Chapter 21
Ghoul
Iused to have the urge to destroy the academy whenever I’d creep up on it. Execute everyone inside and send the walls crumbling. I’d wonder how much power it would take to turn it to ash. How strong were the dragons that made this place?
But then one night, when Aurelia was newly enrolled at the academy, I was pretending to patrol outside the anima dorm when the gargoyle above the door spoke to me.
“Hello, sir basilisk,” she said in a squeaky sort of voice.
“My name is Christine.” I said nothing back, smoking a joint and wondering if she spoke for the place at large.
“Lovely night,” she cooed. “Here to see the B—uh, the wee little lady inside? Long black hair? Blue eyes that light up your heart?” I’d put out my joint. “Sorry, can’t let you in tonight.”
Finally, I spoke and she jolted in her stone. “Are you…protecting her?”
“Of course!”
“Why?”
She squinted at me like it was obvious. Sticks for legs swinging straight out. “Uh, she’s the most powerful creature here. Only the most powerful can be guardian of the house.”
“So you’re protecting her because she needs to protect you?”
“Got it right between the eyes, sir,” she chuckled at her own joke.
“And why do you need protecting?”
She shut her mouth, twisting her lips as if she’d almost let something out. Christine waved her finger at me as if I were the idiot. “Why, there’s books inside, my good lord! Important books.”
Lying through her stony teeth. So I decided I wouldn’t destroy the place after all.
Tonight, as I approach the academy, the cicadas stop chirping as they sense me, and all the little birdies in their nests huddle closer to one another.
A lone brown snake slithers deeper into the bushes at the base of the tall academy walls, and the guards—a dingo and three wolves—send telepathic waves between themselves.
The bald eagle who likes to hover around Aurelia, and one of his subordinates, a rare black cockatoo, patrol the cloudless night sky.
None of them notice me slithering through the air, my shadows a moving inkblot against the dark.
Even if the sharp eyes of the avians do note a strange shift in the air, within a single blink, I’m already a part of the dark, invisible to everyone.
Even to her, I’ve been unnoticeable this entire time.
I don’t know when she started feeling my presence.
Maybe she began to notice the rising of the little hairs on the back of her neck, or a cold feeling of dread coiling inside her stomach.
Tonight, she’s opened her window for me.
And a girl who opens her window for monsters at night is my kind of girl.
I catch a glimpse of her from a distance.
Wait, do I think I’m the baddest creature of the night?
There she is, stark naked, with her hands on those delicious hips, pretty eyes narrowed like a predator as she waits for me.
I know it when she sees me. Her eyes lock in and her edible lips part because I’m sure she wants to kiss me.
There’s a hint of fang under the moonlight, and now I’m hard as fuck.
Soundless, I slip through the window, around her perfect body, and assume my human form right behind her, the shadows bubbling outward into the shape of the man version of me.
My beautiful monster does not flinch as I inhale the scent of her neck, and I don’t fail to notice every goosebump that spreads across her skin, in the same way I don’t fail to notice anything else about her.
She smells like violence and dragon smoke, yet her heartbeat remained steady until now.
“Is there something you desire from me, snakelet?” I murmur against her ear, my shadows reaching around her waist to hover just over her skin. “You seem to be doing quite fine by all reports, but your text message was quite…insssssistent.”
She raises a hand, fingers curiously brushing against a lick of shadow. “They’re soft, and yet…strong.” Her voice is gentle, unlike her scent, and the way it slides down my spine is like something out of this world. “Do you have control over them, or do they have a mind of their own?”
Dying to touch her, I caress a gloved finger down the length of silken black hair lying against her spine. “They can be wild,” I admit. “It’s like taming a wild serpent. You think you have control over them, and then a second later…” Two licks of shadow slide around her throat.
The snakelet sucks in a breath, and the movement presses her back against me. I let my fingers hang down, trailing them against the soft skin of her bare thighs. Her arousal sweetens the air.
“If I touch you now, will you be wet for me?” I murmur in her other ear. “If I taste you between your legs, will your pussy be sweeter than your venom?” My fingers trail higher as her breath quickens, brushing into the soft skin above her curls of pubic hair.
“Touch me,” she whispers, rubbing a thumb over the band of shadow at her throat.
Of their own accord, those bands apply a subtle pressure.
Chuckling under my breath, I command them away, removing my gloves with my teeth and replacing the shadows with my bare skin.
She exhales arousal, and I cup her throat, pulling her against my body, letting her feel how hard I am as I command my shadows to slide down the old scars on her stomach and caress the dark hair at the apex of her thighs. Down they wander.
“You’ve acquired a taste for danger, snakelet. I’m not sure if I should spank or fuck that out of you.”
Snakelet gasps as those shadows find her wet heat. Find those pussy lips slick and deliciously hot. “Why do you care?” she pants, placing her hand over mine at her throat. “You’ve never fucking cared about me.”
“Hmmm,” I hum, enjoying the feel of her core, of her centre as I delve deeper for that precious hole.
She cries out as I enter her, expanding the shadows and filling her up.
She bucks in my grasp, and I band an arm around her waist as yet another lick of shadow joins in at her core, this time circling her swollen clit.
“That’s a lie,” I say into her ear as the shadow inside of her expands further.
“I’ve warned you many a time.” She gives me a sweet cry, and I brush my lips across her jaw. “Breathe, snakelet. Breathe for me.”
“It’s growing,” she says, running a hand down the thick length between her legs. “How is it growing?”
I hum again. “Is it?”
“You bastard,” she pants, but it’s half-hearted.
“This is what you miss, isn’t it? The cocks of your mates in you. I can give you whatever you want all by myself.”
The shadow grows, pumping slowly, lovingly, into her as her clit pulses under the second finger of shadow.
She tilts her head back to look at me, and I surrender into her gaze before slanting my fangs over hers.
“If you don’t kiss me, I might leave,” I whisper.
She growls, reaching for the back of my head and hissing into my mouth.
I toy with a nipple as her tongue slips past my lips, and now it’s my turn to groan into her.
Snakelet’s pussy floods my shadows, her desire growing around us.
I move faster, the shadows fluttering against her clit in a sucking motion, the pulsing inside of her bigger, faster, and stronger than before.
Her muscles tense, and she screams into my mouth, her fangs biting on my lower lip, venom shooting out.
I grab her chin as she comes and cries out, sucking on her mouth for her delicious poison.
“I need every last drop,” I tell her into her mind. “Every last fucking drop of you.”
Her hips buck under my shadows, and as venom slides down her mouth, I slowly lick it up, savouring the power and taste of it.
She pants against me, and I circle her clit in a lazy motion to drag every last bit of pleasure from her.
As she sags in my arms, I just have to bury my nose in her hair, wrapping her in my power, wrapping her in night.
“It’s warm,” she says curiously, “but cool at the same time.” As she’s looking back at me like this, I could drown in those gems she calls eyes. The one pair of eyes in the world immune to me and my lethal nature. “You can give me whatever I want?” she asks carefully.
“Ah, I’m wounded. You’re using me.” A glimmer begins in her pupil, spreading outwards as she turns around to face me. Her hand slides down my trousers, finding my hard length and squeezing. I tilt my head back in pleasure. “Oh, snakelet.”
“Don’t you dare think for a moment that I’ve forgotten Drakos Estate. You owe me for all my trouble.” Her hand slides up and down, working me like an instrument.
“Yessss,” I say with a sibilant hiss. “I forget nothing, snakelet. Ever. What is it you want from me?”
She unzips me, untucking me and letting that achingly hard length spring out into her hand. Her touch is nothing but torture on my needy skin. “I want some of that heat serum they injected me with at Drakos Estate. Six doses worth at least.”
Even my darkness stutters. “Snakelet,” I drawl. “Now why on the Wild Mother’s forsaken earth would you ask for something like that? Do you not remember what happened the last time?”
“Oh I remember quite well, General,” she returns, her voice soft and beguiling. Is it getting hot in here?
“All this time you wanted drugs from me?” I pout over my fangs. “I’m hurt, actually.”
She removes her hand, shoving at my chest with enough power behind it that it actually makes me stumble back a step. “Can you get it or not?”
Enamoured, I have to stare at her for a moment. Stare long and hard enough that inside me, something long-awaited ignites. “Finally, she shows me her fangs,” I say.
“Finally, I realise that the monsters in the jungle are no scarier than me,” she purrs. It’s definitely hot in here. She takes a step towards me, predatory intent in her eyes. “Finally, I realise that the only thing stopping me from being the bigger predator was myself.”
“I don’t know if I can keep calling you snakelet after tonight,” I breathe.
“There is something else you can call me. Something you’ve been avoiding.”
There is a glint of some type in her eye now. Her voice booms around me. “Give me what I want.”
She just tried to regina-command me. Spells and secrets on my body burn like poison through my veins. My heart pounds in my ears, and my fangs elongate down past my lower lip. “You’re calling upon something you’re not ready for,” I warn.
“I’ve been ready for a while, Ghoul.”
We stare at each other, eye to eye. Basilisk to Boneweaver. Her pupils turn into serpentine slits, mesmerising me.
“I’ll get you the serum.” What am I even saying? “But—” I quickly recover. “You’ll have to do something for me first.”
She frowns. “Why? I don’t have time for this.”
“You’ll make time,” I say simply. “You’ve owed me for a while now. And I’m guessing you want these vials badly enough to do whatever it takes.”
She doesn’t scowl, doesn’t give anything away, and just for a moment, I miss the old Aurelia, whose face gave away everything. I’m going to have to be on my game now.
“Alright, what do you need me to do?”
So level. So calm. That heartbeat is focused, her breath steady. Those pupils…still slits that hook me in by the cock. “Meet me here tomorrow night,” I say, striding towards the window. “I’ll get a dress.”
Before she can respond, I’m one with the darkness and out the window.
I’m about to leave when something pulls my attention away from my exit over the academy wall, and I decide I’d better go pay my respects.
I descend to the medical centre, opening myself up to whatever lurks here.
Where I find Raquel. Where the wolf anim’s astral form has been running around shouting for help this entire time.
“Boo!” I shout.
The anim skids to a stop right in front of me.