Skin peels back. Tendons snap. Cartilage rips.

And the blood—there's blood everywhere. It feels oily and thick and fills your lungs with its stench.

Your screams fill the night. Several times you blackout and for those brief moments you experience the bliss of nothing until you come to again in a storm of agony.

'I'm dying,' you cough when you rise to consciousness for the fifth time.

'No.'

Through a film of blood on your eyelashes, you look up at him. His yellow slitted gaze seems brighter than ever. Everything is bright, as though lit by moonlight, though the moon remains blocked by the thick canopy above. And you suddenly realise that the monster sleeps in the day. You remember how he read that book in the blackness of the night. Is that what's going to happen to you? You recall how your eyes once ached. It must be a part of the transformation. Even near the beginning you were already changing and you hadn't even known it.

Like so much else.

You bite down on your lip at another wave of agony, hard enough that you taste blood. This time it's centred on your knees. It feels like they're twisting. You scream as you feel something pull, then wrench, then finally snap.

You stop, panting, as the monster seizes your head. 'Look at me.' His eyes bore into yours. 'Focus on me, not the pain.'

Gritting your teeth, you glance down at yourself, at the blood trickling between your breasts, at the massive tears in your skin along your shins, thighs and hips. More blood gushes from a new rip just below your left knee. Your body looks a bit like the guts of the dead buck: mushed up and unsalvageable. Your stomach flips.

How can you not be dying?

He grabs your head again, forcing you to look back up at him. You raise your eyes to his horns, then reach up to touch your head, but he grabs your hands before you do.

'Let me see,' you gasp.

'No.'

You try to yank away but you're far too weak to fight him. Instead, you dig your nails into the backs of his hands, and to your surprise you hurt him, despite his thick, leathery skin.

Somehow, amid the agony, you manage to feel triumphant. Your hands slip from his grasp. Free, you slap him hard in the face, and again you're surprised at his snort of pain. You start raking at his chest, carving deep gouges in his skin until the red of his blood deepens the red of his skin.

Somehow, it makes you feel better. Somehow, it lessens the pain. It feels better knowing that you're not alone, that somebody else, particularly the one who's done this to you, is suffering too.

He doesn't stop you. In fact, he encourages you, grabbing your wrists to help you claw into him more deeply. He grits his teeth, baring his canines.

More agony—this time it's your mouth. There doesn't seem to be any part of your body unaffected. It's like you're experiencing the worst toothache of your life. Throwing back your head, you scream as the front two corners of your upper gum tear open. Another gush of blood adds to the taste already in your mouth. You know what's happening; you can feel them growing. Longer and longer. As sharp as daggers. You brush your tongue against them and the feel of their points makes you burst into tears.

That's it. It's official—it's all over.

'No, no, no, no, no.' This time, you grab onto your head before he can stop you. You know what must be there, you felt them explode through your head, but the hardness of the bone against your fingers makes it certain.

You can't lie to yourself anymore.

More tears congeal with the blood on your face as you scream and scream and scream. The monster throws his arms around you, crushing you to his chest. Then he pulls your face up and kisses you. You scrabble at his scalp, yank at his horns, claw at his face, but it does nothing to stop him and all you can do is submit, weeping and trembling.

He kisses you harder until you can hardly breathe. He moves to your neck, to your shoulders. He brushes the hair out of your face so he can kiss your cheek. He doesn't seem to care about the blood. Strangely enough his gentle attention helps with the pain—if only just a little.

A jolt of agony up your left side compels you to grab his horns and yank his face back to yours. You kiss him harder, biting down on his lip, sweeping your tongue against his canines. Tasting him helps, his heat, his breath. A stab of pain up your back makes you kiss him harder still as you claw at his scalp.

Grabbing the back of your head, he moves his lips with yours. He lets you bite him. He lets you hurt him.

You don't stop there—far from it. He grunts as you grab him between the legs. As you expected, he's as hard as a log. Good. You need it, if only to take your mind off the pain. You remember your dream and your heart begins to pound from something more than just the agony. But what about the last time? Remember how it hurt?

If it hurts, so be it. It'll be nothing compared with what you're experiencing now.

You grip it hard down at the base, hard enough that he grunts in pain. He's so big you can only just manage to wrap your hand around him. You have a sadistic desire to drag your nails up it, to make him really hurt. But it's brief. You want him inside you. You need him hard.

At another stab of pain, this time at the back of your head, you move quickly, bracing yourself against his shoulders as you lift yourself up. He grabs onto your forearms as you slowly lower yourself over him.

You hardly feel him at first as the muscles in your shoulders split. You scream, then cry out as you slide further and further over him. Now it's starting to pinch inside, it burns a little, but you keep going. There's enough of you now, not like before, in width and length. He fills you up to the brink, as though he was made for you.

Just like he said.

He's baring his teeth again but not in pain this time. He's trembling against you. His hands are shaking around your arms. You feel yourself stretch on the inside—but in a good way—until, finally, you fit him all in and reach both the end of him and the end of yourself.

You're both gasping. You're both sweating and bleeding. You're both holding onto each other. Wrapping your arms around his neck, you thrust your head back with another cry. It feels so much better than the dream. You can feel him inside you like no other man. He's so deep he's pressing up against the soft tissue of your cervix.

It's good. It's more than good—it's wonderful.

You stare up into the canopy in a daze, uncertain now what is pleasure and what is pain. Then he gives a little thrust and stars explode behind your eyes.