Page 144 of Pareidolia

I crouch, letting out another low growl, and Aspen manages to push himself to his feet. He pulls that same knife from his side and turns again, trying to streak back into the forest.

As much as I could spend the rest of the night chasing him, there’s something I want more. My shadows tear out and coil around his waist, catching him and dragging him back to me—they slam his body against one of the trees, wrapping around him and pinning him there. They make quick work of stripping him as I slowly approach.

Gods, he looks good with his cheeks flushed and blood streaking his face. He bares his teeth like he has any chance of fighting me, and when I get close enough, he buries the knife he’s holding into the center of my chest.

If I had a heart, he would have hit it. The only thing the knife does is slide into my skin and make more of that black liquid I filled him with slowly slip out.

“You want more, hm?” I take a few steps back, holding my arms wide while I keep him trapped with my shadows. I want him to see the way my muscles stretch around the blade. It doesn’t sting. There’s no pain.

I don’t know how long it’s been since I’ve felt anything close to pain. When I was first formed, perhaps, when I pulled the broken soul of the first human who walked the world and merged it with the shadows that made up what I was so I could find a shape to walk in.

Fuck, all I want to do is look at him. I want to drink down the sight of him, shadow bound and skin flushed. The red glow beneath Aspen’s skin, all along his arm and in his chest, pulses with each beat of my wings. It isn’t following his heartbeat this time—his heartbeat is following me.

I rip the knife from my chest and let another tendril spill from my back, slicking through the black liquid as it sluices down my chest.

“I could keep you here, little monster, pinned to a tree and begging. I could keep you here until the animals came and picked the flesh from your bones… but no…” I keep my distance, using the shadows to spread his legs wider so I can watch as the liquid-soaked one joins the others, wrapping around his upper thigh before finding its goal, seeking the heat between his legs. I spill it forward, rough enough that he shouts.

“Fuck, oh, fuck, Nox.”

Not a protest.

Those ochre eyes cut to me and burn with moonlight.

He likes it.

He likes the pain.

The tendril tunnels into him, expanding and stretching as it works the black liquid he drew in his attempt to kill me deeper inside him.

“Fuck you,” he hisses, and then gasps when I drop another shadow to join the first. It dips inside him, stretching him further until Aspen’s fingers clench against the bark and he gasps. “Fuck, why does it feel so good?”

I’m not sure he means to moan out the second part, the low confession, but the words draw me forward, close enough that I can see the way his hole is stretching around me, the way the black of my blood oozes from inside him as it slicks him up.

“Because every part of you was made to shape around every part of me, little monster. You can run, but in the end, my shadows will always find you.”

I would always find him.

“I—” he gasps, cutting off when I catch his jaw and thrust one finger between his lips, pressing flat against his tongue, forcing his jaw down. I loom over him and watch the flush on his cheeks grow darker as I open my mouth and let another string of saliva spill out to land on his tongue.

I don’t have to ask him this time—he just swallows and shivers, and then cries out when I pull free of his ass and replace the shadows with my cock.

I thrust into him in hard, merciless movements that scrape his back against the bark and make him bleed—hard enough that I can hear the air punch from his lungs.

It’s not enough, though.

I need more.

I wrap two of my hands around his wrists, jerking them above his head, and then use my other two to slide around his waist, dragging him even closer. The shadows twined around his thighs keep his legs spread wide, the ones at his chest pinning his shoulders to the tree as I fuck him harder.

This isn’t like the last time. This isn’t about making his mind short-circuit with pleasure so I can drown in the feeling of it.

It’s about claiming.

My claws rake along his body, and Aspen screams as they cut, but his cock pulses in pleasure with the pain. I drop one hand and wrap it around his length, pumping him in time with the motion of my hips just to listen to him turn into a whimpering, whining mess.

I need more—the tendrils around his skin squeeze hard enough to leave bruises, and the claw marks will scar, but I want to see myself everywhere on his skin.

My head dips and I run my tongue along his neck. “There are creatures in this world who find their mate and think a red string connects them, a little thread so easily broken by hatred.” I lick again, thrusting harder so my words are echoed by his little punched-out cries. “There are those who think if they bite their mate, they’ll be bonded for eternity. What do you think, little monster?” My teeth graze his skin. “If I eat you whole, will we be connected by a thread?”