Page 97 of Pareidolia

Not death or fate or mortality. He’s mine.

My arms wrap around Aspen’s waist and I drag him to sit on my lap with his back pressed to my front. Sitting this way, I can wrap my hands around him, explore his chest and all the places there should be wounds.

I can run my fingers along his newly formed scars as I strip him of his pants and make quick work of sliding a tendril between his legs to thrust inside his hole and slick him up.

From this position, when Noah opens his eyes, he can see exactly how Aspen looks with his thighs spread, held open with shadows, while I fuck him from behind.

I want him to see.

I want the thought burned behind his lids to haunt him until I’m ready to kill him.

I use the shadows wrapped around his body to lift Aspen and press him flush to my hips as I kneel to hold him on my lap, then I let my cock slide from my body in a slow, steady motion that impales him one inch at a time.

He whines, his hands finding my arms—the nails aren’t blunt anymore, and when I look down I see his fingers tipped in claws.

Black claws. Just like mine.

“My little monster,” I growl, letting my cock continue its slow pursuit to the center of him. Aspen squirms at the feel, throwing his head back on my shoulder and giving me his neck.

I look across the room and catch Noah’s dazed eyes staring as I lower my head and bite the sweet spot where Aspen’s neck and shoulder meet… and then I start to fuck him.

It’s not hard and fast, not our usual vicious tempo.

It’s slow and deep—more grinding him against my cock than fucking. I want to leave an impression on every inch of his body, to fill him until he’s not hollow anymore.

When his arms throw up to wrap around my neck and he forces himself down as I drag him against my cock again, the heart in my chest reacts.

A steady beat that forces my wings to unfurl, to thrum behind me.

“Mine,” I groan, my hips flexing and his hole clenching as I milk the nerve endings in his body that fire off pleasure to his brain. “You’re mine, little monster. Mine to fuck, mine to keep.”

“Yours.” He doesn’t try to argue, he just twists his head and nuzzles, finding my neck with his teeth and biting down on the pulse that shouldn’t be there. “Mmmfuck. Only yours, Nox. Forever.”

Forever.

Until the stars fall and the universe collapses.

I could be buried inside him until time meant nothing and it wouldn’t be long enough.

I start to drag him up and down in earnest then, doing the work for his body that’s been through too much. It doesn’t take long for him to start to groan and whimper, for his clawlike fingers on my arm to scratch deep rivulets of dark blood that drip and slick against his thighs, giving me even more friction.

We fuck surrounded by my kill, watched by a madman, and soaked in his heart’s blood until Aspen throws his head back and screams, his cock jerking and adding more fluid to the mess.

I follow him, filling his ass in a burst of heat and drowning in the way the heart thundering in my body feels as it races to keep up with the pleasure. Hungry tendrils drag him against me again and again until he starts to twitch, to whine. Until he slaps my arms as I hug him against my chest.

“Enough—fuck… enough, Nox. You’re going to kill me again.”

It’s not enough. I want to make him come until he can’t breathe, until he sees that immortality means that I have an eternity to show him exactly how much he can take.

But for now…

“For now… enough.”

This will be the one time I show him mercy.

Aspen collapses back against me with a soft groan. The heart in my chest thunders harder, as though it recognizes how close it is to where it belongs and is trying to find its way home.

My arms around him aren’t enough. Tendrils spill from me to wrap around his chest, his waist, his shoulders. Everywhere I can touch to pull him closer. Everywhere I can touch to assure myself that he’s still with me.