Chapter 8
With my body here and my mind buried in the dark where she lives.
I drift through my shift as if I’m not really here.
Every blink behind my eyelids drags me back to her.
The ghostly shimmer of her skin, the way her eyes sliced straight through me as though she owned every piece of me without even trying.
It’s sick, how much I crave it, how much I crave her.
I feel it crawling under my skin, a constant itch I can’t scratch.
My hands twitch when I think about her throat in my grip, or maybe my throat in hers.
Either way, I’d welcome either. Anything, so long as it means I’m close enough to drown in her.
Orders blur together and I barely hear the noise around me. I just nod and fake a smile.
Inside I’m feral, rabid with want. If people only knew what kind of thoughts coil around my brain like barbed wire, they’d run screaming.
By the time I clock out, the obsession is chewing holes through my ribs. I need more; the memory isn’t enough. It’s never enough. I want her in the flesh, cold or warm, alive, or spectral, it doesn’t matter. I’d let her ruin me. I’d thank her for it.
It should scare me, how far I’d go. However, fear is long dead in me. All that’s left is the hunger. Níl sin ach ag éirí níos airde. (That’s only getting louder.)
Every cell in my body is screaming at me to go to her house, to stand in the shadows like a loyal dog waiting for scraps.
I force myself to turn away, my teeth grinding together so hard my jaw aches.
I need to know more first. I need to understand what she is, what she’s made of. Before I sink my claws deeper.
The library is cold and stale, the hum of the fluorescents a constant static in my ears as I tear through pages that smell of mildew and lost things.
None of it makes sense at first, just half-baked ghost stories and folklore whispered by drunks.
The Dullahan, (the headless horseman,) the Red Nun… all of it useless.
Then I find something, a brittle old book on Tír na nóg.
(The land of youth.) It’s a place where death and immortality tangle like lovers.
My pulse kicks up as I trace the lines on the page with my finger, trying to remember the scraps of stories my parents used to spill when they were drunk enough to talk about the old ways.
Forcing myself through my memories I suddenly remember the wailing lady of the night. A carrier for death. A beautiful omen, soaked in blood and grief.
For hours I tear through anything I can find.
Folklore books with cracked spines, dusty records of deaths nobody’s touched in decades, half-baked tales of restless dead and ancient omens scrawled in the margins by madmen.
My eyes sting, my throat’s dry, but I can’t stop.
My need for her has roots now, deep and coiling. I have to know.
I’m ready to toss the last brittle page aside when something catches my eye. A scrap of yellowed paper tucked between two pages, brittle as old bone. I almost miss it, almost. The image on it pins me to the spot as if a knife stabbed me in the gut.
The banshee.
It’s black, white, and grainy, while also clear enough to feel wrong.
A woman is on her knees in the dirt, her hair long and dripping like oil, masking half her face.
Her mouth is open mid-wail, you can almost hear it through the paper.
However, it’s not her grief that makes my pulse spike like a drug, it’s what curls around her.
That same black fog. Clinging to her bare skin.
It coils around her shoulders and her throat.
It spills onto the ground as if it’s leaking from her bones.
I swear it’s moving even now, writhing on the page.
It’s looks just like her… Croía.
My breath’s ragged as I drag my thumb over the image, smearing the old ink. This is no bedtime tale. No harmless ghost story whispered to frighten children. She’s real, the banshee. I saw her. Brain sí lena domhan. (Touched her world.)
The fucked-up part is… I crave more. The cold dread in my veins.
The power that hummed under her skin when she strangled that bastard’s ghost. The way that black fog made my lungs burn and my cock twitch in the same breath.
A laugh rattles in my chest, sharp and wild.
I choke it back and I force my breathing to calm. However, my mind is already gone.
Ní fheicim ach í. (All I see is her.)
In all honesty, I should run. Instead, my hands are already turning the page, already hunting for more. Knowing she’s death only makes me want her more. She’s, my end. I’ll crawl willingly to the grave if she’s the one waiting for me there.
With this new truth clawing at the inside of my skull, I shove the books and papers into my bag. It doesn’t matter if I’ve missed something. I know enough now. She’s real. The banshee, the wailing woman in the black fog. My Croía. My beautiful, terrible death.
Ready to take on the world if I have to, I step out of the library into the chilly night air. It hits my face just like a slap but does nothing to sober the fever crawling under my skin. My feet hit the pavement in a steady rhythm.
Inside, I’m coiled tight, every muscle straining forward, begging to run. To sprint all the way to her front door and tear it off its hinges just to stand in her shadow.
My cock presses painfully against my zipper, it’s so hard I could howl at the moon. Every step is a fresh jolt of torture, and I love it. I want it. I need to see her, even just a glimpse. A whiff of that sweet scent of caramel and blackberries she carries.
I’d give anything if she’d touch me, just once. For her to sink her fingers into my hair. I’d beg her to drown me in that black fog if it meant I’d feel her pressed against me.
The streetlights blur as I make my way down the cracked sidewalk to her street. My breath clouds in the air and my pulse pounds in my ears. I’m close now. Close enough that I can almost taste the iron tang of her power on my tongue.
It sounds weird but I wonder if she knows I’m coming. If she’ll appear at her window. Would she smile? Or hiss my name like a curse? Either way, I’ll drink her in, until my knees buckle.
My cock is in my hand by the time I get to her bedroom window.
I gently stroke my shaft as I peek through the window.
There she is, my Croía, sprawled carelessly across her bed, a thin towel barely clinging to her.
One careless twist in her sleep and it might slip away altogether.
The thought makes my breath stutter in my throat.
This woman is magnificent. Every inch of her makes something primal crack open in my chest. It’s not just lust that coils inside me, it’s darker, a hunger that sinks claws into my gut and tears at my ribs from the inside.
My strokes are rough, driven by something deeper than desire.
I press my forehead to the glass, hard enough to sting.
The cold steadies me, just barely. However, each shiver of pleasure is sharper than it should be.
Edged with something filthy, something wrong.
I close my eyes, but it doesn’t help. She’s still there behind my eyelids, a laid-out offering, exposed, her skin begging to be touched.
The anticipation of being inside her tight pussy at some point soon encourages my hand to pump faster. If she woke up now, Christ, what would she do? The thought shouldn’t excite me, but it does. The idea of her eyes wide with fear, when she realises, I’ve been right here all along, watching her.
The pleasure builds in sickening waves. My legs shake. My breath rattles, like a dying thing in my chest. The need for her, for all of her, boils over so fast it feels as if I’m drowning. My balls tighten as I feel my breaths getting heavier.
A sick laugh catches in my throat as I place my free hand against the wall to steady myself.
Pumping even harder, I nearly lose my balance.
My forehead knocks lightly against the cold glass, the pane rattling with each ragged breath.
A shiver coils up my spine, splitting me open from the inside out.
The tingles break as though static is under my skin, an electric filthy heat that burns straight through my veins.
I bite down on my lip so hard I taste iron.
The first hot rope of come paints her window, a stark white mark on the glass between me and her perfect sleeping body.
Her name spills out in a hoarse whisper, Croía.
Over and over, as I squeeze out every last drop of come.
My pulse pounds in my ears, deafening, as I watch her chest rise and fall.
She’s blissfully unaware that I’m right here, defiling her glass, claiming her in the only way I can… for now.
My breath fogs the pane around the stain I’ve left behind as I lean my forehead harder into the glass. I don’t wipe it off. I want her to see it when she wakes in the morning, a reminder that she’s never alone, not really.
She’s mine. She just doesn’t know it yet.