Page 20 of Fangs

She should be screaming. She should be begging for mercy. Instead she rocks her hips against the darkness, demanding more, and my own body answers with a fierceness that shocks me.

Two centuries. Two hundred fucking years as smoke and shadow, haunting this house, feeding on fear and desperation. I have seen women tremble at my presence. I have watched humans weep and beg. But I have never—never—wanted to pleasure one of them.

She is calling to me, and the shadows are answering.

Why?

The shadows draw her closer. I smell her—honey and lavender. I taste her on the air and my fangs ache with the need to pierce her skin, to drain the fire from her veins.

I watch her, paralyzed by a craving that defies my own nature, as she arches her back and lets out a raw, broken sound—a melody of desire so sharp it cuts straight through my careful control.

“Enough.”

The command erupts from my throat, a dark, subsonic tremor that vibrates through the very foundations of the manor. The shadows hesitate, swirling around her skin, but they refuse to release her; they only pulse against her flesh like a synchronized, parasitic heartbeat.

Shit! She saw me.

I abandon the chair.

The shadows part as I approach, allowing me to stand before her. I am close enough to feel the heat radiating from her skin, close enough to breathe in the honey-sweet scent of her arousal. It is intoxicating. Dangerous.

I should kill her.

She turns her head slowly, eyes hazy with pleasure. They find mine and recognition, confusion, and a spark of defiance shift through them in rapid succession.

“Who are you?” she rasps, voice raw from the shadow’s invasion. “What do you want from me?”

I let out a jagged, humorless laugh. “I want nothing from you. You are the one who called me here.”

“I didn’t—”

“You touched yourself in front of my portrait,” I growl, leaning closer and she flinches, eyes going wide. “You pressed your body against my frame and hallucinated my hands on you. You fantasized about a dead monster, and in doing so you summoned him. Every stroke, Lucille… it was a prayer. And I have come to answer.”

Her cheeks bloom with a mortified, delicious color, yet her gaze remains locked on mine. “That’s—I didn’t mean to—”

“You wanted me to see you.” My voice drops to a whisper, silk over steel. “And I did. I watched every moment of your pathetic little performance. You were desperate. Aching. So hungry for someone to touch you that you offered yourself to a monster you have only heard stories of.”

Her chin spikes upward, an iron rod in her spine. “If you saw everything, then you know I don’t regret it.”

The confession lands with the force of a physical blow, leaving me blindsided.

“You are either fearless or utterly insane.”

“Perhaps both,” she challenges, her eyes daring me to look away. “But at least I’m not the one lurking in the shadows, stalking girls in their private time.”

The air stills. The shadows around her tighten. My control frays at the edges.

“Silly little prey. If you had the faintest idea of what I am, you’d be running.”

The shadows pulse in answer to my agitation. My claw moves before I can stop it, closing fingers around her throat, hard enough to remind her who holds the power.

“You should be afraid of me,” I murmur, thumb tracing the frantic vein in her neck.

“I know. You’re the monster of the lore. The one mothers warn their children about.” Her pulse flutters beneath my thumb, but she does not flinch. “I don’t care what you were. I care about what you are now.”

“And what do you think I am now?”

She holds my gaze. “A dream. The kind I used to read about and secretly wish would find me.”