Chapter 23
TWENTY-THREE
LEIJA
Eun had lost it.
Blood dripped down the sides of his mouth as the sound of bone crunching between teeth echoed through the air, punctuated by soft, rhythmic growls.
He'd killed the hyenas in a wild rage and sat there, hunched over their bodies, snarling into the air as he ate them.
The MECH had said it was going to get the ship in the air, and it vanished to look for a control room.
The ramp had closed behind us, and I felt the lurch of gravity as the shuttle took off.
All the while, Eun sat there, hunched over the bodies, tearing them apart with his strands as he bolted down chunks of meat, ligament and bone.
It was the same as in that warehouse, but worse, because this time I could see him eating, see the speed at which he swallowed down the chunks of flesh.
My stomach lurched as I watched him but I couldn’t turn away
I did this to him.
He didn’t want to fight them. He didn’t want to risk getting into this state.
"Eun?" I called out to him, and his eyes searched for me, wild and unfocused.
He didn't want this, and I forced him into it.
But this wasn't the same as before. Something was different.
His hair was growing, wild tentacles that spread out from his body, growing long and longer. They brushed past me, ignoring me as they reached out, searching for something. I put my hand on his shoulder, and his eyes finally locked onto mine.
I wasn’t afraid of him.
"Eun!" I tried again.
"My uncle," he said, his voice strange and distant, like he was an observer in his own body. "Need to call him."
The numbness in my heart broke for him, and I ached with the consequences of what I'd done. He needed the one person who understood him, who took care of him when he was lost to the rages.
But that person was a figment of his parents' imagination.
The only person he had right now was me, and I had used him to satiate my rage.
Blood dripped down off his chin, a warm droplet falling on the top of my foot.
"We've already left the planet," I said. "The MECH's shuttle is automated, and it was able to fly this ship, so we took off while you were... eating. We're going to dock with its main ship soon."
Sharp snapping sounds filled the air as behind him, one of his strands constricted around the ribcage of one of the corpses, cracking it over and over.
"Taking you home?" he asked.
"The MECH doesn't know where home is," I said. I was unable to keep the weight of my own disappointment out of my voice. I thought it would know, but it was just as lost as I was, adrift and far from home.
"Not safe," he growled, and his eyes unfocused.
"Eun?" I said.
I caught a brief glimpse of his hair, finding a crate and wrapping around it, crushing it with shattering force, tearing it open as chunks of plastic wrapped meat slid out onto the floor, and then Eun's arms were around me.
I reached to touch his face as he pulled me down, pushing me underneath him, the bloodied steel of the floor cold and grotesque against my back, my dress soaking in the blood.
His body consumed my vision, and his hair spread out, filling the spaces in my vision until all I could see was him.
"Eun!" I said, trying to reach him, but his lips covered mine, demanding and hard, heat searing through me as his hands wrapped around my thighs, finding the edges of my dress. He pushed it up, his thighs pressing my knees apart.
"Are you okay? Are you somewhere in this mess?" the MECH called out from somewhere else in the room. "I didn't know his kind could grow this fast!"
Eun didn't stop, his fingers sliding up the inside of my thighs, fingers caressing my slit, and I shuddered from the pleasure and the horror of it. He wasn't responding to me. He needed me, pawing at me like a drowning man, and all I could do was hold onto him and hope he didn't slip away.
"I'm okay!" I called out. "Eun's freaking out. He needs me. You should go."
I heard the heavy thuds of its boots leaving, and I didn't have time for anything else because his claws were ripping my underwear, and then the thick head of him was there, pressed in between my legs. He didn't stop, didn't ask, didn't say anything at all.
He thrust into me, hard and demanding, and I let out a cry.
I wasn't prepared, and the pleasure was mixed with the discomfort of my own guilt and desire.
He took me like he couldn't even see me, like I was just flesh to be pounded against, to be ridden to the pure satisfaction of his completion.
My back slid against the cold blood on the floor, his hips pressed bruises into my thighs, his chest bumped against my face, his breath hot against the top of my head.
I clawed at his back, finding the base of strands of where his hair connected with his spine.
They were thicker, and I grabbed onto them, needing to hold onto something.
He shuddered.
Cool air kissed my back for a moment, replaced with the warm touch of the strands of his hair wrapping around me like a cocoon, rubbing against my back like a massage as he pounded me, stealing my breath with every thrust.
Pleasure rolled with every stab of his rod, and out of the corner of my eye, all I could see was the glowing white of his hair, completely encasing us.
Thick heat swelled within my opening, and Eun let out a guttural groan, the feel of him taking me over the edge, and I was calling out his name, his heat filling me, his body holding me, pinning me, keeping me in place as he thrust deep and fervent into my depths.
I slowly drifted down from the heights of my peak.
I tried to tilt my head back, but the side of my face was pressed against his chest, his length twitching hard inside of me.
I was utterly wrapped up in him, his arms holding me, his hair wrapped about us both, holding us trapped together.
I tilted my head back, trying to see the room, but all I could see were the strands of his hair, forming a cocoon around us.
"Eun?" I asked.
His soft groan was his only response.