“Filthy whore! Monster fucker!” shouted another man—he was skinny and balding with a cricket bat in one hand. He stepped forward as though to take a swing, but Rarev squeezed the trigger of his blaster and a beam of blue light went right through the bat, leaving a hole as big as a fist.
The man gasped, and jumped backwards, staring wide-eyed at his bat.
“Listen to me, all of you!” Rarev’s voice was no longer a snarl or a growl—it was a thundering roar that seemed to shake Em’s very bones in their sockets. She was reminded of a fact she’d read once—that a lion’s roar can carry over ten kilometers in the African savanna. Hearing the Monstrum Commander, she could well believe it.
His roar certainly seemed to get the protestors’ attention because they stopped shouting and were momentarily frozen in place, staring at Rarev.
“This female is under my protection,” Rarev continued, his voice echoing across the back garden and beyond. “I am taking her elsewhere. If any male even approaches her, I will tear him apart! Now make a path!”
Em felt the hand he had around her shoulders twitch and realized he was holding some kind of device. Was it another weapon? But no—a moment later a golden ship appeared at the bottom of the garden. It gleamed like fire in the morning sunlight and she heard gasps from several of the protestors as it appeared like magic.
Well, he certainly has a sense of showmanship—I’ll give him that, she thought and couldn’t help giving the Monstrum leader a glance of appreciation. Being in the public eye herself so much, she understood that sometimes showmanship was a necessary part of getting along and getting things done.
For a wonder, it worked. The angry protestors crowding her back garden parted like the Red Sea and Rarev, his head held high and his golden mane flowing in the light breeze, walked slowly and calmly towards it, bringing Em with him.
But even though the protestors were sufficiently cowed not to throw any more bricks, bats, or punches, didn’t mean they were silenced.
“Hey Minister, how often does he fuck you?” shouted a voice.
“Yeah and how long does it take?” another man yelled. “I’ve heard all those Monstrum have a knot at the base of their cocks that ties them to a woman for hours! Takes you from behind, does he? Breeds you like a dog?”
“No, more like a lion—that’s what he looks like!” shouted another.
“I heard they have pleasure bumps and ridges and they make some kind of liquid that makes a woman come until she bloody well faints!!” a fourth sneered. “No wonder she likes his disgusting monster dick inside her—filthy dog cock fuckers!”
Em held her head high and didn’t answer, but she could feel her face going hot and red. She had heard the same rumors about the Monstrum Kindred’s intimate anatomy, but she had no idea if they were true. And she wasn’t about to dignify the crude comments with a response.
To her relief, it didn’t take long to get to the golden ship at the end of the garden. As soon as they were close, a door appeared in the ship’s golden side and a short ramp with a three-step walkway unfolded itself.
“Into the ship, quickly,” Rarev muttered in her ear. “I’ll watch your back until you’re safely in.”
Feeling like a coward, but also immensely relieved to be getting away from the angry mob, Em trotted up the steps, trying to ignore the jeers and boos aimed in her direction. After all, it wasn’t the first time she’d been booed, she reminded herself. She had made controversial decisions before—many of them. But it seemed that none was quite so polarizing as the decision to allow the Monstrum Kindred to call human brides.
In a moment, Rarev had followed her into the interior of the ship and the door had closed behind them. As soon as it did, the seeming spell which had held the protestors away from them appeared to break, because Em heard them pounding on the ship’s golden hull and shouting.
“Hey—come back out here and face us!”
“Filthy beast-fucking whore!”
“Animal lover!”
“Monster fucker!”
The crude epitaphs made her wince in shame and she cast a glance at Rarev’s face, trying to see what he thought. His animalistic features were hard to read, however.
“I’m truly sorry,” she told him, feeling compelled to apologize for her species. “We’re not all like that—humans, I mean.”
“It doesn’t matter,” he said, neither accepting nor refusing her apology. “We need to get out of here.”
He led her through the ship—which seemed to have a compressed living area, something like a camper, Em saw, and towards the front where there was a cockpit with two seats.
Rarev took the seat on the left in front of a complicated looking bank of instruments, leaving the other free for Em.