Chapter 5 #2
Kit seethed for the entire drive back. Conroy was useless, just like every other territory leader.
A couple of centuries in charge only worked to inflate their egos.
Back when Lawrence had dragged him from place to place, they’d had to present themselves to the leader in each new location.
Kit had played the role of enamoured creation every time.
It wasn’t a role he fit well, but there was little point in fighting when Lawrence could rely on compulsions to keep him in line when the threats didn’t work.
When Kit had been human, he hadn’t recalled what happened when under compulsion. But after Lawrence recreated him, he became cognisant of every time Lawrence forced his will upon him.
He sometimes envied his human self for being able to forget.
Kit’s performance had always fooled the territory leaders.
One of them had cooed about how devoted Kit was to his creator, how sweet it was that he stuck so close, how lovely the two of them looked together.
Kit had wanted to rip her tongue from her mouth to stop her from speaking.
Instead, he’d played up the coquettish persona he wore and flirted with Lawrence in front of her for the rest of the night.
Lawrence hadn’t even rewarded him. Not that Kit expected him to, but perhaps some acknowledgement would have been nice.
Kit’s thoughts bounced between those awful days and Conroy’s sneer as he drove—a tad over the speed limit—through the quiet night.
The road from St Andrews was dark, passing between endless fields with just the odd distant house lit against the night.
As he passed a copse of trees, Kit spotted a tiny something walking across the road and pressed on the brakes, hard.
Given the late hour, the road was empty of other vehicles.
Kit waited for the little hedgehog to move, but it froze in the headlights.
He sighed, undid his seatbelt, and got out of the car.
“I’m a bleeding heart,” he muttered to himself.
The hedgehog looked up at Kit with its black beady eyes and made a small snuffling sound.
Kit tried to shoo it along with his foot, but it didn’t move.
Resigned, Kit scooped the animal up, wincing as its spines dug into his hands.
He rushed over and dropped it in the ditch near the side of the road, and then sped back to his car, shaking out his hand.
In the grand scheme of things, the pinpricks from the spines were nothing.
But Kit felt phantom pain in his palms as he gripped the car’s steering wheel so firmly that it bent.
By the time he found a parking space—almost impossible at that time of night—he was even angrier than he’d been after speaking to Conroy.
Instead of going into his lonely flat, Kit walked down to the sea. He found a suitable spot to sit and plonked himself down. The gentle waves ebbed and flowed, predictable as a metronome. White foam covered the shore, and Kit spotted pale sea glass nestled between the pebbles.
It took the sea decades to smooth the glass’s edges. Kit could smash a bottle now and return in a hundred years to retrieve the broken pieces.
Before he slipped too far into an existential crisis at the prospect of his own longevity, he got up and shuffled around the beach, taking the prime pieces of glass for himself.
He continued his little treasure hunt until he’d calmed, though it was no easy feat when his mind kept straying to Quin. Maybe Kit had been too quick to go to Conroy. He supposed it didn’t matter, given Conroy’s less-than-useful offer of protection.
Hunger gnawed at Kit as the hour drew later, but he didn’t feel up to hunting.
Plentiful prey wouldn’t be available at this time of night anyway.
Alone but for his pocketfuls of sea glass, he traipsed back up to his flat, intent on finding something to distract himself from further thoughts of a certain infuriatingly handsome and stalkerish werewolf.
A big distraction. He was going to need a very big distraction.
Kit couldn’t move. His face was pressed into the pillow, suffocating any scream he might let out.
A claw ran up his exposed back. One trailing finger, all the way to his neck, that left his skin searing so hot that he feared it might burn right off the bone.
And then hands gripped around his ankles, forcing his legs apart. Every fibre of Kit’s being told him to fight, but he couldn’t so much as let loose a sob as more hands caressed his inner thighs, trailing ever upwards.
Kit’s face was wet with silent tears.
He couldn’t let this happen.
Not again.
Pain had him opening his eyes in shock. He gasped as the pressure faded, the phantom touches dissipating.
Apart from the two hands that still clutched his ankles.
Kit whipped around as the hold disappeared. A shape loomed at the bottom of the bed, only its outline visible in the pitch-black.
Before Kit could act, the shape vanished. He shot up in bed onto his knees, his gaze darting around the room. There was nothing. No one.
There never was.
Kit dared to blink, tensing as he expected the shape to manifest again. When it didn’t, he turned a light on with a sigh. Another day, another nightmare, this one worse than the last.
Kit didn’t notice the marks until putting on his socks after showering. As he sat on his bed and bent over, the sight of a perfect purple handprint around each ankle made him drop the sock in shock.
He reached out and pressed a tentative finger to the bruise on his right ankle, unsure what it would feel like. Perhaps for it to burn like it did in his dream. But there was only a slight throb when his finger connected with the bruise.
A familiar pain, of course. At one point in his life, he’d not gone a day without a new bruise. He’d still never learned not to press them; the lure of that satisfying feeling was too enticing.
Greens and yellows had once painted his skin. But the bruises always started out just like the ones that now wrapped themselves like chains around his ankles.
Purple.
Kit hated purple.
Perhaps it was because of his eyes. He’d been told a million times throughout his existence that his eyes were more purple than true blue.
Lawrence had complimented his eyes. He’d told him they were what made him take him. One look in those violet eyes, and he’d been unable to resist. Lawrence demanded that Kit keep his eyes open through everything.
But Lawrence was gone, and Kit remained. Not that he did anything other than exist, floating through the nights like a spectre.
Nausea flooded his body as he gripped the bed, nails digging into the sheets. Closing his eyes, he fought his instinct to run.
Food. He should feed. The sooner he fed, the sooner the bruises would disappear. Kit needed them gone from his body.
He didn’t recall getting dressed or leaving his flat. He worked on autopilot, desperate for sustenance. Kit only came back to reality when he looked up to find his fangs deep in the wrist of a boy who barely looked out of his teenage years.
“Oh, god,” Kit said, pulling away from him.
The boy’s eyes were shut, and his pulse was slower than was safe. Kit’s stomach roiled, threatening to expel the pints upon pints of blood he must have taken. The boy’s lashes fluttered, and he opened his eyes, tears brimming in them.
“I’m sorry,” Kit gasped, not understanding how he’d ended up there but desperate to make it right. “Tell me your address. I’ll take you there now. I promise.”
The teenager responded slowly, as if he couldn’t quite recall the information.
Kit had to look the street up on his phone, relieved that it wasn’t far he’d have to transport the boy.
He took him there as fast as he could without running, concerned that he’d damage him further if he sped.
The whole way, Kit’s mind raced as he tried to remember the moments before feeding, but it was a black hole in his memory.
All he could focus on was one prevailing thought: what if he had gone too far?
The nightmares were seeping into reality. Kit’s grasp on his sanity was failing. He didn’t know how much longer he could keep it up.
When he got to the boy’s address, he helped him right to the door. “Forget my face, and what happened to you. Go inside. Get some food and water. Sleep.” Kit paused before adding, “And be safe.”
He ran back to the scene of his crime, looking around for any sign of cameras or evidence. But if small towns were good for one thing, it was the lack of CCTV.
Kit sank down to the ground, leaning against the concrete wall of the lane he’d lured his victim into. If he had even lured him. Kit could have snatched him off the street and he’d never know. A minute or two more and the boy would have been drained to death.
Kit buried his face in his hands.
He was as bad as his creator.