MonsterVille
Eighteen

Mellie changed into jeans, a shirt and her green leather jacket before she threw on a pair of boots and made for the door. Simple, warm, easy to move in. That last part seemed important since it was possible she might have to run for her life at any moment. It was also important to move quickly since she only had a few hours left till sun rise and she had told Brannagh she would visit him before the night was through. She hoped she wasn’t misjudging him, if she was he would kill her and take River the moment she said no. She sighed softly as she pushed open the door to River’s room and found him in a state of undress.

He froze at the sight of her and Mellie’s eyes roved his muscular physique, he was well built, but that wasn’t what caught her attention. He was covered in wounds, dozens of scratches that had ripped up his back, that would likely scar when they healed and were barely beginning to scab. Most of those were courtesy of Katie’s affections, but there were new wounds as well. River turned slightly and she saw the slice along the front of his throat, it was shallow, then there was the wound along his wrist that looked like some pesky monster had grazed him with her teeth. Her eyes dilated at the sight and the world kicked into over drive, she could smell the monsters that had touched him, that had tasted him. They had used the beach party as a taster, to take a sip here, a sip there as they tested the merchandise for their own personal needs.

At least two monsters had their sights set on him already and they had sipped of his body to cement their claims. Those wounds were declarations of war, she wondered if he had realised that yet.

“Um, do you mind?” he gestured to his back where he had been trying to stick fresh bandages down. “I kind of got sand in them, it itched.” He said by way of explanation.

Mellie smiled indulgently and stepped forward to smooth the new bandage in place, nail marks disappeared beneath the fresh white coverings and before he could say a word she twisted him around and placed one of her nails over the slash on his wrist. She gave him an apologetic smile before she dug her fingers in and he yelped in pain and surprise, she ripped her nails over the slice and hid it beneath her own wounds.

“Sorry,” she said sincerely before she wrapped those ragged tears as well.

“PMS?” he asked as he rubbed at his wrist.

Mellie licked her lip, “Post Monster, oh damn, I was sure I had a good come back there. Oh well, are you cut anywhere else?”

“Um, no?” he hedged.

“Let me rephrase, did any other monster touch, bite, kiss or taste you in any way shape or form during the party?”

“I really want to say no…” he trailed off.

“It’s important.” Mellie insisted.

With a wary expression he pointed to his throat and the slim slice wound, “One of the Bacchii cut me with her stick.” He said.

Mellie shook her head, “That one’s fine.” From what she had heard the Bacchii had already been dealt with, maybe Bacchus would seek a little retribution but it didn’t matter if he had taken a taste or even a chunk out of her human, he wouldn’t come after them in the same way as the lesser monsters. “Anywhere else?”

“Ah,” he sighed and tugged at his lower lip to reveal a thin mostly healed scratch. “A mermaid, Aura.”

“Sorry, I promise this doesn’t mean anything.” Mellie offered before she kissed him. She moved quickly as she pressed her body into his, her arms wrapping around the back of his head and pulling him down to meet her, their lips met and she was surprised by how soft his lips were, how well his mouth fit against hers. He was stunned but the moment past and he kissed her back, her tongue flicked his lip and his mouth parted as her teeth sunk into the soft flesh and she pulled away with his blood in her mouth. Mellie’s eyes widened and she had to brace herself against the bed, she hadn’t meant to taste his blood, she had intended to spit it out but the moment it touched her tongue it was a surge of lightning in her veins, every neuron, fibre and atom of her being suddenly burnt with life. She swallowed those drops of blood and licked the rest from her lips hungrily.

“Ouch,” River moaned, “I knew it was coming and it still hur—” he cut off mid-word as he got a good look at her, at her eyes.

She was seeing the world through new eyes and it was so bright, so full of such immense detail.

“Your eyes,” River whispered. “They’re red.” She didn’t need to see them to know the iris had expanded to thrice its normal size nearly filling the white of her eyes.

“I told you,” Mellie murmured, “I was more human than monster,” her gaze locked onto his, “but I am still a monster.” She turned away from him while she struggled to slow her racing heart, the taste of his blood in her mouth was intoxicating and all she wanted to do was sink her teeth into his throat and rip into the hot gush of life pumping through his veins. “We should go now.”

“Are you going to tell me why you needed to bite me?” River asked as she walked away.

“Because you belong to me,” she called back over her shoulder, “and they were trying to call dibs.”

For a change Mellie drove through town rather than walked, she was running short on time and she didn’t want to risk being bogged down by some uppity monster. Her car was an old sedan, nothing terribly special but it got her from point A to point B on the rare occasions when she found it necessary.

They skirted the edge of town but avoided any road that lead to the highway. Mellie didn’t want to give River any ideas about trying to skip town. As much as she didn’t want him, or herself for that matter, to die, it would be worse if they fled. The town council would send monsters of every flavour to hunt them down, they wouldn’t make it more than a day and anyone they met from the clerk at the gas station, to the patrons of the diner they might have eaten at or even a car they passed on the highway would be gutted and rent to pieces for the security of the town. Mellie didn’t want one innocent life on her hands, she certainly didn’t want dozens or even hundreds.

They pulled up to a stretch of dirt road that headed into the forest on the opposite side of town, a few miles down that road and Mellie parked the car. They had arrived at their destination, a lake three times the size of the one near her house and the breeding ground of the mers. The lake they stopped at connected to dozens of smaller lakes and was riddled with hundreds if not thousands of subterranean passageways and caves that connected hundreds of lakes across the state and fed into the ocean.

Mers tended to prefer salt water to fresh and when inland they always wanted a way back to the ocean that didn’t require the use of legs. They were slow on land, but they were very nearly the ultimate predator in the water, they were fast, relentless and their scales were razor sharp. Any predator that tried to get a hold of them or take a bite out of their fins would slice themselves up and become the prey. It was a neat little system for the mers.

There was an immense sprawling house built over one side of the lake, half the house jutted out over the water on poles and a pier. Mellie wouldn’t have been surprised if some of those caves systems were beneath the house proper itself and provided the coves where the Mers actually lived. The house was just for appearance sake, and probably for the comfort of the humans Brannagh kept.

Brannagh was one of two human breeders in the town and he operated based on comfort and mutual benefit which kept his humans healthy, happy and breeding.

For the town’s benefit really, while they couldn’t provide for the flesh craving needs of an entire town it certainly made the monsters lives easier to have a supply of meat on hand that wasn’t tracked, recorded or identified anywhere in the world. That was the problem with abducting humans that passed through, vehicles had to be disposed of, disappearances fabricated, the part of the town council that ran the lottery had an entire division dedicated to making the humans disappear with no questions asked by any authority.

“Woah,” River exclaimed, “Impressive.”

“Yes,” Mellie agreed, “but before we go in there you need to know something and you’re probably going to disapprove.”

“Ok…”

“This is a breeding farm.” She said simply. “For human livestock.”

“Oh.”

“It’s a mutually beneficial arrangement for the humans involved, they are safe, protected—”

“And they just have to give up their kids to be eaten?” River said, anger in his tone.

“I told you you’d disapprove. If it’s any comfort the mothers often get to raise the children for a while.”

“So they can grow big and strong and feed a whole family.”

“It’s the way it is.” Mellie said softly, “It can’t be changed and all you would do if you tried is die, or be taken to stud.”

“Basically you want me to suck it up.” River seethed.

“Basically.”

“If you knew I’d feel this way why did you bring me here?”

“Because if I’d left you at the house you’d have been dead the second I left.”

“Oh,” River muttered, deflating a little, “Right.”

The water rippled through the lake and a woman’s head emerged from the surface, she slicked her wet hair back and rose to expose her lithe naked body as her scales sunk back into her flesh and she walked onto dry land, behind her two silver haired buxom beauties emerged in the same manner. Behind them spread out in a flying V formation two blonde mers were followed by two redheads until nine beautiful naked women strolled up onto dry land like it was an everyday occurrence. Blondes, brunettes, European, Asian, African, every major nationality was represented at its most delectable.

“Close your mouth,” Mellie chastised, “You’ll catch flies. Or worse things.” Like their attention, she thought, but she didn’t add that part.

River snapped his mouth shut with a hard click that must have left his jaw aching as he did his best to look only at their faces.

It was Aura who approached them in the lead, her eyes all for River which made Mellie frown. Mellie could hear the soft chuckles in the water, the girly chortle that echoed across the lake nearly imperceptibly. Aura was working the siren angle and River was falling into her trap, he had taken a half step forward without realising it and when Aura reached out he took her hands in a friendly manner and she kissed him on either cheek. Her lips leaving soft blue marks on his skin. Mellie was tempted to intervene but Aura was just teasing him for the moment, and the buffet of women laid out before him? They were showing him what he could have.

What happened was Mellie’s decision but it appeared Brannagh wanted to tempt River with the pleasures of the flesh, tempt him to come join his breeding program of his own volition. It was surprisingly duplicitous for him, it showed a depth of understanding about Mellie that she hadn’t imagined he would have. If River decided he wanted to join Brannagh, if it was genuinely what he wanted… Mellie would have let him go. It would have solved both their problems and even if it was River’s decision Mellie was sure Brannagh would honour his promise to extend her his protection.

Oh well, she mused, Brannagh could play all the games he liked, tempt River with all the beautiful women at his disposal, she had seen the way he seethed over the idea. No matter how tempting she knew he would reject the ‘offer’, which was the other reason she didn’t bother to stop Aura from lulling him with her siren’s song.

Aura touched River’s lip, she looked surprised when she saw the jagged wound Mellie had inflicted on him, her eyes flicked away and Mellie smiled. That had definitely been a look of frustration. She could only surmise Aura’s song worked better when she had tasted her victims and left her mark upon them.

“Brannagh welcomes you to his home,” Aura said expansively, gesturing to the large house on the other side of the lake, “And he bids you to enter his home with a guarantee of safe passage while you are amongst us, regardless of whatever decision you may have come to.”

Mellie nodded, “I accept Brannagh’s kind offer and thank you for it.”

Aura quirked a brow, “Come.” She beckoned, her fingers still entwined with River’s.

They crossed the lake by boat, or rather barge, it was little more than a large section of floating wood that was pulled by mers in the water. Mellie would have preferred to have walked the edge of the lake, she didn’t like the looks of all the things twisting and writhing beneath the water’s surface, but that would have been an insult to her host. Still all it would take was a slight tip to plunge her and River into the lake, and it would all be over. They could be drowned, sliced open, taken. Trying to fight a mer or whatever else might be in that water would have been a bad idea… you never fought a monster where it had the advantage. Personally Mellie thought it was wiser never to fight a monster, period.

River stood quietly at the centre of the barge with Aura’s arms casually draped around his shoulders. She saw Mellie watching her and smiled as she leant in against him and whispered in his ear. His eyes were glazed over and Mellie frowned at the effect; she wasn’t all that keen on Aura whispering her sweet poisons into him but she was more worried about how he would react to their trip across the lake if he suddenly snapped out of it.

They reached the pier/overhanging porch that touched on the lake. Rather than using torches as so many monsters were want to do Brannagh had running lights installed along the pier. Mellie blinked at how bright they were until she realised they were the first lights they had seen since they reached the lake. She glanced up to the fading glow of the moon hanging low in the sky. Across the lake it had been pitch black and she hadn’t even noticed.

River’s blood… she closed her eyes at the thought, just a few drops and she felt alive like never before. What would it actually be like to taste human flesh…? Mellie shook the thought violently from her head. It was a slippery road and she refused to go down it. She wasn’t a killer.

Aura swayed ahead and River followed behind like a lost little puppy, his adoring eyes transfixed by the sway of her hips, the hard curve of her backside. They walked down the long wooden pier and Mellie was oddly reminded of walking the plank. Had she made a mistake? It didn’t really matter now. It was too late to turn back.

The side of the house was clear glass which opened onto a vibrant blue swimming pool with a bar set into one side and sauna along the other. Because of course why wouldn’t you have a massive heated pool inside your house when the house was built on top of a lake? Eccentric mers.

A woman glided beneath the surface of the pool and unlike the mers she had a touch of modesty, although as she emerged from the water and stepped up onto the porch Mellie wondered if the sleek slim fitting red swim suit wasn’t more tantalising than the mers nudity. There was something about being so close to exposed and yet all the sensitive areas hidden behind a thin wet veil of material that set the libido racing.

Aura turned River as he came out of the fugue state so the first thing he saw was the supermodel-esque blonde towelling off. It was a slow sensuous process and she cast a lingering smile in his direction as she walked away.

“Welcome to my home,”

The voice came from above and Mellie looked up to see Brannagh standing on an open second floor landing with no rail to separate it. His sleek silver hair gleamed like scales and his grey blue eyes churned like the tumultuous waves of the ocean. He stepped off the second floor and landed in front of them with the same effort a human would have breathed. His body was lean beneath his suit and the pungent aroma of rotting fish was absent that night. She wondered just what it had taken to conceal his natural aroma. It was a curious thing that he would smell so strongly while the mermaids were less offensive, it wasn’t perfume in their case, it was that they smell of salt water, of the ocean air, it was actually an enjoyable aroma, although the merwomen seemed to go crazy for the merman’s stench.

“May I offer you a refreshment? Water, wine?”

“I’m fine, thank you.” Mellie responded. River still seemed to be having trouble completely snapping out of his fugue, or maybe the mers were just that damn attractive. Mellie wasn’t a lover of women so she wasn’t in the best place to judge, “And thank you for your hospitality. Your harem was most inviting,” it was both gracious on her part and a point that she knew what he was doing, he inclined his head ever so slightly to acknowledge her.

“I would have provided for your own proclivities my dear,” Brannagh said expansively, “but alas mermen don’t seem quite so enticing to women outside of our own species.”

“What are you two talking about?” River butted in. Mellie could have slapped him, but she was willing to blame his obstinacy on Aura’s siren charms and not his own inability to follow simple instruction.

Brannagh smiled conspiratorially at River. “We are discussing your future my friend.”

“Because you want me to be your stud,” River said bluntly. Brannagh didn’t look particularly phased that River was aware of his designs. He obviously thought his argument was persuasive enough that a little petulance wasn’t going to be an issue.

“You put it in such crass terms,” Brannagh clapped his hands together. One single resounding clap that brought the women out of the woodwork, a dozen women ranging from teenagers to the middle aged. All of them fit, several of them devastatingly attractive, and every last one of them dressed for seduction. Strappy dresses, lacy lingerie, artfully applied makeup, the whole nine yards. “Would it really be such a hardship?” Brannagh asked, “You could have any of these women any time you pleased, any way you pleased, they would be devoted to your every need.”

River swallowed, it was just the smallest sign of temptation, a bead of sweat appeared on his forehead and Brannagh’s smile grew. “You would have every indulgence you desired my friend, when you’re not with your own personal harem your time would be your own. You would be safe from the monsters of this town, protected by a legion of my daughters,” he indicated the gorgeous naked mers standing in a loose half circle behind him. “They too would be at your beck and call, can you imagine the pleasures of being with a mer, a primal fantasy of all men brought to life.”

“And all I’d have to do…”

“Is indulge yourself with beautiful women any time you like.”

“Wow…” River breathed out.

“Come, I’ll introduce you to your future lovers,” his hand glided around River’s back, pushed him ever so slightly towards the women, right up until River said,

“Thanks. But no thanks.”

Mellie didn’t know who was more stunned by the complete and utter rejection, Brannagh who had thought he had River in the bag, the women who were dolled up and could have seduced a monastery with a flutter of their eye lashes or the assembled mers cooing their siren’s song behind him.

“Excuse me?” Brannagh said.

“I said thanks. But no thanks.” River looked at the women circling him and gave them a wide smile, “No offense I mean you are all so beautiful I’m probably going to be dreaming about you for the rest of my life and cursing myself for being an idiot but I can’t do this, not ever.”

“Performance issues?” Aura purred from behind him.

“I’ve never had any complaints,” he retorted.

“How about compliments?”

“Ouch, that burns. Give a guy a chance.”

“A chance?” she sidled up to him, her hands running lightly over his chest, “I could show you such pleasures you would never want for the rest of your days.” River shook his head with some difficulty and Aura laughed as she smiled coyly at him. There was a glimmer of her intent and Mellie sighed. If he wasn’t going to play nice Aura was going to have him anyway, one way or another. The girl just couldn’t take no for an answer.

“I’m just not comfortable with the whole getting girls pregnant so our babies can be eaten, call me crazy but that’s just the way I feel.”

“What does a child’s fate matter?” Brannagh asked, clearly showing while he might have insight into how Mellie thought, he had no idea about humans. “You can always have others.”

“Yes, others, and then some more, and more after that all to be gobbled up. Nope.”

“You could always keep one,” Brannagh offered, “a child of your choosing to raise as you saw fit, protected as you would be protected.”

“So you could use it for the next generation of breeding stock? Uh, no.”

“Oh woe for we have a man of morals.” Brannagh sighed.

“It doesn’t take much morality to know eating babies is wrong.”

“By your cultural standards, not by ours,” Brannagh countered. He switched his focus from River to Mellie. “Come now the human’s wishes are irrelevant, he belongs to you my dear and as such you could hand him over to me. A few days with Aura and he would gladly bed my women. I offer you all you could desire, my protection from your enemies, my guarantee of your safety, my daughters to watch over you as you desire. Think on it Melanie, no one else will offer such guarantees.”

Mellie hesitated. It wasn’t the offer that got to her it was the desperation, he was genuinely desperate.

“Why do you want him so badly? What’s happened to the rest of your breeding stock, your studs?” Brannagh flinched, “You don’t have any do you? Why else would you be pushing the hard sell like this?”

“There was a… it doesn’t matter. I have no viable men to stud, the children are still years too young and my options are limited, I will give you anything you want Mellie. Name it.”

Mellie’s jaw dropped. He was serious. Anything. From a monster like him that literally meant anything. Anything she could possibly conceive.

“Mellie?” River said nervously. Aura was lounging against his back, her fingers lightly tracing little circles on his chest.

“I’m thinking,” she replied distractedly.

“About what? You can’t do this! I can’t do this! I won’t!”

“This is why you wanted me to come see you with my answer isn’t it?” Mellie asked, “Because you were going to take him whether I said yes or no. Do you have girls at my house right now just in case I left him alone?”

“You don’t understand the situation,” Brannagh claimed, “I have clients for my stock, if they learnt it was drying up—”

“The protections you enjoy would dry up and it would be a monster free for all to take what you have.” Mellie stated for him, he nodded reluctantly.

“I understand you don’t want his life on your hands, I understand you aren’t thrilled by what I do, but I have forty seven human lives in my care Mellie, the thirteen women you see here, seven pregnant young women and twenty seven children all prepubescent. They will all die unless I can continue to manage them.”

“You’ll replace another stud.” Mellie said.

“Are you truly this dense? Do you know how many humans are in this town Melanie? Three hundred and seventeen. I own forty seven; Siobhan possesses one hundred and ninety three. Of the seventy seven owned by individual monsters seventy four of them are women and of the three men one is standing in front of me, one is sterile and the last is owned by Nicodemus who is responsible for the deaths of the eighteen men I owned!” Brannagh was infuriated, raging, and now Mellie understood why. He was on the verge of being shut down, taken apart, his protection vanishing and his mers scattered all because of that one son of a bitch Nic. He was loathsome even by monster standards, he was also one of those rare monsters with a pension for monster flesh… in particular mers because while they were hellions in the water they were practically human on dry land. Tasty morsels to devour, sexy bodies to play with, and Nic would do both.

“I hate that bastard,” Mellie muttered under her breath. “Look I feel for you Brannagh, I get you’re in a crappy situation—” a situation no one else would be willing to try and get him out of. Even if Brannagh could prove to the Town Council or the Mayor that Nic had killed his livestock they wouldn’t do anything, they would have been too afraid to move against him. “But from everything you’ve said it wouldn’t matter if I did give you River, one stud wouldn’t change anything in the long run… but that’s not the point is it?” Mellie said with a frown, sometimes she hated it when she figured things out.

“You don’t need a permanent solution; you just need to look like you have one.”

“I am so lost,” River chimed in.

“He’s planning to run.” Mellie said, “To skip town before Nic can come for him directly…”

“You’re saying monsters aren’t even allowed to leave town?”

“Not exactly,” Mellie said distractedly, “technically we’re free to come and go as we please but someone like Brannagh here has obligations to the monsters he serves, obligations, quotas to meet, all kinds of nasty things that would keep him from up and leaving unless he wanted them to all come looking for him.”

“Obligations which I am discretely extracting myself from,” Brannagh confirmed, “I just need time.”

“How much time?”

“Mellie…” River said.

“Quiet,” she hushed him. Aura took that to mean she should silence him with her mouth. River struggled for a second but melted into the kiss. “How much time do you need?”

“A week,” Brannagh said slowly.

Mellie nodded at that, “You’re planning to leave during the Great Celebration. It’s a good idea, all eyes would be elsewhere. What about your women? Your livestock?”

“Most are spoken for.” Brannagh said. He was using them to pay off his debts before he left, that was smart too.

“I think maybe we could come to an arrangement,” Mellie said slowly. Of course at that point she had no choice but to make a deal, she knew too much to be allowed to leave alive.

“What are your terms?”