Chapter 18
EIGHTEEN
Iwake to silence.
Not the kind that hums with breath and sleep and living bodies, but the hollow sort. The kind that swallows noise before it’s ever made. The house is dark, the air thick with the scent of sex and sweat and something older, heavier—like the ghost of violence left behind.
For the first time in... gods, I don’t even know how long, I don’t feel empty.
Not in the gnawing, cavernous way I’ve grown used to. Not in my stomach. Not in my soul. The ache that lived beneath my ribs, whispering that I was starving even when I wasn't, is quiet. Sated. Content.
Something inside me has been fed.
I draw in a slow breath, then another. The air tastes different.
Richer. Alive. I drag my hand down the center of my body, fingers trailing over bare skin slick with sweat and cooling traces of everything we did.
I expect pain, the bruised throb of used flesh.
But there’s none. No soreness. No fatigue.
If anything... I feel stronger.
The thought startles me, but I don’t linger in it. I push myself upright, the sheets falling away. The room is empty. The bed is still rumpled, but cold now. No shadows move in the corners. No low, sinful voices. No cruel laughter. No Deimos. No Bastion. No Cassiel.
They’re gone. The realization shouldn’t sting the way it does.
I slip out of bed and reach for something to wear, rifling through a pile of discarded clothes until I find an oversized hoodie that smells like smoke and skin and something faintly citrus—Cassiel, maybe.
I tug it over my head, pulling the hem down over my bare thighs.
A pair of black shorts follows, low on my hips.
They don’t belong to me. None of this does.
But I wear it anyway.
I step into the hall. The floor is cool beneath my feet, the silence oppressive now. I listen—really listen—but the house is still. No murmurs. No creaking floorboards. No flicker of movement behind closed doors.
They’re really gone.
A strange knot forms in my chest, twisting tighter the longer I stand in the doorway.
I should be relieved. I should take this chance to run—slip into the night and disappear, leave this cursed house and its monsters behind.
The silence begs for it. The open road beckons.
No voices, no footsteps, no growling promises echoing through the halls.
But I hesitate.
And in that pause, disappointment seeps in. Thick and unwanted. I ache. I ache in a way I don't understand, and I hate that I feel it. Why do I want them here?
Shaking it off, I move toward the door, shoulders square, jaw tight. I won’t be that girl. Not again. I reach for the handle and step into the night.
The air hits me like a baptism.
Cool and damp, it clings to my skin, carrying the last breath of summer on its tongue. But it’s more than the temperature that makes me stop. The clarity… it’s unnatural.
I blink, adjusting, but the world doesn’t blur—it sharpens.
The trees are no longer vague outlines in the dark.
They’re detailed, every leaf etched in silver light, every branch swaying in slow motion.
I can see the veins in the leaves, the glisten of dew catching the moonlight like shattered glass.
A rabbit shifts in the underbrush nearly thirty yards away.
I see its twitching nose, the rise and fall of its tiny chest. I hear it too.
The rustle of its fur. The rapid-fire rhythm of its pulse.
My breath catches.
I turn slowly, eyes wide, trying to take it all in. The woods breathe. The wind speaks. It carries voices I don’t know how to translate—whispers winding through the trees, telling stories older than language.
This isn’t normal. I wasn’t like this before. Something inside me has changed.
But I can’t think about that. Not now. Not with my mind spinning and my body still humming with the aftertaste of sin. I need something concrete—something real to hold onto. I need my phone.
I pat down the hoodie and shorts, as if by some miracle it’ll be in the pocket. It’s not. I don’t even know where I left it. Somewhere between the hallway and Hell.
A spike of panic pierces the quiet.
I need to find it. I need to know the time, check the date, see if the world is still turning. If I can reach someone. If anyone would even believe me.
I press a hand to my chest, grounding myself.
I’m not the same girl who came here. And I’m not done finding out what that means.
But right now, I need to find that phone. And I need to decide—am I walking away from this place?
Or deeper into it?
It takes longer than I expect to find my phone.
I move through the night like a shadow, retracing my steps across the yard and into the fringe of the woods.
My vision cuts cleanly through the dark now, guiding me around every root and rock as though the earth itself is parting for me.
Each breath of damp night air fills me with something dangerous, a quiet certainty blooming in my chest. I don’t stumble.
I don’t falter. It’s as if the night recognizes me.
As if I finally belong to it. And maybe I do.
I crouch and lift it from the dirt where it must have slipped from my hands last night.
The screen is cracked in a spiderweb pattern, but it still glows to life when I tap it.
Relief floods me in a long exhale. A small, ridiculous victory, but it feels like a tether to the person I was before.
The girl who still had a phone. A world. A plan.
Then I hear them.
The sound is faint at first, just a ripple across the night, but my sharpened senses snare it easily.
Voices—male. Familiar. I freeze, every instinct rising like hackles at the base of my neck.
Slowly, I turn my head, narrowing in on the direction of the sound.
It isn’t coming from deep in the woods. It’s closer, drifting from the edge of campus where the shadows thin around the buildings.
Shawn.
And his friends.
I slip instinctively into the darkness, pressing myself flat against the brick wall of an outbuilding. My heart doesn’t race. My breathing stays slow. I’ve become still in a way I’ve never been before, every muscle quiet, every sense open. They don’t see me. They don’t even know I’m here.
“I still can’t believe you fucking lost the bet, man.” One of the guys laughs, a sharp slap landing against Shawn’s back.
Shawn groans, dragging a hand down his face. “Yeah, yeah, whatever. She was a fucking tease. I should’ve had her months ago.”
The world tilts under my feet. Something cold and black slides through my chest.
Another voice joins, amused. “What was the deal again? Five hundred bucks if you fucked the prude?”
Prude. The word is a slap. My stomach turns.
Shawn laughs, low and bitter. “Yeah. And I fucking had her in my car. She was begging for it.”
Begging. My blood surges, violent and hot. My nails bite crescents into my palms, but it doesn’t ground me. It makes it worse.
And then I smell it.
His arousal. Faint but unmistakable. The scent hits the back of my throat like smoke—thick, bitter, male. Something deep inside me responds. Not my heart. Not my mind. The hunger. It rises low and vicious, dragging claws through my ribs. My mouth waters.
“But nooo, little virgin wants to wait for marriage,” Shawn mocks, pitching his voice high. Laughter ripples through the group. Then his tone darkens. “Bet she’s not a virgin anymore, though. I saw the way those guys were looking at her at the bonfire.”
Something inside me snaps.
A sharp, visceral heat floods my veins, burning away the cold, the shame, the last remnants of hesitation.
My fingers curl tighter, and for the first time, I feel something sharp.
I glance down. My nails aren’t normal anymore.
They’re longer. Blacker. Sharpened into delicate, inhuman claws.
They shimmer faintly in the moonlight, then shift back before my eyes—one blink, and they’re gone.
My tongue drags across my teeth. They feel… different. Sharper.
I should be afraid. Horrified. Instead, a slow, twisted thrill rolls through me, curling low in my belly, hot and heady. Power. That’s what it feels like. Power, uncoiling in my chest like a serpent waking from sleep.
Shawn wants to talk about me like I’m some prize? Like I’m a game?
Fine.
Let’s fucking play.
By the time I make it back to my dorm, my entire body thrums with something volatile—rage, power, hunger. It coils through my muscles, slinking beneath my skin, like heat, like a creature I don’t know how to name.
The door clicks shut behind me, and I pause for only a second, long enough to register that Penny’s gone. Good. I’m not in the mood for soft voices or worried eyes. Not in the mood to be told I should calm down.
I strip quickly, tearing off the stolen hoodie and shorts, letting them fall where they land. I don’t even bother with the laundry basket. Nothing matters except the way I feel. And the need to shed it all—everything I was before.
The water in the shower scalds when it hits my skin. I lean into it anyway, letting the heat strip me bare. Steam fills the room in thick curls, fogging the mirror, wrapping around me. But this isn’t absolution. It’s not purification. It doesn’t feel holy. It feels primal.
I close my eyes and tip my head back. Let the water slide over my face, my neck, my shoulders. It should feel like a cleansing. It should feel like penance.
But it doesn’t.
Instead, I imagine it red. Not metaphorically—viscerally. I imagine blood instead of water. I imagine it thick and warm and dripping, and the thought doesn’t repulse me. It soothes. As if my skin is remembering something my soul won’t say aloud.
I should feel guilt. I should feel shame for the hunger I felt when I heard them. For the way my body responded to the scent of arousal like it was cologne. For the way I fantasized about sinking my teeth into Shawn’s throat and drinking down his moans like wine.
But I don’t feel shame. I feel powerful.
I open my eyes and the girl I see in the mirror isn’t the same one who came here.
She’s taller somehow—more certain. Her eyes gleam darker, deeper, like pools of something too old to be water.
Her lips are plush, bitten, the color of ripe fruit.
Her skin—dewy, golden, radiant with something that feels less like health and more like hunger sated.
My breath catches, chest rising as I lean closer. And then, as if summoned by the truth I’m only just beginning to admit, I see them.
Horns.
Black. Smooth. Beautiful.
They curl elegantly from my skull, arching back like polished obsidian. I should scream. I should weep. I should fall to my knees and pray.
But I don’t. Instead—I reach up and I touch them. They’re real. Solid beneath my fingertips. A crown of my own making.
Mine.
A low hum pulses through me. Not fear. Not horror.
Recognition.
She stares back at me from the glass, this stranger in my skin. But I know her. I’ve always known her. She’s the whisper that lived in the back of my mind when I was told to smile. The heat that flushed through me when I was told to stay pure. The howl behind every prayer that ended in silence.
She isn’t a tease. She’s temptation incarnate. And tonight, I’m done playing games.
I towel off with slow, deliberate movements, every inch of my body humming with purpose. My closet is a graveyard of good-girl clothes, but I find what I’m looking for—something I bought once and never had the courage to wear.
A dress.
Black. Tight. Dangerous.
It clings to my body as if it was poured over my skin. I slip into thigh-high stockings and paint my lips with a red that bleeds confidence. Then heels. Not just for height—for power. Every inch I gain is a weapon.
I grab my phone and scroll through my messages until I find him.
Shawn.
The text I type is simple, soft, seductive:
You home?
The response comes quickly.
Shawn
Yeah. What’s up?
I smirk, thumb poised.
I was thinking about you. Can I come over?
I don’t wait for a reply because I already know the answer.
And tonight? I’m not the one being hunted. I’m the one knocking on the door.
And Shawn has no idea just how sharp my smile has become.