Page 126 of Pareidolia

I’m eager.

I can acknowledge that it isn’t just the taste of Aspen’s apathy that’s exciting, that draws me to him. I’m eager now to see how he’ll react to the little surprise I prepared him while he was away with the ranger. It was truly fortuitous when I came back to find it… and now I can see if Aspen is as much a monster as I think he is.

If he’s as delicious as I know he can be.

I’ll know if my shadows chose to spill beneath his skin instead of ruining his mind because they knew something that even I didn’t.

“Come.” It’s a demand, but Aspen seems far too curious to care about the bite. He nods and waits for me to start moving. I turn without looking back, certain that his curiosity is more than enough to make him follow me as I lead him further into the trees.

It’s not far—not too far and far too perfect.

He follows me deep into the forest, deeper than any human should when I’m not luring them with my wings, with promises and lies of what I can give them—he’s the first person who’s followed behind me because of a promise I intend to keep.

I want to give him this gift—I need to.

We finally stop when the pathway curves and leads to the open mouth of a cave. Aspen moves forward until he’s standing beside me, peeking around my wings to see why we quit moving.

“What’s in there?” he murmurs, but the apprehension and fear that would keep most humans lingering at the entrance doesn’t exist with Aspen. He doesn’t stop walking when he asks, and he answers his own question a few seconds later when he rounds the corner and sees the man he pushed from the tower last night lying on the ground and looking up at him with half-crazed eyes.

What better gift than the emotions of the man he tried to kill? I’m ready to see exactly how much of a monster Aspen can truly be.

CHAPTER 10

ASPEN

There’s no way the man I pushed from the tower is still alive a day later—at least, not through any means that should exist.

“I don’t usually save my food.” Nox’s voice is a low, sensual rumble that clashes with the bloody scene in front of me. The man’s bone is still sticking out of his leg, and the flesh around it has gone pale, slightly off. This close, I can see that his arm is hanging at an odd angle too.

Hovering just above the wounds is a soft shimmer of black. It pulses in and out of his body, running with the same thundering pattern as a weak heartbeat.

My hand twitches, and the red color starts to pulse in duet.

“How… how did you⁠—”

“I simply trapped his essence, his vitality, and all that makes him up beneath his skin. It won’t hold for long… but when I realized he was still alive, I wanted to save him…” One of those clawed hands reach around my body, and Nox brushes against my pulsing fingers. “For you.”

For me.

So he could show me.

“Fuck,” I whisper, shocked at the sound of my own voice. Emotion… There’s real emotion there, stronger than anything I’ve ever felt before.

Longing. Desire. Something darker.

I want this.

It’s wrong how much I want it, and wrong how much I don’t feel guilty that I do. If I ever needed proof that I’m just as empty as I’ve always thought, the echoing hollow in my chest at knowing that I can finally fill it up with something is here to punch my ticket straight to hell.

“Go on,” Nox whispers in my ear again. “Touch him. Run your fingers over where you broke him, and I’ll show you how to taste what you made him feel.”

I’m almost reluctant—if I do this, there’s no coming back from it. Not because it’s going to make me any more of a horrible person than I already am… but if I do this…

If it really works…

If all of this is actually real and I can feel what the man felt, if I can finally know what those emotions are… I’m going to be worse than any addict. I’m not sure I can finally catch the one thing I’ve been chasing my entire life and then live without it.

Maybe Nox isn’t a monster.