The Mantis Bride of Modekun

Chapter 2

Shola digs her nails into my forearm—a desperate attempt to anchor me. Big mistake. The moment her skin meets mine, the energy between us crackles like dry kindling catching flame. Her icy composure floods my veins, dousing my fire... only for my bile to ignite her.

"Are you drunk?" she yells, her voice raw as a fresh wound, spittle flying from her lips as she invades Tolani's space. "How dare you."

Tolani's smirk lasts exactly one heartbeat too long before Shola's fist crunches against his jaw. He staggers to his feet, eyes wide with shock. His hands are in Shola's hair, yanking her head back as his knuckles smash into her face. Once. Twice. Shola's body crumples to the earth like a discarded doll.

One moment, Shola is writhing on the ground—the next, I have Tolani in a chokehold, his pulse hammering against my bicep as the dark, liquid pleasure of malice seeps into my veins, the world narrowing to the roar of blood in my skull.

He claws at my wrists, scratching, and I ram my knee into his ribs. He throws me over his shoulder, and I drag him with me, refusing to release his neck. With my back against the ground, I have a firmer grasp, his windpipe yielding beneath my thumbs.

Another sharp crackle—like dry leaves igniting—and our moods swap like currents in a storm. My head spins as I taste his jealousy, sharp and metallic on my tongue. Beneath it is a searing anger so rebellious and raw that it scares me. For the first time, I know how it feels to hate so much that you want to end a life. My mind fights his reflex, channeling his desire to inflict bodily harm back to him, tightening my grip and squeezing harder. I don't want to kill him, but the longer we stay in contact, the likelier his impulse will do it for me. I’m losing conscious thought.

…

The sting of Shola's rejection burns deep. I loathe her. Wouldn’t blink if she dropped dead. In fact, I wish it. Better that than for her to be with someone else.

Tolani weakens, his eyes asphyxiated. The others are watching to see if I, an amoye, will go through with it. As life drains from him, his impulse wanes. So does his control over me. I push him away, breaking our contact.

…

The fight is over.

While Tolani catches his breath, a fresh wave of clarity washes over me. Seeing those around me through emotions so different from mine, I’m flooded with a strange blend of relief and something else I can’t describe: an uneasy harmony of conflicting feelings.

"If you ever touch her again. I will kill you," I shout at him, meaning every word now that I know the feeling.

When emotions take over, the mind steps back, reduced to a bystander. It feels like spirit possession—something uncontrollable slipping beneath the skin. Sometimes it’s as fleeting as a spark, other times it drags you into a trance, untethered from reason. However brief or drawn-out, I never emerge untouched; my new emotional awareness always lingers, both those alien to me and those I recognize as inborn—they all shape me: each one a layer added to who I am, the light and the darkness. When you dive into the internal chaos of others and surface, you'll discover that you’re only pretending to be unchanged by the experience. Since we’re talking about a transfer of frames of mind between two people, the enlightenment is mutual, I suppose. Except… For them, it’s a once-in-a-lifetime exposure; for me, it’s a lifelong unraveling.

As an empath who relies on touch to understand others, you might think all my lovers have been my soulmates. But there’s only ever been one: Shola. She has stood by me through everything—steadfast, selfless. When our emotional currents merge, the line between loving her and loving myself dissolves, each reinforcing the other’s sense of being. It’s not something you fully grasp until you’ve lived it.

The best analogy for this is our lovemaking. Beginning as two distinct impulses, our boundaries collapse, and the pleasure becomes a single, overwhelming wave, our bodies indistinguishable, our sensations synced to the extent that intuiting her becomes effortless, like touching my own skin. Shola is essential to me. I need her like a vital organ.

So I married her.

Our wedding night was brief. Things didn't go as planned. Looking back, it became the turning point in my life:

Shola and I breathe heavily, tangled in a love arc, our bodies moving to a familiar, electric rhythm. Unable to control my gift, especially at the height of passion, our pleasures reverse, stretching and uniting, my muscles tightening as her psyche pulses through my being—my gasps and shudders, echoing back into her, a feedback loop of shared intensity. The harder I work, the louder we scream. Or is it vice versa?

Breeze creeps into our hut. Like a spirit, it pushes aside the stiff, straw mat that curtains our doorway, stirring and rattling the masks and calabashes strung on the wall. The flames in the hearth flare and sway, throwing amber light across the clay. The goatskin mat lifts at the corners, whispering against the earth as if it, too, wants to rise. Is it about to rain? In my ecstasy, I don't think much of these signs except that they provide a magical ambiance for a magical moment.

Our deepening intimacy shatters like glass when Shola jerks up and twists around, her eyes wide and searching. She’s reacting to a cold, unexpected touch on my shoulder—a hand that doesn’t belong to either of us. She sees something, screams—a raw, piercing sound that tears through the air—and tumbles out of bed, landing with a thud.

In the dimly lit room, the silhouette of a thick-set man hulks above me. He wraps me in an arm and cups my mouth, the weight of his torso crushing me against the straw bed.