Devour Vol 2 Ch 23: The Way That She Wants!

Elara drifted silently through the endless void, her colossal frame cutting across starlight like a drifting continent. The shimmer of galaxies passed in her wake, but her eyes were distant, unfocused. She hadn't heard Conrad's voice since the destruction of the planet. Not a word.

Her chest tightened with something she refused to name. Worry.

Extending her senses, she let her awareness wash across her own vast body. It didn't take long to find him. As always, he was on her lower body. Nestled somewhere along the smooth curve of her hip.

Her lips curled faintly. That's where he always ends up.

"You really do spend a lot of time back there," she said softly, her voice rippling through the cosmos like a playful breeze. She giggled, a girlish sound that seemed too small for someone of her immensity. "Do you... like my booty, Conrad? I don't mind. But maybe—just maybe—you should explore another part of me sometime."

Her laughter trailed off, swallowed quickly by silence.

She waited.

No response.

The smile fell from her face. She slowed, the stars before her dimming as she came to a halt, her golden hair floating lazily around her shoulders. She turned her head as if she might catch sight of him, though of course her eyes couldn't see something so small.

"Conrad?" Her voice cracked slightly, the joke gone. "Are you ok?"

For a moment, nothing. Then—

"Am I ok?!"

The sudden shout made her jolt in surprise. The shift in her skin sent Conrad tumbling down against the warm slope of her hip, his tiny body skidding before he caught himself.

His voice came again, sharp, raw, cutting deeper than anything else could.

"Is all of this a joke to you!?"

Elara froze.

"You killed people," Conrad shouted, his words thick with anger, trembling as he forced them out. "Innocent people. Families. Children. People I told would be ok. Do you understand that? I saw them die, Elara. I saw their lives snuffed out like they were nothing."

Silence. Her throat worked, but no words came at first. Her eyes dimmed, her gaze lowering toward the endless dark.

Finally, softly, she spoke.

"They were nothing."

The words struck him harder than any blow. Conrad's breath caught, his voice dropping to a whisper. "What?"

Elara's face was unreadable, her gaze set forward, her tone cool, almost detached.

"All life in this universe," she said slowly, "exists for us to devour. Nothing more, nothing less."

Conrad's chest heaved. His fists clenched until his knuckles went white. "Do you really believe that?"

She said nothing.

He took in a sharp breath, trying to keep his voice steady, but it broke anyway. "If you really believe that... then why are we on this journey?" His voice rose, shaking, filled with grief and fury. "Why did you come to me at all? Why—why are we even here!?"

Elara's eyes widened, glowing faintly as her mind reeled backward. She remembered. The first time she appeared before him. The reason she had sought him out. The questions she had been too afraid to ask her sisters, too afraid to even admit she had.

Her heart began to pound in her chest, each beat a quake that rolled across her body. Tremors of emotion she hadn't felt in eons.

She blinked hard. Tears welled in her eyes—massive, glimmering drops that could drown towns if they fell upon a world.

Here she was, floating in the endless dark, being scolded—no, judged—by something so small he wasn't even a speck on her skin. A fragile man who should've meant nothing. Yet his words cut deeper than the collapse of worlds.

Her jaw tightened. She swallowed the knot in her throat.

"This is who I am," she said, her voice low but steady as she began to move again, propelling her body forward through the stars. "And I won't apologize for it."

The words tasted like iron on her tongue, harsher than she'd intended, but she let them stand.

Conrad's reply hit her like lightning.

"So you're just going to ignore what happened? Pretend none of it mattered?" His voice cracked, thick with rage and sorrow. "You're really nothing but a coward!"

The word rang in her ears like a bell, echoing louder than his size should've allowed.

Her body stiffened. Her throat burned. Her glowing eyes dimmed with a pain she didn't want to show as anger began to feel her heart.

She stopped flying, halting her enormous body in the void, the stars frozen all around her. Her hand rose slowly, fingers curling with restraint, her power carefully reaching out. She lifted the little speck from her lower body, the tiniest flicker of light around him as she guided him upward.

Conrad dangled weightlessly until she brought him before her massive face. Her eyes narrowed, squinting, trying to focus on the man who was little more than dust compared to her.

"Coward?" she whispered, her voice low but heavy, a sound that rolled through the void like the slow growl of a storm. "No one has ever called me that." Her tone was sharp, edged with something raw—anger trying to bury something else.

Her chest rose and fell, breath quaking with a mixture of fury and disbelief. She tilted her head slightly, strands of cosmic hair drifting in the nothingness. Her lips curled into something between a sneer and a wounded grimace.

"So you have a problem with how I treat lesser beings, huh?" Elara muttered. The bitterness in her words coiled tight around her pride. She extended her hand forward, palm open, then carefully tilted her finger down. Conrad fell gently onto the smooth, glowing surface of her fingertip, his tiny body like dust clinging to glass.

Her golden eyes locked on him, cold and unflinching. A smirk tugged at the corner of her lips, but it was not playful—it was jagged, dangerous.

"Well, Conrad," she said, her voice dripping with venom and amusement alike, "then you're not going to like what I do next. Because I'm going to treat every passing planet the way I want—every single one—until we reach the Mother." She let out a sharp, humorless laugh. "And you? You'll watch. You'll see the lives snuffed out beneath my fingers, my body, my hunger. Seven more worlds... seven more civilizations crushed, burned, and devoured. That's what it'll take to loosen your tongue and remind you who you're speaking to. To remind you to show your betters the respect they deserve."

Her smirk deepened, crueler now, her fingertip lifting slightly so she could look at him directly, so close that her breath—the size of storms—washed over him.

Conrad staggered on her finger, the weight of her words pressing heavier than her breath. His chest rose and fell in quick bursts. His face was pale, his jaw trembling, his lips parting but no words at first came.

Then—shaking, eyes wide with disbelief—he shouted up at her.

"What!?"