Chapter 3 Ezra #2
It was her? Okay, so what the hell does that mean for me?
Every molecule of my being writhes with contradiction—Protect her. Break her. Worship her. Ruin her.
Even my shadow claws at my insides, desperate to reach for her.
My thoughts snap and warp, but I can’t pull free.
While my mind is ensnared, the two women lock arms and continue down the street. I assume their destination is the same as Thane’s—the filthy dive bar at the bottom of the hill. Is this little goddess a hiker just passing through, or is she a new resident?
I thought I knew everyone in Lorewood.
I know for certain that her friend with the blue hair lives here and owns the shop a few blocks up from mine. I’ve never met her because I never felt the need, but now I’m thinking introductions might be long overdue.
Once the women are out of sight, I return to my L?kkda and slowly walk home, enjoying the crisp fall air. Beyond the town, the trees arch over the street like a canopy, offering glimpses of the bright white full moon.
The leaves whisper ancient secrets to each other as a frigid wind runs icy fingers along their veins, encouraging their gentle sway.
As I approach my house, the grass glints like crushed glass beneath the moonlight, frost clinging to it in pale clusters.
Fuck, this is beautiful, too.
Great. Next thing you know, I’ll be crying over SPCA commercials and humming Sarah McLachlan like some broken-souled suburban mom.
A rough growl rumbles in my chest as I step forward, cursing every blade of grass that makes my lawn look like a goddamn 1996 Bedazzler disaster.
When my feet hit the front porch, I notice an unfamiliar sleeping bag blocking my path.
Did I forget to dispose of something?
I distinctly remember tossing the possessions of my last meal into the river.
Maybe it’s just kids mucking about.
Although, when I think about it, I have found a few other items on my porch recently.
I’m sure it’s nothing.
Existence is fucking strange. So some wayward human junk won’t keep me up at night.
I place the sleeping bag just inside the front door, then move through my house, flipping on the lights as I enter each room. I can see in the dark, but electricity is a treat, and I use it unsparingly.
With a heavy, unsettled sigh, I stomp up the stairs to my bedroom, grab a pair of sweatpants, then drag my grumpy self into the ensuite bathroom.
I quickly strip off my dark suit and drop my boxer briefs to the floor. My gaze meets the steel-grey eyes of my reflection as I run my hands through my short, jet-black hair.
I crafted this body with precision, sculpted every inch for strength, for survival, for dominance.
But the tattoos?
Those were never my choice.
I considered removing them, but something tells me this would be unwise.
A few centuries ago, when I began mingling with underborne society, I learned one thing for certain—they aren’t just decoration. They mean something.
During one wild night with two very enthusiastic verdalora, I learned tattoos correlate directly to an underborne’s or erevald’s ability to shift.
While one had her mouth wrapped around my cock, the other rode my fingers, whispering that she’d never seen so many tattoos on an underborne.
Most only have one—a feather, a horn, a fang. Some symbol of the beast they carry.
I’m covered in them.
Considering I’m neither underborne nor erevald, I had no idea if the logic applied to me, but it made a certain kind of sense.
She said I was something rare. Something powerful.
I shoved my cock down her throat before she could say it again.
I didn’t need meaning. I needed release.
The other one reached for my chest, ready to worship the damn ink, like it was sacred instead of a fucking curse.
I grabbed her by the throat and shoved her against the wall before she could open her mouth.
The clever little nymph moaned. Of course she did. They always do. Doesn’t matter how hard I fuck them, how deep I force it down their throat—they always want a piece of the monster.
The women from that night are already blurring in my mind, fading into the countless others I’ve used and discarded.
But her? She lingers like a burn I can’t soothe.
I stare at myself in the mirror, but all I can see is the little female from the street today.
Would she find my tattoos appealing?
What would it feel like to graze my knuckles along her freckled cheek or to run my fingers gently over her throat?
Fuck, I want to feel her pulse quicken when I wrap my hands around her neck. I don’t give a shit if it’s fear or arousal. I only want to feel her heart beating because of me. For me.
A slow, gnawing hunger curls around my ribs, darker than simple lust.
For the third time in as many weeks, my cock twitches. Three hundred years of celibacy. Then some freckled little goddess crosses my path, and suddenly my self-control has left the fucking building.
I’ve seen beautiful women before. Hell, I’ve fucked beautiful women from the Byzantine Empire right up through the Civil War, but something about her calls to me so deeply it’s a physical ache.
Christ, the filthy, sadistic things I could do to her—things that sweet soul probably wouldn’t enjoy.
A guttural sound tears from my throat as I grip my cock and stroke, knuckles white, my breath dragging through clenched teeth.
I can’t remember the last time I was hard enough to touch myself, so I’m determined to enjoy it.
With my eyes tightly closed, I can almost feel my fingers tangle in her gorgeous hair, pulling it back to expose her neck, while my other hand caresses and teases her clit.
My mouth waters as I think about licking, sucking, and biting that beautiful, unmarked skin. I want to fucking mark her as mine.
And when she comes with my tongue buried deep inside her sweet cunt? I want to hear her scream for more while I’m still inside her. Still licking. Still feeding.
If I broke the skin on her neck, would she find it repulsive if I hungrily lapped up the blood?
Would I be able to stop?
It doesn’t matter.
I’d drink every last goddamn drop from her throat, my mouth trailing blood across her freckled skin as my fingers fuck her open, until she shatters in my hands.
She better like it rough because the monster in me doesn’t do gentle.
Leaning a hand on the bathroom counter to steady myself, I stroke harder and faster.
The little human looks so innocent. So sweet. So damn breakable. I bet her tight cunt would grip me with such desperate need, I’d feel it shudder through my spine.
And those beautiful fucking lips.
Would she take my cock down her throat and swallow every drop like the good fucking girl I need her to be?
Shit.
That last image is enough to make me see stars behind my eyelids, and I come hard for the first time in centuries with a rough, unsatisfied growl.
Jesus Christ, I came so hard I briefly shifted into my Umbraeth.
I glance up at my reflection, panting.
What the hell was that?
For a moment, I just stare, my skin still flickering with the shadows of my shifting form. And then, of all things, a chuckle rumbles from my chest.
I don’t fucking chuckle.
The sound is foreign and wrong. Even my reflection looks off.
There’s something in my eyes I don’t recognize. And that unease lingers.
How can this insignificant human wield such power over me?
Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe she isn’t human. Maybe she’s targeting me.
Wrakhs have tried to control me with their magic before but never succeeded.
Have they finally found a spell that would bring me to heel?
No other supernatural creature knows what I truly am, but like attracts like, and their monster can sense mine, which has caused some dangerous encounters.
I need her to be something I understand. Something I can break, discard, and forget, like every other fleeting obsession.
But this? This isn’t that.
Everything in me—everything in this goddamn universe—is screaming that it’s something more.
While I shower and prepare for a night of reading, drinking, and brooding, I conclude I need more information about this woman to gauge how much of a threat she really is.
I fucking need her to be a threat.
I can handle threats.
It’s the other option that makes my skin crawl.
After my shower, I throw on my grey sweatpants and head back to the living room, collapsing in my chair. I lean back and close my eyes, sending a silent prayer to the universe that this little female might let a monster into her bed.
I don’t think I’ve ever been obsessed with anything before, which is probably for the best.
Because this obsession?
It festers in my mind like a cancerous god, chewing through reason cell by cell.
For a second, I almost feel bad for her.
She has no fucking clue what’s coming.
But what really scares me is … neither do I.