AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Visions of Willow’s wide eyes still pierce my heart. But then I remember her clutching the mortal’s hand for support.Him. I know where it’s been, what he does with those hands, who he touches, who he thinks he is to her, what his thoughts scream about her.
My sanity unravels. The Morrigan whispers in my ear tonight. The Cauldron stirs. I am too weak to deny her thirst for blood. But at least if it’s mine, I am not the monster Willow runs from.
Emrys prowls around me with coiled, predatory energy, his muscles feathered to make another explosive strike. He stops,gives me a pitiful look, and then lashes out and resets my nose.Crunch.
Pain. Sweet pain. It blinds the heart, the mind, the memory.
I see why Emrys relishes it so much.
Pain obliterates.
“This ends now.” He cracks his knuckles. “You’re distracted well enough. You even failed to notice she watched you for the past five minutes. Go home and patch your bleeding heart before you embarrass yourself.”
I glance around the ring, searching for her silver hair. Most spectators are now disbanding, disappointed we’ve stopped letting blood. When I locate a silver head receding into the darkness, my breathing becomes ragged, my heart erratic. Pent up, trembling energy fills within me again, building and begging for release.
“No,” I tell Emrys. “We’re not done. Hit me again.”
“For what, the entertainment of bejeweled locusts?” His gesture is whip-hard in Willow’s direction. “For another leash?”
Bitterness oozes from my every pore—and exhaustion. I’m tired of repeatedly explaining who she is to us. But I can’t give up.
Emrys’s rage drops to scorn. “We have more important things to worry about than a mortal needing an education in obedience. She lasted one night here, and already she prefers the company of insects.”
I glance over, but she is gone. Only the mortals she kept company with remain. Their souls spill secrets to me, drunkenly sharing all the dark, nasty deeds they’ve filled their lives with. They fool no one. None of these people do. I see right through to their rotten cores.
Willow is the only bright spark among them.
The brunette female catches my eyes and smirks. I stalk over, ignoring Emrys’s long-suffering sigh.
“Where is she?” I demand, still a slave to the darkness building inside. I could rip the answer from their minds, but I promised Cait I would behave. I have already broken her rules tonight. If this continues, she will not let me feed here freely.
Feeding out there will draw suspicion from the Keepers. They already suspect something is wrong.
“Who?” the brunette replies, tracing her finger down my torso.
I capture her hand and crunch. Her scream is the call of a siren to Emrys. I sense him turning from where he buttons his shirt. I shouldn’t make a scene, but my hands are not my own. The taste of darkness erupts in my mouth, sowing shadow in the air.
I squeeze harder until her secret spills out. “She’s getting from him what you failed to give.”
“Who?” My vision turns red. I’m five seconds from pillaging her mind, and I’ve been tryingreallyhard to respect boundaries.
“Let go of her.” My recent meal shoves me.
I should have finished her soul and laid waste to them all.
“She’s back there making a deal to fix her flaws. To help her fit in.” Another mortal beside me. I cock my head, study her face. Round, plump cheeks. Her soul is not as dark as the others. My mouth waters for the taste, hungers for the fragility. But then she gives me a new target. “With Lord Milford.”
A banshee shrieks in my mind.
Milford. Lord Sylvanar’s son. The miscreant preys on vulnerable mortals, gives them a kind shoulder to lean on, and learns their vulnerabilities and fears. He promises help, fashions a charm to fit those fears, and then makes them remove it from his cock after he fucks their mouth.
Darkness explodes from me, ripping apart my being until I am hunting through the night, barreling through air toward a serpent who whispers temptations to one already perfect.
I conquer, devour, and glut myself on his wickedness. My life becomes a sea of blood, viscera, and the liquid ecstasy of a soul. A groan of satisfaction leaves me as I sup on the sustenance I’ve denied.
Why did I wait so long to feed this way?
Blinking, I suddenly find myself elbow-deep in a chest cavity, ribs cracked open like the wings of an angel. My tattered ones are draped at my sides. My tail lashes behind me. I am both inside the corpse and outside. My wraith form fills every inch of my prey, relentlessly scraping each vestige of his soul.
