I gorge myself.
A harsh guttural sound rips from him as his head whips back in pain. I know I took too much. I would have killed anyone else from just that but there is so much more of him. Ancient, powerful Dragon energy, and I must have more.
My hand finds his face.
His bare skin.
"Aura, no.” His voice cracks, fear splitting through the pain in his eyes.He scrambles back, hands raised. “Aura, stop—don’t?—”
The curse doesn’t listen.
Neither does my body.
Something inside me unspools, and whips out. It lashes through the space between us and hooks into him.
Talon jolts, eyes going wide as the drain begins.
His life—his fire—is flowing into me, and it’s everything.
Every part of him calls to me: the molten fire that lives under his skin, the ancient thrum of power that no one else could ever match. I need it. I need him.
He tries to pull away, but I’m faster. My hands find his jaw.
His body arches as he cries out. Not a grunt. Not a cry. A full-bodied, pain-ripped scream that tears down to his soul. A similar sound rips from my own body as blistering pain sears across my palms. I scream, trying to yank my hands back, but I can’t. I am tethered to him, siphoning, consuming. But the drain doesn't stop. I clutch harder. I’m latched onto him with both handsnow, frantic to drain him even as I yank him tighter, burning, blistering, but still pulling, always pulling.
Flames erupt. The fire quickly eats away both our clothes, hot enough to disintegrate even his fae leathers.
Then my arms catch. Skin splits. But Ifeed. My power opens its mouth and takes big deep swallows, devouring. I feel the energy repairing my arms even as they burn, a sick cycle of healing and destruction that can only lead to one end. Will I burn to death before I suck him dry?
My body is fire and need, drowning in a hunger that burns through bone and thought and love.
“Aura, stop,” he chokes, but it’s too late.
I’m tethered. Anchored. Devouring.
He’s burning me alive. I’m draining him dry.
Flames crackle along my arms. I smell my own flesh cooking, but I can’t let go.
Not when he tastes like this, not when he fills me so completely even as it all drains away. I’m a sieve, and his life force is draining away into me.
My skin rips open, and somewhere beneath the pain, I feel myself knitting back together, healed by the very life I’m stealing.
He groans again. The sound is low, guttural. His legs give out. His hands slam into the ground beside me, clawing for something to hold on to. Heat pours off him in waves as his power spirals out of control.
His body starts to glow from deep within. More orange fissures bloom across his ribs, his neck, his thighs, like magma breaking through rock. His breath comes in ragged bursts.
I sob, the sound swallowed by fire and power. My hands shake as they sear, skin peeling from muscle. And still I don’t stop.
I’m still empty and I can’t resist him filling me over and over.
But it’s killing us.
Talon’s heartbeat stutters again, then flutters like wings failing mid-flight. His scales dull further, paling from obsidian to soot. The light in his body gutters like a candle about to go out.
And still, I hold on.
Still, I feed.
