he thought he deserved to be set aside. I brushed my fingers through the furrow between his ears.

“I like you, Sizzle. It’s a small word in English but a big word in Korean. I like all your parts, even the flaws. And I want to keep you.”

Sizzle froze, and his upturned right eye snapped to my stare.

“Which means being part of each other’s lives. At least for humans.” I was really fumbling now, clearing my throat of the hoarse croak lodged there, twisting my fingers together out of habit. “Maybe it’s different for bilongs. I want to share space with you. Hobbies, mealtime, hanging out with friends, traveling–”

“No,” he snorted, sitting back on his haunches. My heart throbbed painfully at the rejection until he elaborated. “You should never travel with me, morsel. Humans are too new to be afraid, perhaps, but the rest of the union understands that it’s not just my smile worth fearing. I can eat my way through a spaceship, absorb bullets, and if I’m pushed too far, I don’t see people anymore.” His eyes dilated to full black with a strange crackling buzz, and goosebumps skittered up my skin. “I see blood bags full of electricity. Even you.”

Sizzle’s words were a warning, but the way his fingers traveled up my arms was soft with yearning. His eyes slowly contracted to gold again as he felt my skin.

“I want to be clear,” he said more quietly, tugging me forward. “As long as you keep saying yes, I will keep claiming you. Forever. But I am a risk to you.”

“That’s right. My risk,” I assured him. “And I’m feeling brave these days.”

Sizzle chuffed and lifted one of my hands, the plastic crinkling in his palm.

“How is your medicine?”

I smiled. “Good. I shake a little in the morning when I wake up, but Dr Zarabi is going to make adjustments for me after Halloween–”

A big yawn interrupted my status report. Sizzle tsked and it sounded like water droplets hissing in a pan of hot oil.

“You are exhausted, morsel. Come. Sleep. I will watch the camp.”

“But–”

“These are my usual patrol hours. No arguing.”

I wanted to protest, but he was right. I hadn’t been sleeping hardly at all, rolling around in lusty agony in my bed for days on end. Funny, now that I was thinking about my heat fever, I realized I didn’t feel it. Sizzle pulled me into his flank, shifting his shoulders upright so I could lay on his chest. He propped himself against a tree, back legs still quadrupedal and draped in a distinctly beast-like way. And he was warm like massage stones, dry and welcoming. I drifted almost immediately, murmuring, “Still… gonna travel…”

When I woke up later, it was darker, colder, wetter. Crazy how cold a jungle could feel in the middle of the night. Sizzle was still beneath me, but I no longer had my plastic gloves on. He’d draped a vented blanket over me to keep me dry as the humidity cooled and descended back into the soil, but his own fur was misty and damp.

And he was steaming like a hunk of dry ice. Tendrils of white slithered through clumps of his fur, catching on his fangs and spiraling off the tips of his ears like smoke off the pinched wick of a candle. His stare ignited an intense ache between my legs and I squirmed, breathing him in.

“Comfortable?” he murmured like a bass drum.

I tried to say yes, but my throat was so tight with hunger, I couldn’t manage more than a nod. My heat wasn’t as sharp as when I lay in my own bed, writhing and coming and soaking my towels, but it was a deep, forceful stab. Being surrounded by Sizzle had both helped and made it a bigger problem, like the difference between a tiny jet ski and an enormous oil tanker. The waves weren’t as choppy, but the roiling wake was more overwhelming and powerful.

Sizzle glanced around the camp, then curled us sideways with me sandwiched between him and a fallen tree trunk. He pressed his claw between my legs and I squeezed his knuckles with my thighs, both mortified and breathless.

“Let me take care of you, morsel,” he purred, a massive bar of steel pressed against my back, from butt to shoulder blade. I whimpered, wanting him to free his cock and split me in two, but he didn’t. The arm beneath my side snaked up to my throat, sliding between my breasts. He pressed his index finger to my lips and tapped.

“Bite me, sweet pet.”

I did. I opened my lips and bit down on his first knuckle without a thought. Sweat broke out on my forehead as I tasted his skin with my tongue.

I expected—even wanted—for Sizzle to slice my pants open again, but instead he slid two fingers into my pocket and tore open the pocket bag. They slipped over my soaked panties and he hummed in my ear.

“Shh,” he told me as I whimpered. He started panting, that glorious tongue of his draping across my collarbones and his own hand on my throat. “Quiet as a fid, morsel.”

I nodded fervently in his grip, pressing my lips closed over his finger.

His claws found my clit over my panties and he pressed on it, tapped it, rolled it in circles. I nodded again, a stitch between my brows, telling him without words what I liked. I pressed back on him and he pressed forward, knocking the air out of my lungs from his sheer size. He was curled above me, so much taller that we couldn’t make eye contact as I begged in my mind.

Please, please let me come. Please.

Sizzle bared his teeth, nostrils flared. Saliva dripped from his fangs into the underbrush. A trail of my own spit gathered at the corner of my mouth and coated his knuckle like I was one of Pavlov’s dogs, my feverish hormones producing all my fluids in excess. Too much saliva, slick, and sweat. And it was perfect, the way he slipped over my clit and rubbed me to a crescendo. I bit down hard on his hand and his hackles stood straight up.

My orgasm trampled me like a thousand horses. I jolted in Sizzle’s crushing grip, rocking my hips so that my butt rubbed the base of his cock in a rhythm I wanted permanently scored inside me.

Then Sizzle was up and pacing, panting with his tongue out. His mouth claws produced an aero-syringe from the depths of his throat and he paused long enough to inject it in the interior of his ear. When he breathed a sigh of relief and his fur softened, I realized it was one of the tranquilizers he’d mentioned.

“I need to go,” he gruffed in a harried tone. “The pups–”

I scrambled to sit and pulled the blanket around my shoulders. “I’m sorry. That was so selfish.”

Sizzle snarled, getting right in my face in a split second. I could hardly blink before his muzzle was thrust against my nose, face to face. “You are stunning, glorious, the pinnacle of my appetites. You’re a fountain for my thirst, Jihae, and I will drink you dry of every drop of nectar between your legs. You understand? If I don’t go now, I’ll–”

“But you won’t be gone for days again, right? Last time you left for so long.” My voice cracked, caught between injury, sleep, and anxiety. Sizzle softened, forcing himself to stop panting. He pressed his forehead to mine so that his ears lay across the top of my head.

“I never left, love. But I won’t stay hidden. I need to take care of something important, and I can’t stay here unless humans are wilder than I think and you’re alright with me fucking you in front of the entire camp.” Sizzle licked my throat, then the wet spot of drool in the corner of my mouth. He shuddered, muscles bugling with tension. “Fuck me. I have to go.”

I loosened my hold on him and gave him a little nod.

“Go then. I’ll see you later.”

Sizzle sank his claws into the closest tree, then paused. I couldn’t see in the dark that he was looking at me, but I felt it.

“You’re sure you want to share space, morsel?”

I hugged the blanket around my shoulders harder, straightening my shoulders.

“Yes.”

Sizzle’s claws flexed and the tree groaned. Then he shot up into the canopy faster than I could track. The hanging skeletons jostled in a jagged line across the tree branches into the jungle as he escaped from temptation, too ravenous to focus on stealth.

And then the sounds of insects and amphibians returned, and I knew he was gone and felt flushed and empty again.

I stared down at the imprint of his heavy body against the jungle floor. There was a glistening puddle of something…

Precum. Dribbled into the mulch. I pressed my finger to it and lifted it to my lips.

It popped against my tongue, a delirious mixture of musk, truffle oil, and copper. I took as much of it as I could swipe from the ground, and when someone unlatched their tent to go pee, I buried it with my boot so no one could have it but me.