Beast
Beast
T he girl was blossoming. Since allowing her access to my woods, she’d become so joyful. And her joy was contagious. I followed behind her as she flit through the woods, marveling at the plants and animals. She would laugh over the small creatures that scampered away at her presence, bathe in the frigid water in the stream.
“This must be what the afterlife is like,” She said one day, laying among a bed of flowers. Her lips were stained red from berries she’d found earlier. “I could spend forever here.”
I watched her, a hunger growing inside of me. She was light and perfection. That human girl called to me in a way nothing else ever had. Every day I expected her to tire of her wild adventure and ask to return to her people. Every day she found something else she loved in my woods. Something new that brought her joy.
For a moment, I allowed myself the fantasy she might stay. That she would spend forever with me and end the loneliness that had clawed at me for centuries. I watched her turn her face to the sky and revel in the sunlight and wished for her.
“Come,” she beckoned. “Lie with me.”
Dark hair streamed over her shoulders, her arm reached out for me. Every part of me wanted to go to her and do just as she asked. But it was a dangerous want. The hunger inside of me roared to life, imagining her beckoning me for another reason.
I wanted to taste her. To tease her. To bring her joy and pleasure. I wanted to mate her and mark her as mine and mine alone. Dangerous thoughts and dangerous wants for the human girl who wouldn’t possibly understand.
Instead, I did what I’d been doing since the night I’d freed her from her bonds. I ran away.