Chapter 8 The Unwanted Pull
THE UNWANTED PULL
THANE
Ishould have left the alley the moment her footsteps disappeared, should have turned from the scene like I always did.
Letting death fade behind me. As easily as a shadow at sunrise, cold and unbothered and untouched by whatever horror I had left in my wake.
But instead I stood there far longer than I should have, staring at the space where her small trembling form had been moments earlier.
Feeling something inside me ache in a way I did not recognize.
My demon pressed itself against the inside of my chest, pacing and snarling as if I had betrayed it simply by letting her walk away.
The ground still held the shape of where I landed, the air still carried the faint scent of fear and blood.
Yet all I could taste was her, soft and warm and impossibly pure.
A scent so gentle yet it cut through the filth of this city and lodged itself under my skin.
‘Mine.
Ours.
Bring her back.
Follow her.
Keep her.’
The demon’s voice rumbled through me with a ferocity that made my jaw clench until my teeth ground together.
The taste of iron flooded my mouth as I fought the urge to track her scent immediately.
I forced myself to breathe, to move, begged for my legs to carry me out of the alley even though every instinct screamed for me to chase after her.
To pull her back into the shadows, to keep her close enough that her warmth could soothe the hunger thrashing inside me.
I walked fast, pushing through the crowds on Nanjing Road as if the bodies around me were nothing but smoke.
The roar of the city rose and fell like a tide.
The sound of laughter mixed with arguments, the pulse of life that usually fed me so well, was swirling around my steps.
This place had always kept me steady. The anger in the air, the frustration, the bitterness…
But every emotional thread I pulled from the passing crowd felt thin, diluted, dull.
The demon growled with dissatisfaction, recoiling as if every emotion I touched was the wrong kind.
The wrong flavor, missing the sweetness it craved.
I could sense its irritation like pressure building behind my ribs, claws scraping against my insides.
Each scratch forming her name in a language older than this world.
‘The girl.
The Electus.
She is calm.
She is peace.
Only her.’
I snarled under my breath, earning a few startled glances as I stormed through a crowded intersection, my hands shoved deep into my pockets to keep them from trembling.
Fear fed me. Anger fed me. Sorrow fed me.
I had lived for years off the darkest parts of humanity, sucking the poison from the air and letting it quiet the wild thing inside me.
But now, after one encounter, after one look in her soft, frightened eyes, the poison tasted bitter.
I stopped at the edge of a busy crosswalk, letting cars roar past in a blur.
My breath steamed faintly in the cool night air, and for the first time in years, I felt a pang of unease.
The demon did not want the city. The demon did not want the crowds.
The demon did not want blood, or fear, or violence for the sake of violence.
It wanted her.
It wanted her heartbeat.
Her warmth.
Her scent.
Her presence.
I cursed under my breath and tried to shake her from my thoughts.
But even as I stalked through the streets hunting for another emotion, another taste that might ease the demon’s fixation, I could not stop remembering her.
Remembering the moment she looked at me with gratitude instead of terror.
That single breath of thanks, trembling and sincere, had lodged itself like a blade between my ribs.
I fed off the anger spilling from a drunken argument outside a club.
It tasted thin. I pulled at the jealousy radiating from a couple fighting beneath a streetlamp.
It tasted stale. I absorbed the fear of a teenager running from a gang of older boys.
It tasted muted, barely enough to spark a reaction from the demon.
‘She has changed us.
She is needed.
Find her.
Take her.
Stay near her.’
I dug my nails into my palms until I felt blood trickle between my fingers, returning home only when my frustration grew too sharp to ignore. The apartment was silent, the shadows heavy and familiar, but the usual comfort of the place did not settle inside me.
I moved through the room like a stranger, pacing, trying to ground myself in the stench of stale cigarette smoke drifting up from the floor below.
The quiet groans of someone arguing in the hallway, the frayed anger of a woman crying in the apartment next door.
These emotions should have steadied me. Instead, they flickered like weak flames in a storm.
Her absence gnawed.
I stripped off my jacket and lay back on the bed, closing my eyes, though I knew sleep would not come. It rarely did. But tonight something dragged me under faster than usual, something soft and strange that lulled me into a dream so vivid I jolted when it began.
She was standing in the middle of a dark street, her hair glowing faintly in the neon light.
Her eyes were wide and searching, her small hands clutching her notebook against her chest like it was the last piece of herself she had left.
She looked lost, afraid, but not of me. When I took a step toward her, the demon trembled inside me, not with hunger, but with longing, a primitive ache so deep it stole my breath.
Her name was a whisper on my tongue, though I had never heard it spoken. I woke with a harsh gasp, and then I dressed in seconds.
After that, I finally gave into the nagging impulse.
I went searching.
On the hunt.
Perhaps the most significant hunt of my life.
I found her easily.
Too easily.
As if my feet already knew the path she walked.
I couldn’t understand it, but I was grateful for the instinct all the same.
The sun had barely risen when she stepped out of the high-rise on the Bund where she lived.
One of those pristine riverfront towers wrapped in glass and steel that caught the morning light like a blade.
The revolving doors whispered shut behind her with polished elegance.
A stark contrast to the heaviness in her posture.
Her shoulders slumped the moment she turned away from the building, the soft, practiced smile she wore tightening like a mask she no longer had the strength to hold.
She didn’t fit the cold luxury of that place, not with her pink, ‘happy’ clothes, her gentle aura, or the quiet sadness clinging to her movements.
I watched from across the street, half-hidden near a row of trimmed hedges lining the Bund’s walkway. The demon curled around my senses the instant she appeared. Its reaction immediate and unsettling.
‘Warm.
Soft.
Hurt.
Ours.’
I followed silently as she moved along the riverfront promenade, keeping far enough that she would never notice.
Yet close enough to hear the faint hum she let slip under her breath.
A small, soothing tune she seemed to cling to.
Every step she took, every nervous glance she cast over her shoulder, I felt.
Every moment she tucked her fluffy curls behind her ear, even though they slipped free again, the demon pulsed with a possessive energy that shook me.
It was a low, thrumming heat beneath my skin that I did not recognize and did not trust. When she reached the park near campus, a man sitting on a bench lifted his head to look at her.
His gaze slid down her body in a way that made my blood temperature shift instantly.
He stood, approaching her with a casual stride that made my fists clench.
She smiled at him politely, because she was that kind of girl, clearly. The type that smiled even when she was uncomfortable, even when the world did not deserve it. She said something soft, something gentle, and the man stepped closer.
My vision darkened.
The demon roared.
‘Mine.
Back away.
Break him.’
I let a low growl vibrate through the air, quiet but deadly. The man froze, eyes snapping toward the trees where I stood hidden. He could not see me, but he felt me, felt the danger, felt the promise of violence rising in the air. His face drained of color. He muttered something and fled.
The girl blinked after him, confused.
I followed her the rest of the way to campus and kept my eyes on her all day, waiting for her classes to start and end.
And then, I followed her home. I even followed her inside her building.
But whereas she got off on the twentieth floor, I took my own elevator, continuing to the roof after confirming where she lived.
I broke my way through the door and did something I rarely did.
I released my wings.
A side of my father I usually kept hidden, just because they were the mirror image of his own.
A reminder I didn’t care for. But right now, that prejudice was the furthest thing from my mind.
Not when my wings were the only thing that would allow me to see her again.
So after first masking my presence, as I was taught to do early on, I stepped off the roof.
My wings slowed my descent to the twentieth floor, and I circled around until I found her.
I lowered to a balcony the second I saw her bedroom light flicker on.
Then I watched as she let her shoulders slump, as if she had been holding something back.
She looked so fragile, far too fragile for the likes of me.
She slumped on her bed, her small hands lifting her diary as if searching for a place inside herself to put the fear she still carried.
She looked sadder in this room, as if the happiness she displayed throughout the day had been a front, a smile worn like a shield against the world.
I watched her until her lights went out, taking note how she did not leave her room once, clearly having no desire to spend time with her family.
It made me wonder if she, too, struggled to feel accepted by them.
An answer I doubt I would discover tonight, which was why I watched her until my enhanced vision showed her asleep and peaceful in her slumber.
After all, I had somewhere else I needed to be.
Or should I say… someone I needed to hunt.
One person from the day’s worth of stalking that needed to be punished. Because no one touched her. A fact my demon and I were in total agreement on. Which meant that I found the man from the park quickly enough. The end of my night was spent dragging him into the narrow alley behind a closed shop.
He begged… they always did.
I ignored him… as I always did.
I pressed my hand to the side of his head, letting the demon seep into his mind, planting nightmares so deep he would wake screaming for weeks, unable to look at her again without reliving the fear that now belonged to him.
When I released him, shaking and broken, the demon purred.
‘Protect.
Punish.
Mine.
Ours.’
I walked away, my steps silent, my thoughts heavy, the taste of her presence tangled in the night air like a thread around my throat.
She did not know me. She did not understand me. She also did not realize I was the monster who had already claimed her without her permission.
But she felt me.
Every time she turned her head. Every time her breath hitched. Every time her pulse quickened for no reason at all.
She felt me.
And I knew then that this was…
Only the beginning.