Chapter 3
chapter
three
Atticus
She is the one.
I don’t even know what the fuck that means, but the phrase echoes through my body as I run.
Then I see them through the clearing. The woman and one of the ferals.
It’s one of the flyers. Maybe he’s a mothman; I’m not even sure, because I’ve never seen one close up.
He basically looks like a weird cross between a praying mantis and a moth.
I run at him without another thought because he’s got the woman—MY woman—pinned against a tree.
His brownish-grey wings are folded behind him, highlighting the fact that he stands nearly two heads taller than her.
His segmented body bends allowing his feelers and pincers to examine her body.
His proboscis reaches out towards her face, and I fucking lose it.
“Hands off, motherfucker!” I yell as I shove him out of the way with strength I didn’t know I had.
He falls to the wooded ground. He scrambles to his feet, crouching on his haunches as he looks up at us with his multiple beady eyes, before making a screeching noise and flying off. He circles, then lands further away, watching us. Clearly, he’s not intending to give up his pursuit any time soon.
I turn back to the woman. I’m not positive, but I’m pretty sure my mouth falls open as I stare at her.
She’s the most beautiful creature I’ve ever seen.
She’s not short and dainty, like a lot of women.
No, she’s thick and robust with generous curves in all the right places.
Full tits, soft belly, and though I can’t see it from the way we’re standing, I’m sure her ass is round and plump.
She’s voluptuous and I want to put my hands on her everywhere.
She’s staring right back at me too. Her pale blue eyes search my face, inventorying my features.
She’s wearing a royal blue, v-neck t-shirt that highlights her fair complexion.
Her chest rises and falls quickly as she stares up at me.
Her hair is dark, nearly black like mine, and she’s got it hanging in two long braids on either side of her head.
I lick my lips.
“I want to say thank you,” she says, “but not if you saved me from him so that you can eat me.”
I do want to eat her. But not in the way zombies normally eat humans.
Fuck, she smells delicious and I want to devour her. I want to lick her all over her body. I want to find all the places she smells that good and I want to bury my tongue in them.
“I don’t eat people,” I say, because voicing my actual thoughts would horrify her.
Despite that, despite the fact that I know I must terrify her, despite the fact that my reaction to her unsettles me, I can’t resist her entirely.
So, I lean in closer, pressing my nose nearly to the flesh of her neck.
I close my eyes and inhale deeply. A rumble vibrates up my throat.
Without another thought, I lick that delectable skin and the sweetness of her bursts on my tongue.
I groan in the first pleasure I’ve felt in decades.
Then I still when she clears her throat.
“I think I have some salt and pepper packets in my purse for emergencies,” she says. “Maybe some fast-food taco sauce would be more to your liking?”
I leap backwards, every muscle of my body held taut, as I suck in one deep breath after another. I hold myself poised, ready to run. To put as much space between us as necessary if she seems afraid. “I apologize,” I say stiffly. “You smell like cookie dough.”
Her pale blue eyes narrow on my face and I know what she’s seeing.
I know what I look like. My grey pallor that is almost a light purple in tone, the too pronounced bone structure, my green eyes that nearly look as if they’re lit from within, they’re so green.
But so far, she’s not recoiling. Still, she’s probably as disgusted by me as she was by the mothman.
“What are you?” she asks, her voice an awed whisper.
I know the question she’s asking. What kind of monster am I? What are all the ways in which I am not quite human? I could answer her. I’ve spent two decades cataloguing all of my otherness, mostly because doing so satisfies my own intellectual curiosity. So I could answer her question.
I just don’t want to. I don’t want to tell her I’m a monster. I don’t want to admit that truth. For reasons I don’t yet understand, I want her to see me as a man, not a thing.
“My name is Atticus. We need to get you out of here.” I glance around us and the mothman is no longer staring at us from the woods.
I look up at the sky through the trees. Far up in the air, I can see a winged something circling.
Maybe it’s just a hawk or an eagle, but I doubt it.
“He’ll be back, and I suspect there might be more. ”
She thumbs over her shoulder. “The cabin I’m renting is back there.”
I’m already shaking my head, trying not to gape at her sheer human arrogance. “That won’t keep you safe.” I hold my hand out to her.
She stares at the tattoos that cover my now pale purple skin. Every piece of ink I had before the change is now practically lit up against the fair color of my skin. Then there are my eyes.
“Why are you here? Why did you rent a cabin?” I ask.
“I’m a writer.”
“Are you alone? Is there someone else with you that we’ll need to retrieve from the cabin?”
She shakes her head, but she still hasn’t taken my hand. “I just came for peace and quiet to get work done,” she says.
But there’s something else she’s not saying. “No cabin back there will be safe enough for you,” I say. She clearly has no idea what she’s actually gotten herself into. And despite my twenty emotionless years, I’m starting to get frustrated.
A lone woman. In a cabin in the woods. A human woman in the woods near a town full of monsters and ferals? She won’t make it through the night.
And if she and I stay out here exposed much longer, I might not be able to protect her if that creature comes back.
“I’m just supposed to believe you that I’ll be safe with you? Who’s to say you’re not going to bring me back to your place just so your wife can rub me down with paprika?”
“I don’t have a wife and I’m allergic to paprika.
” I exhale slowly, these new emotions so unfamiliar it almost hurts.
“What I can tell you is that if that creature comes back, and I’m betting it will now that it has scented you, it will mate you, then eat you.
Your odds of survival are much greater back at my place.
I have several bedrooms and you can lock me out if you’re worried. ”
Her eyes roam over my form and my cock twitches again. “I need to get my stuff,” she finally says.
Her cabin is, indeed, not far away. I follow her there and it takes only a few moments for her to grab her things. She doesn’t have much packed with her, mostly a computer bag and then a small roller. It’s easy enough for me to haul while we walk the rest of the way to my place.
“We could have taken my car,” she says.
“I know. Just prefer to walk.”
“It’s beautiful out here. When giant bug men aren’t trying to eat me.”
We walk in silence until we reach the clearing that opens up to my property.
“Holy shit! That’s your house?”
My “house” is actually a Victorian gothic mansion.
Back before the transition, when Hunt Industries first went public and I was worth hundreds of millions of dollars over night, I imagined I might one day get married and have kids.
I bought this monstrosity—no pun intended—hoping to someday fill it with a family.
Awkward nerd that I was, I’d never had much luck with women.
I didn’t have a problem attracting women.
My face and body always helped with that.
Then later, the millions, success, and relative fame that came along with that helped even more, but I never found anyone I clicked with.
They liked to look at me, but no one ever wanted to listen when I spoke.
I just never met anyone I wanted to spend my life with.
Then the transition happened and I no longer had a life to share.
“I know. It’s obnoxious. I told you I had enough rooms.” I guess I should be grateful for the rooms since I continue to run Hunt Technologies from home.
“That’s a damn mansion.” She turns to me again. “Seriously, who are you?”
“I told you, my name is Atticus.” I lead her up the stairs to the front door. “You haven’t told me your name yet.”
“Vivian.”
“Vivian,” I repeat, letting the consonants and vowels of her name swirl around in my mouth.
Once we’re inside the house, I lock the front door, then lead her through the two-story tall foyer and into the study and set down her belongings on the leather sofa.
“You can pick whichever room you want. I’ve got bedrooms upstairs and on this floor.
I can even sleep outside if it will make you feel more comfortable. ”
She shakes her head and takes a step towards me. Those pale blue eyes of hers search my face. Her lips are kissably full, and I fight the urge to lean down and press my mouth to hers. “I’m not afraid of you.”
“Maybe you should be.”
“Why won’t you tell me what you are?”
“We both know that you already know what I am.”
One hand reaches up and traces the pronounced ridge of my cheekbone. “You don’t look like any zombie I’ve ever seen,” she says.
“I’m the only zombie I’ve ever met so I can’t speak to the breed as a whole, but I can say that I am quite different than the ones you’ve probably seen in the movies or on television.”
A furrow appears between her brows. “Exactly. For one, you can talk.”
“I can,” I say with a nod.
“You’re not all grrr….grrr…. Brains!”
My lips twitch and it almost feels like a smile, but that would mean enjoyment or pleasure or humor at the least. Before today, the most emotion I’ve felt in the last two decades has been the acknowledgment that I should probably be annoyed that I don’t feel any emotion.
But this woman is causing reactions in my body.
“Let me ask you a question,” I say. “Are you a vegetarian?”
“I could never be. As much as I love animals, bacon is life.” Her entire face lights up when she says this and damn if my cock doesn’t notice that too.
“I don’t eat people. Never have. Never will. I do eat brains. But it’s not that different than eating other organ meats which are very popular in other cultures.”
“Okay,” she says. “Where do you get them?”
“A few places. There is a local farmer who I purchase from. The coffee shop in town keeps me stocked too and has created a delicious drink for me. And I order them. I have an industrial freezer in my butler’s pantry.”
“So you’ve never like grabbed someone’s pet and attacked it?”
“Fuck no! I’m not a monst—” I exhale slowly. “All right, I can see how I might be deemed a monster or a creature, but I can assure you that most of us here in Screaming Woods are civilized. We were once just like you, after all.”
She stares at me, her mouth open.
“People don’t tend to just wander into our town.
They come here for very specific reasons.
Now there are new developments in town that are attempting to bring humans back so we can have an integrated community.
But so far it’s pretty slow going as I understand it.
Others have come for the freak show, because let’s face it, it’s not every day you can walk into a town to see a minotaur and a wolfman having a conversation.
So, what is it for you? What brought you here? ”
She swallows visibly and my eyes snag on the milky complexion of her neck. Her skin is so perfect. I want nothing more than to lean in and lick her again. Just another taste.
“Research,” she says.
“Explain.”
“I’m a writer.”
“A reporter, then? We’ve had plenty of those pop up over the years.
Always looking for the dirt on the town.
Maybe I should have left you to the mothman then.
” I step away from her, putting the sofa between us so I’m not tempted to touch her.
It’s the reminder I need. No matter what my urges say or how she smells, this woman doesn’t belong to me.
No way would a beauty like her go for a …
well, a dead guy like me. So I need to just back off.
“I need to do some work of my own. You can use this as your office if it suits your needs. The kitchen is fully stocked and straight down the hallway to your left.”
“You’re leaving?”
“Not the property. I’ll be in the workshop behind the house. You’re perfectly safe though. No one can get into my house unless I want them to, and you have nothing to fear from me.”