Page 83 of Pareidolia

“I thought people didn’t camp there.”

“It’s rare.”

Aspen’s head tilts, the motion so predatory that it makes my body feel momentarily warm.

Desire.

Seeing Aspen hunt makes me crave him more. He doesn’t realize it, but he’s already doing it as he steps toward the light.

“That’s my tower.” His voice is calm, steady. As dangerous and luring as the thrum of my wings. “Will you help me show them that they aren’t welcome?”

“Not welcome.” My wings fully unfurl, and I hold my hand out to him.

Aspen doesn’t hesitate to take it.

I wrap him in my arms and we take to the sky. We’re silent when we land, and the soft sound of music paired with the gentle fall of rain covers any noise we might have made. I make to move toward the door, but Aspen throws his arm across my chest.

If anyone or anything tried to stop me from hunting, they would be dead where they stood, broken bones in a bloody vessel to hold together the shards.

I stand still now and watch in curiosity as Aspen gives me a wicked smile before he trails up the stairs to the fire tower door and gently raises his fist to knock.

“Help, please?” he says, soft and sweet—his voice is that of a siren, and his eyes glow with trapped light when he glances back at me. “There’s something in the forest.”

My little monster smiles as the door opens and a man steps out with concern painted across his rugged features. When he reaches for Aspen and takes him by the arm, my tendrils snake out—that touch will be the last thing he’ll ever do.

“I know you’re going to say no, but I have to go back to work.” Aspen’s determination knows no bounds. He asks now that I’m full of sex and death and fear, stretched out on the floor of the fire tower by the dead man’s body. We spent an hour teasing emotion and terror from him, and then a few more fucking while covered in his blood. Aspen curled up against me after, like some great cat, and slept until the sun started to rise… and now he’s asking for foolish things.

“You don’t need to work.” My growl seems to mean nothing to him.

“I already told you why I do. I don’t think I can get away with calling out anymore… It’s all right.” He bites his lower lip with a small smile. “You take care of the body, and I’ll get home to shower. By the time we’re both done, I’ll be at the library and you can come see me.” He leans in, biting my chest and leaving behind teeth marks. Every touch, every claw and bite that Aspen presses to my skin leaves a mark now.

“Fine.” I relent. “I’ll rip this body to shreds and come hunt you down before you’re even finished getting clean.”

It’s half threat, half promise.

Aspen pushes himself to stand and picks up his jacket, sliding it on without bothering to grab his blood-soaked shirt. “You could at least give me a head start, I don’t have wings like you.”

“No.” My answer comes easily, and to prove my point, I reach out to the body beside me and rip its head off.

“Fuck you,” Aspen laughs, but I notice he’s half running when he hits the stairs of the fire tower.

CHAPTER 34

ASPEN

I’m late getting out the door for work because I can’t find my knife. It’s annoying, but I’m pretty sure I don’t need it when I’m about to have an emotion-eating moth monster chasing me through the town.

I wonder if he’s going to wait until Faye goes to lunch and try to fuck me in the stacks?

I wonder if I’m going to get fired before I’ve even had a chance to really learn the filing system for the library.

It’ll probably be worth it.

I pause in the doorway, pulling on my gloves. My eyes turn to the forest behind me; he was always this fucking close and I never knew it.

Everything that was made to make me whole, a fucking sprint away, and I’d never bothered to look.

Maybe there wasn’t a part missing in my head, burned out by fever or bad genetics.