Page 165 of Pareidolia

This is that which devours, and I want to be eaten whole.

“If you don’t show me, Nox, I’ll find someone who can.”

That does it. Nox moves faster than I can keep track of, closing the distance between us and dragging me back until I slam against a tree. He jerks me around to face him and fills the space between us until I’m drowning in the crimson halo of his eyes.

“You want to know what love feels like?” His words spill through me like a warning—a flash that spells out the danger I’ve been chasing my entire life. This is what I’ve been running toward. This emotion.

This moment.

“Yeah, I do.”

The curve of his wicked smile reveals sharp teeth as he reaches forward, his black-tipped claws playing against my bare chest. Nox dances his fingers over the tattoo, and I feel the things beneath my skin go still, as if even they realize I’ve done something I can’t take back.

Nox slides his hand down, pressing below my ribcage, and tilts his head.

“Love feels like dying,” he whispers, and his hand goes translucent before spilling beneath my skin. It feels like he’s flaying me alive, ripping me open, as he reaches beneath my ribs and wraps his fingers around my heart.

Nox’s other hand drops between our bodies and he flexes his wings—tendrils, more tendrils than I’ve ever seen—spill from his back, his shoulders, his chest. They slide forward and wrap around me, and everywhere they touch me I feel it… a flood of emotion pumping straight into me. One slides around my throat, clenching tight as Nox takes hold of my cock and squeezes.

Pleasure.

Pain.

That claw-tipped hand wraps around my heart and he starts to stroke me in time with the beating that I can feel.

“I could kill you softly over and over again and never let you die. I could let you feel this for the rest of eternity.” The words are a growling moan of pleasure. He likes this.

“S-stop,” I gasp, even though my hips buck against his cool palm. The tendril around my throat squeezes tighter, flooding up and spilling into my mouth like a gag.

“You asked—you wished—to know. I’m just showing you, Aspen. Love feels like your heart being lanced while your body still wants.” His fingers squeeze, and I try to gasp around the shadowed chill flooding my mouth, but it just gives him space to slide deeper, gagging me. “Love is death, one slow inch at a time, even while you beg for more. It’s an illusion—nothing more than a pareidolia humans wish to see to hide the reality that it doesn’t exist.” His hand picks up its pace, stroking me harder… faster…

The sensation and emotion he’s pouring into me—the feel of something so close to killing me… maybe this is love for me. For us.

And I need…

More.

I don’t say it aloud, but those crimson eyes flash and I know he heard it—maybe he felt it with his hand around my heart.

I want to feel the edge of death—just like that first time he split me open.

I want it again. I want him to tear me apart and whisper the word love against the heart that he’s holding until I actually believe it’s something I can feel.

I squirm beneath his touch, wriggling until the edge of his forearm tears the skin of my chest. Little rivulets of red sluice down the side of my ribs where shadow meets flesh and he rips me open.

“Still, little monster. Do you want me to rip you apart again?” Even as he asks, his crimson eyes flare a bright, nearly hypnotizing color. The shadow he spilled down my throat starts to pulse, and the saccharine taste of the strange liquid that he filled me with before coats the back of my tongue, making my throat relax until it can creep down as though he means to find his fingers.

He’s filling me up, and all I want is to feel it when he breaks me apart.

His hand on my cock keeps pumping in frantic, unrelenting strokes that chase the beat of my heart… and still I want more.

I can’t say it, but I think he can feel it. Nox’s wings flex behind his back, and that hypnotic thrumming starts to play its siren song. His cock slides from his body, wet and glistening in the moonlight.

He isn’t gentle.

He doesn’t take his time to stretch me open.

Nox’s hips thrust forward as the lower set of his arms catch my legs, lifting me to line me up with the motion of his hips. It feels like he’s tearing me apart, and I can’t even scream because the tendril in my throat pulses, feeding me more of that black liquid, and his hand inside me squeezes.