Chapter 6
CHAPTER SIX
He’s always impressed with how much blood the meat suits hold.
Like they’re under high pressure, barely contained, everything waiting to flow out at the smallest of punctures.
Which he gleefully does, licking the ensuing warmth that dribbles down his arm.
He even laps at the wood floor, relishing every sweet copper drop, grit, and the exquisite tang of fear that seasoned the blood before spilling out. There’s no shame in this act, only joy.
And hunger.
And a confusing sense that he doesn’t want to mess up his clothes.
Reaching deeply into the meat, he pulls, delighting in the tension, the give, the eventual slow tearing as a kidney comes free.
A half-remembered biology lesson flits through his mind, dragging him out of the simple pleasure of eating.
He doesn’t stop, though, pressing organ to lips and biting.
Juice and pleasure fill his mouth with a groan, and something shifts, no longer savoring but devouring, ravenous as he takes one bite and then another.
Both hands reach in, needing the next morsel waiting and ready so there’s no moment without this taste on his tongue.
Care evaporates as questing claws meet resistance, solid masses of muscle and bone he has no patience for.
He tears, breaks, wrenches, separates joints, and cracks bone, forcing everything down his throat.
He doesn’t slow until the body’s a deboned fish, only major junctions, spine, and the flayed skin he has less of an interest in—though he’ll eat that too. As he sits back, snapping a rib and shattering it between teeth, a nagging thought urges him to look up.
To look at the face.
To understand who he’s eating.
As if that matters.
But a tension starts in his stomach, threatening to make the meal come back up.
He looks.
The space above the hollowed-out chest confuses him, pleasure and horror warring as he presses a blood-covered palm against the cooling cheek, manipulates the slack expression into a self-pleased smirk. Then, an approximation of a cackle. He can’t make either as dickish as the real ones.
None of these thoughts make sense to him, and frustration swells.
Concentrating, he catches just beyond the front teeth with two claws, pressing against a cooled tongue before slowly pulling down. The cheeks stretch, then tear, and he doesn’t stop until the jaw cracks and pulls free.