Page 175 of Nightshade

I lowered my arms to find Jericho standing before me. At his back, an enormous set of black wings nearly stretched the width of the belfry. Trembling, I took in the impossibility of them. The likelihood that I had begun to hallucinate, because in my world, humans didn’t have wings. Only fictional men did. His skin bore the markings of what looked like silvery tribal tattoos over his arms and chest. I’d seen a hint of them beneath his robe a couple times, but had no idea there were so many. Their metallic surface gave off a slight glow in the surrounding darkness, and glimmered with what looked like electrical currents running across them.

The air fizzled inside my chest. For a moment, I stood gasping for a sip of oxygen, like a fish thrown from the sea. Fear and awe battled inside of me, as I took in the sight of him. Standing across from me, with the bolts of lightning at his back, the storm that still raged around us never once ruffling the feathers of his wings, he was sublime. Chaotic. Dissonance in the flesh. Both terrifying and incredible at the same time.

The single thought churning inside my head was where the hell he’d managed to hide those enormous things. The physics of it all seemed impossible.

It was impossible.

All of it.

Chest rising and falling with heavy breaths, he looked at me the same way I imagined a spider gazing upon a captured butterfly. Hungry and slightly amused. He stepped around the bell, his wings brushing over the surface with a sound that reminded me of steel raked across steel, or a blade unsheathed from a metal scabbard. An oddly pleasant, yet threatening noise that sent a tickle to my stomach.

“What are you?” I asked again, keeping tight to the wall as I backed myself around the other side of the bell, away from him.

“We discussed this.”

“I can’t …. This can’t be real. I’m dreaming. I must be.” Could’ve been the absinthe he’d told me was known to cause hallucinations.

“I could say the same. What are the odds that you would return to me? That you would find me here, in this hell.”

“Mister Van Croix …” Honestly, at that point, it felt weird calling him mister. Did winged creatures go by such formalities? “I am not who you think I am. I’ll admit, there are some really weird coincidences, but I am not Lustina.”

“You are. And you’re mine.” He stepped closer.

I backed up as far as I could without diving over the bannister. “You’ve brought others here, though. You’ve done … unspeakable things with them in this bell tower.”

“I have lived as a starving man in your absence. One who’s grown tired of the futility in searching for your beauty in others. They were never what I wanted. What I craved.”

I couldn’t deny his words sent a chill down my spine, I just didn’t know if it was fear, or arousal which incited it. Perhaps a mixture of both, because as messed up as it was? The wings, those tattoos, his eyepatch …. They turned me on in a way I’d have never confessed in church. Clearly, I had issues. “Have they … seen you like this? I mean, the other girls were okay with th-th-the wings, and all that?”

“Those with whom I’ve found mindless diversion have never seen my true nature. You are the only one.”

A flash of lightning struck his wings, and a scream ripped from my chest as the feathers sparked like a livewire in a storm.

Frozen in place, I watched in horror and waited for his body to seize and twitch, as I imagined a body to do when electrocuted.

Instead, as if undeterred, he continued to stalk toward me, his gaze even hungrier than before, if that were possible.

“That should’ve killed you just now.” I pointed a trembling finger toward the tiny bolts of electricity dancing over his wings.

“Your understanding of what should be doesn’t apply to this world, Farryn. Or me, for that matter.”

I couldn’t move. Stunned with shock, I stood motionless, a prisoner trapped inside my own body. Sparks still flickered over his wings where the electricity bounced over him as if seeking escape.

As he reached for me, I braced for the painful current to latch onto me. To burn me alive from the inside out. Wild energy coursed beneath my skin, vibrating my bones, but the sensation was far from painful. On the contrary, it was intense.

Overwhelming.

Arousing.

Eyelids heavy, I couldn’t help the smile on my face as every nerve in my body blossomed to life. The titillation prickled across my skin and up my thighs, where it culminated at a far too neglected spot, as if commanded there. Biting my lip, I let out a moan and brought my knees together as tightly as I could, a poor attempt to resist the tingling pleasure and the rush of heat that shot straight to my core.

All he’d done was gripped my arms and pulled me against him, yet I could hardly keep myself upright.

“You will give yourself to me, Farryn. And you will willingly watch me devour every inch of you like it’s my last fucking meal.”

“Why are you doing this? What do you want from me?” A stupid question, really, and I blamed the liquor. I knew exactly what he wanted.

“To keep you this time.” He lowered his face to my neck, forcing me to tip my head back.