Nicole gasped in a ragged breath as the vision spat her back out into the street and she staggered against a bin. Lightning streaked across her vision as the loud noise smashed through her glaring senses.
But with the kill scent, came a transformation.
It drenched her in sudden relief, even as momentary panic at the sensation of losing control pierced it, her eternally tight grip on the reins of her body ripped from her hands so fast her skin smarted.
Her limbs prickled, air rushing into the slashed-open sides of her neck – gills, she realised, as the taste of the air changed. Her skin sparkled, covered in something hard and crumbling.
Salt.
It sparked in her mouth, and a rush began in her veins like the call of the sea.
She’d become a Naiad. Born from the rivers, this northern variation was more used to cold waters and perfectly tailored to kill whatever this creature was.
The figure stilled halfway down the alley.
It turned and Nicole realised what she faced.
A Wight.
As she dived, so did it.
It dodged, and slammed her into the wall, its surprise turning swiftly to anger.
Then its handopened, revealing a leech-like spiral of teeth.
It was one thing reading about monstrous creatures. It was another seeing the moonlight glint off thefluidthat strung up its arm. Its otherwise human face contorted, so its mouth could reveal the same thing: rows of teeth, spiralling back down its throat.
Nicole fought the panic ripping through her chest. The mythology of this creature and the theories on its origins were nothing to her right now. She distantly recalled that they lived as long as they were able to eat. That they developed a habit of draining those with alcohol in their blood, perhaps because they were easier and more clueless in the night-time.
But her mind was wiped clear with the transformation’s completion.
Her hand – now webbed with arching nails of clear, ice blue – secured around its throat and plunged straight through the jugular, only to meet those shredding teeth. Anywhere she touched its body, its own singed with the salt on her skin.
The creature screeched and tried to throw her off. But her grip was firm and tight, the new strength in her bones tailored for hauling struggling prey down to the riverbed, then back into the sea where she could pin it till it died.
She had the sudden, deep urge to drag the creature to the marina and do just that.
But she wasn’t close enough, so she tore its throat clean out instead.
There was a ripping moment, her face a snarl, the awful, liquid sound of flesh tearing.
Then the slump of the creature to the floor.
Her breath shuddered as she kept her grip on the spine of teeth. Disgust and horror began to filter in as the transformation drew back through her with an incredible amount of energy.
Nicole forced her logical mind to return, recalling the lidded skip she’d crashed into further down the alley. Hauling the creature up over her shoulder, her legs nearly buckled with the transformation and weight, but she staggered closer, straining to throw it inside. She dropped the spine in after it, the blood and salt on her hands burning white-hot as she tried to brush them off. They sparkled to the moonlit floor.
Free, she teetered sideways until her cheek crushed against the brick of the alley wall, and she was shuddering back to herself – that power inside pooling back to her core, like a dimming light. But instead of winking out, it glimmered in her veins, sated, so much more cohesive.
For a moment, she found it hard to breathe as the gills sealed and she had to relearn how to use her nose and mouth, gasping in a few deep breaths that made the shadowed alley swim.
And then he was behind her.
‘Now feel it settling,’ Kyan murmured. His voice was a full-body experience. His lips, so softand warm against her ear. The stroke of his breath was a low reassurance as he talked her through it.
An immediate, almost painful shiver shot right down her sensitised form, pinching in certain places – her breasts, her fingertips.
‘How do you feel?’ he asked, his voice heaven.
