Page 180 of Pareidolia

They don’t heal.

Aspen’s marks stay on my body, and I wonder at what it means to feel so oddly human that I like the look of them there.

CHAPTER 32

ASPEN

I ache in ways that make me feel more alive than I ever did before coming back to Duskfen. Nox has barely let me out of my house for three days. I’m probably more injury than skin at this point.

At least Faye was really understanding about the flu I suddenly came down with.

Nox, however, isn’t understanding about the fact that I can’t stay in my house for the rest of my life.

“You don’t need to go,” I can barely understand him with his face buried against my neck. Lately he’s taken to sucking up bruises on my skin to accent the rest of the marks. I squirm under his touch and shove at his broad chest.

“I need groceries, Nox. My house is empty. All I’ve had to eat for the last twenty-four hours is dry cereal and mothman cum. It’s not a balanced diet.”

He still doesn’t let me go.

“It’ll only take a few minutes.”

The cool feel of his mouth sucking is replaced with teeth.

“I could always call Noah to⁠—”

He flips my body over and pins me to the bed with a snarl. Of course it’s dangerous to tease the monster. I know that, but I can’t stop myself from grinning up at him when he glares.

“You could just come with me, Nox.”

I don’t prefer him in that “human skin” as he calls it, but it does have possibilities. I didn’t think about it, the fact that when I did need to be out, he could still be with me.

I didn’t think about how much I’d want it.

I never imagined how much I’d want him.

“Would you like that, Aspen?” He’s still growling, but at least the flicker of his wings calms to match the beat of my heart instead of that thrumming sound that spells out danger. “Do you want me to follow you into your little town?” Nox leans down and presses the softest kiss to the hollow of my throat. It makes me squirm. “Do you want me to see you smile at other humans, to see how they touch you?”

Oh.

Maybe I am still in danger.

“I don’t⁠—”

“I could watch to see who I need to kill… or maybe…” The butterfly kiss is replaced with a sharp sting as his teeth find my skin. “Maybe you want me to go with you so every time someone looks at you, I have a reason to drag you to the dark and make you choke on my cock until you realize your place.”

My body goes hot with the threat, but I shove against his chest with a groan. “Stop it. Seriously… I need food.”

I want to fuck him. I want to get on my knees and let him feed me his dick until I forget what being human feels like, until I’m nothing but a hole for him to prove he owns.

Instead, I shove him again until he reluctantly sits back… and as I watch, the human form spills over him again in slow ripples. Black and red hair pulled back in a messy bun, eyes so dark they look like an endless sky. Leather jacket and tan skin. Nox is still tall and all muscles, even when he looks so soft compared to his monster form.

He’s probably the most gorgeous thing I’ve ever seen that’s human shaped.

“I’ll go with you,” he finally relents, standing up and offering me his hand in the most human gesture I’ve ever seen. When I take it, the prickle of his claws still tickle my skin. “But I can’t guarantee the town will live through it.”

It’s a mostly harmless trip to town. I go to the store and listen to Nox quietly mutter about the people, their emotions… the boring stink of a mundane life. He stares at the food I pick and scowls, quietly questioning how it could possibly sustain me.

As much as he looks it, and as much as he’s eaten people for longer than people knew they were being eaten, Nox is almost like a child in the way he doesn’t know things. It’s proof that he’s kept himself sequestered to the shadows, that he only interacts when he feeds.