The beast crouches over his paralyzed prey, a long gray tongue twisting over the razor teeth embedded in his jaw. His scarlet eyes take in her thick armor and the hard, gray muscle tissue beneath.

His gaze flickers with displeasure. He is all ribcage and spine and pelvis and crudely sharpened iron. Decaying biological matter clings to his back and shoulders, trailing down from his massive claws like rotting afterbirth.

Curious, he touches the very tip of his tongue, slimy with old blood, to an exposed tendon in her neck: searching, sniffing, inquisitive.

She is warm and alive, an organic heart beating fresh blood through veins and cables under that pristine armor. He can feel her breathing, almost taste the pulse in her throat. But her blood would cool if spilled; it would turn into viscous strands and rot, not unlike the red-streaked oil slick of black vomit that coats his tongue and chest and abdomen. Beauty decays without a beating heart.

A beating heart…

He shivers. In his possession is something solid and whole and warm and perfect and alive, tendons binding muscle seamlessly to iron; gears and cables commanded by synapse and neuron.

His organs are imperfectly formed. Fluid from sloughed membranes makes his limbs sticky and damp, rusting his pale iron bones. Shredded muscle fibers bind malformed, knotted entrails into the hollow between his pelvis and ribs.

He never thought he'd finish spitting up the bits of tissue and brackish water clogging his lungs.

Out of jealousy, he considers biting her throat to take the beauty away— make it so no one can have it, like a master confiscating a sought-after trinket to silence quarreling beasts. But touching her, feeling her living warmth, another idea forms.

I want her to touch me.