Page 170 of Pareidolia

“Why didn’t you come back?” He sounds angrier than I’ve heard him in a while, though not that staccato, punched-out fury that might get me gutted.

“If I’m going to have a job, I need an actual house, Nox. Not one that you coerced people into signing over to me. Something that I legally own. As soon as I finish up some paperwork, this house is mine.” I look him over, and the small smirk that crosses my lips makes him growl. “I’ve been cleaning it up so I can stay.”

A small part of me knows that I probably stayed away just to make sure he’d come here, that his anger would lure him out of the woods and into my trap. I want him here with me. I want his presence to wash away every memory that this house used to hold.

If the consequence of that trap is an eight foot pissed-off shadow monster…

Well…

I’m willing to take the punishment.

CHAPTER 29

NOX

I stare at the black thread trailing between us with a strange sense of possessiveness I’ve never felt before.

Red threads.

Mate marks.

Black threads and bite marks.

Is there really so much a difference? The line between us can span the distance when Aspen goes to town, keep us tethered together. It wraps around his heart and spills into the empty hollow in my chest… and even when I can’t see him now, I can feel that steady thrumming beat.

He’s mine as much as I am his—I don’t need fate to tell me as much. I make my own path, and that path leads me straight to Aspen.

I lean down and let my tongue loll out, slowly running it along the bites and bruises on his body. The taste of his blood floods my mouth. The copper tinged with my own darkness is starting to become my favorite flavor.

Aspen lies with his eyes closed and his body still trembling—I’d spent the better part of two hours fucking him on every surface I could find, making him come until there were tears in his eyes, tearing him open one bite at a time until there were little spatters of his blood all along the floors of his new home.

Home.

I hate that he’s here—that he’s away from me. I tried to keep myself to the forest to see if I could, to prove to myself that Aspen is mine but I’m still my own master.

But he was gone.

And I was starving for the sweet taste of his apathy on my tongue.

And once I found him, I was hungry for another taste—his blood, his pleasure, the aching, burning satisfaction when I broke him apart.

I lick a slow line along one of the wounds I left behind and feel him stir. When I glance up, he’s looking at me.

Those eyes are still shining with the soft glow of moonlight. He’s changing—every time I give him a piece of myself, he changes a bit more. There’s a part of me that wonders if I feed him enough of myself, would he be like me?

Could a shadow make an immortal out of a man? If I tried, would I end up catching his humanity the same way he’s being consumed by my hunger?

“You’re thinking too hard.” Aspen’s voice comes out as a soft murmur, and I open my mouth and nip at his side in response. He lets out a small sound, but stays still on the bed. I continue my careful exploration as I lick the taste of what we’ve done from his skin.

It would be easy to get addicted—easy to crave the taste of this just as much as the emotions of the hikers who come into the woods.

“I don’t like that you’re here.” I’m honest because I don’t know any other way to be. I’m used to being a sweet lure and promise, and then death and terror. There’s never been an in between until the human in front of me demanded more.

“I need to be here. It’s not like you can’t get in without asking.” Aspen arches a brow. “Obviously.”

“There’s no place you could go that I wouldn’t follow you, little monster.” It’s a threat, but heat rises to his cheeks. He likes it. As much as he wants to pretend he’s some beast who needs nothing and no one, he likes knowing that he can’t escape me.

“Good.” He lets out a little moan when my teeth set into his skin again, sharp enough to draw blood. “I’d probably lose my mind if the only person I had to talk to was Ewan and Noah Daniels. I think if I let him, Noah would move in.”