51 Dáinn
DáINN
Hunt.
The word fills me, unlocking the creature I keep buried deep within.
My senses buzz with only her—her scent, the pulse of her aura, the rapid racing of her precious, mortal heart.
I have to test her again. Have to know for certain that the first time wasn’t just a fluke.
There’s no other way. And I’m so very hungry . . .
Jasper lunges for her. “Birdie, no—”
Too late.
Our little hummingbird darts off the road and dashes into the trees.
Growling low, I unleash, giving myself leave to chase.
In this rendered form, I’m trapped on two legs.
But the frame of this human body is young and strong, reinforced with Baz’s magic.
It takes nothing for me to spring into action.
I race after her, loving the feel of my pumping arms, the crunch of the earth under my feet.
“Get back here!” The magic of Jasper’s voice stabs into me like so many fishing hooks as he tries to call me back. The barbs shred me, but they can’t hold me. No mortal can stop me.
Well, almost no mortal.
I laugh with excitement, racing after my human.
Birdie’s sweet scent is devastating to my control.
Her aura is a kaleidoscope of colors. She’s panicked, yes.
Terrified. But there in the warm, beating center of her essence, I see it.
I feel it. Her passion. Her wildfire. Oh, she really is my every dream.
She’s fighting it, but she can’t hide from me.
Birdie craves the chase. She craves control too.
What I wouldn’t give to let her take control of me.
All I’ve ever wanted is a soul worth coveting.
There can be no gods for me, but there could still be worship.
How I would crawl for her. How I would beg.
But she needs me in control now. She needs to feel scared.
She wants me to hunt, and she wants me to win.
It’s enough to leave my rendered hands aching, fingers twitching.
I want to rip off this enchanted ring. I want to hunt her as I really am.
I want to grab her, and wrap her in my shadows, sucking the soul from between her parted lips. I want to devour—
She shrieks, ducking left around the trunk of a large oak.
Her aura is exuberant. She thinks she’s getting away from me?
Growling low, I close the distance between us.
The thrill of this chase is heightened by Jasper’s presence.
I am the hunter, but I’m also being hunted.
My angry witch. Yes, I’ll drain him too. His soul is mine for the taking.
He crashes through the underbrush, hot on my rendered heels. “If you hurt her, I will kill you!”
I can only laugh.
Birdie trips over a root and I have all the opening I need. I catch up with her on these powerful legs and lunge, my rendered arms wrapping around her middle. Tackling her, we both begin our slow crash to earth.
“Don’t touch her!” Jasper is far too close for comfort.
Meddlesome witch, this human is mine!
Snarling, I catch us both from landing on the forest floor. I jerk Birdie backwards, tumbling us into the void. She cries out, the sound choking off as shadows swirl around us.
“No,” the witch bellows, his voice fading into nothing as we disappear. “Don’t you fucking take her!”
Holding Birdie tight, I wrap one arm around her middle and press a hand over her mouth, shoving us out of the void well away from our irksome fly of a witch.
Let him try and find us clear on the other side of this forest. Birdie shrieks as she goes from falling on her face, to drowning in the void, to stumbling forward on her two feet.
With her back pressed to my chest, I walk her right up to the trunk of a tree, pinning her against it with my hips—
Interesting. I never normally do this sort of thing with hips. In my wraith form, I use only my shadows and my hands to hunt and feast. My rendered cock twitches with excitement at the feel of Birdie pressed against me. Perhaps this could be a different kind of feast.
Far off in the distant woods, I hear Jasper’s angry shouts, magnified now by his magic. He’s coming for us. Nothing will hold him back. He knows where his soul belongs.
Yes, witch. Come to me.
At the same time, I rasp in Birdie’s ear, “Don’t scream. We don’t want our witch finding us too quickly.”
Birdie squeals, still fighting me. Her elbows jab, her legs flail.
The heels of her thick boots batter my shins.
The little viper even dares to bite my hand.
Feeling triumphant, I spin her around to face me.
I keep her pinned to the tree with my hips and dig my fingers in her hair, jerking her head back.
Pressing my face to the curve of her neck, I breathe in the radiance of her soul.
Peaches with cream and morning sunlight glistening on a lake.
Parting my lips, I drag my teeth against her delicate skin, right over her quickening pulse. “If I were a vampire, I’d open you here. Drain you of your essence, straight from the vein.”
She whimpers, clinging to me, even as she fights. “Let me go!” Her tiny fists push at me as she arches back against the tree. “What the hell are you?”
I lean my face away, only far enough to snare her gaze. Then I snake my hand up, holding her slender throat in a lover’s caress. “Oh, my sweetest treasure . . . I am the end. Stop me if you can.”
She gasps again, eyes wide. The pale green is all but swallowed with black. So pretty. I like the green, of course. But I love black. I see the moment it finally clicks in her clever little mind. At last, she understands what I am . . . and what I intend to do.
“No—please—”
Too late.
I silence her broken plea with a kiss. Well, it’s not quite a kiss. Lips parted, I press my mouth to hers and breathe in. In this rendered form, it feels different. I can’t latch on in the same way. But there’s no denying that I’m tasting her—her soul, her radiant beauty, her simmering power.
Oh gods, she’s everything. More than everything. Never in all the endless years of my restless undying have I ever tasted a soul like this—
“Stop.”
Birdie hisses the word against my lips. Her hands grip tight enough to my shoulders that she would tear mortal flesh.
Now I’m the one gasping, choking on air I don’t need.
All at once, it feels like an iron collar is constricting around my throat and all sense of the feast disappears.
The fog of the hunt lifts, leaving me dizzy and disoriented.
Groaning, hands shaking, I hold her there against the trunk of the tree, decidedly not devouring her.
Birdie is just as breathless. She slips a free hand between us and digs her fingers into my long hair, jerking my head down. “Let me go,” she snarls in my ear.
I let her go. I must. I have no choice. There is only her will, and she wills that I stop. She shoves me away, and I stumble back a step. We stand in the middle of this little island forest, hands trembling, chests heaving.
“I stopped you,” she says on a breath.
“Yes.” I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand.
My brave human sags against the tree with her eyes shut tight. “I stopped him . . . I can stop him.”
“Yes, Birdie. You stopped me. Again.”
“I can stop Death.”
“I am not Death.”
At this, she opens her eyes. They’re glassy with her unshed tears. But she doesn’t look sad or scared. She looks alive. Her aura pulses with the strength of a summer storm. All deep blues and the purple-grey of heavy rain clouds. “Then what are you? Tell me.”
I bite back my chuckle at the fierce command in her tone. This one is easy to ignore, but I tell her anyway. “I’m a wraith.”
“A wraith?”
Hearing her say it fills me with an odd sense of pride.
It grounds me, settling the creature within.
She knows the truth now. Jasper was right, this had to happen.
There can be no Daniel Black with this human.
Not with this one who can stop me. She is different.
She is more. And she must know me. So I nod.
“Yes, Birdie. I’m a wraith. An immortal creature of death that feasts on living souls. ”
She brushes a hand down the column of her throat. “But not mine?”
“So it would seem.”
“And not Jasper’s?”
“If you’re there to stop me, then, apparently, no.”
“And . . . has this ever happened to you before? Not being able to eat a soul?”
“No,” I reply. “Never.”
“Well, there’s a first time for everything right?” Wincing, she rubs the back of her head. “Did you have to be so rough about it?”
Cursing myself, I reach for her. “My Birdie, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you. The hunt—it takes over me. I become a creature of pure instinct—”
She holds up a hand and I walk right into it. Her fingers splay against my chest, blocking me from getting closer. “It’s fine. I’m all right.”
I heave a sigh of relief, even as I take in every facet of her glittering aura, looking for any sign of pain or regret.
She drops her hand. “You can stop yourself though, right?”
“What?”
Her lust and panic are quickly cooling, replaced with razor-sharp curiosity. “Jasper couldn’t stop you, but you could stop yourself . . . right?”
I wince. “Well . . .”
Her eyes go wide as her aura flares with surprise, fear, and, yes, anger. “Oh my god. Are you—you’re serious?”
“Wraiths don’t really stop,” I admit. “We’re sort of known for that in magical circles.”
“But you can stop,” she presses. “You chased me knowing you could stop yourself from killing me, right?”
This render’s expression must give me away. “Birdie, I—”
“Oh my god!” She shoves me back with both hands. “You freaking psycho! Are you serious? You can’t stop?”
“Not really, no.” I only hope this render’s face looks appropriately contrite. “Nothing can stop a wraith from devouring a soul once we’ve started. Birdie, I’m sorry.”
She looks dazed as she shakes her head. “No, it’s fine. You can’t stop once you’ve started. You know, that would have been good to know before I let you chase me!”