Page 229 of Coal Hearts

I’d clung to flashes of sanity.

I’d done my best to salvage the script Henri and I had written.

But as Henri dropped his red-smeared hand and fisted his erection, falling on me for more, it was over.

His gut-wrenching groan tore me open.

He shimmered in a mirage of delusion as bat wings flared wide and fangs elongated to pierce his bottom lip.

Everything vanished.

The room.

The animals.

Peter.

Victor.

Hell.

All that remained was him as he held up his knife and searched for a new place on my body to slice...

Chapter Two

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Henri

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I’D NEVER FELT THIS WAY before.

Never been so...empty.

Empty of attempts to be better.

Empty of hope that I was good.

Even the night I’d tried to butcher myself and willingly summoned death, I hadn’t reached this level of emptiness. This aching, quaking freedom.

The sharp scent of Ily’s blood shot up my nose. The droplets I’d smeared on my neck infused with my body heat, permeating around me like some deviously bad aftershave.

My cock throbbed to draw more, desperate and painfully insistent.

I’d been inside this girl twice. I’d come four fucking times today and shot back a shit ton of alcohol, yet...her blood was the worst kind of aphrodisiac.

Far more potent than just sexual conquest.

Far more carnal than just a quick fuck.

This new throb ached in every vein and vessel, soaking into my teeth and deep into the empty chambers of my long-dead heart.

I’d always felt less removed from the animal kingdom than my fellow humans. Always felt a scratching in my bones and skin as if I could change shape and grow fur. I’d often imagined my teeth growing into sharp canines and my nails into savage claws.

But that was when the nausea always found me—slapping such stupid ideas away, smothering me in humanness, sending me bolting for a bush or toilet to vomit in.

But now?