AllFreeNovel
Share Us
He fiddled with the golden buttons of his dark navy velvet jacket. His nails pointed and sharp. One tug and he would likely slice through the threading with ease.
A shiver ran down my arms as I studied him. Not from fear or disgust. But of anticipation.
“I suppose you wonder what happens next?” he asked. “But I feel as though I should at least know your name before indulging you in such…things.”
I nodded, trying to steady my breathing. I felt my desire to lash out with my power now. And it would likely hurt him, maim him perhaps. But the curse was clear, Mother had drilled it into me. Only on the final night when the moon bled would his immortality waver. That was when I had to strike.
Focus. I hissed to myself.Wait.
“I asked you a question.” His tone dropped suddenly that my stomach flipped with it. He pressed a nail into the bottom of my chin. It pricked my skin until there was a kiss of wetness beneath his touch.
“Jak,” I said through gritted teeth. “My name is Jak.”
The creature snapped back as though my words burned him. In doing so a sting of cold was left at the mark where his nail touched me.
He stood back for a moment, studying me with his wide, ruby eyes as though he looked for something. Then he lashed forward again, gripping the tops of both my arms and pinching with an urgent hold.
Fire boiled within me.
“Do not fucking touch me,”I spat, losing all control. His touch riled disgust throughout me. My hand moved in a blur, knocking against his cheek. The pain that followed had me screaming out. The force sent a shiver of agony up the bones in my arm until it spread across my back. It felt as though my palm had connected with stone.
I stumbled back, hand cradled to my chest as a sob of anguish racked my lungs. I landed on the floor as I tripped over my own feet, landing awkwardly on the sack that was tied around my belt. The bowl jolted into my hip beneath the fall.
“You dare raise a hand to me?” The creature spoke, his voice growing louder with each word. “In my own home?”
His mouth split in a growl that shook the very shadows of the castle. The air vibrated as spit lined his straight bottom teeth to the two canines that grew in size before my eyes. He loomed above me, features distorted. The darks of his eyes seemed to devour all of the white that had been there.
I cowered on the floor, unable to muster the strength to protect myself as pain radiated through me. Fear. Honest, boiling fear.
“Get up,” he hissed, raining spittle down over me. “Get up, now!”
Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t. With my arm cradled to my chest I could not fight as his hands found me and yanked me from my sitting position.
I winced as he struck out, expecting his own forceful slap to reach me. Instead, a vice grip wrapped around my good arm and lifted me from the slabbed floor. His strength was unimaginable. I was a doll beneath his grasp.
“Stop!” I cried out as he dragged me across the floor, legs dragging pathetically beneath me.
Only moments into my arrival and I had shattered my chances of getting close to him.
As he dragged me across the entrance room, he hissed and seethed. His shoulders rose and fell dramatically. Anger shivered in the air around him, intensifying the strange glow from his skin.
“Please…” I pleaded, shoulder now splitting in pain as it took the brunt of my weight. “You are hurting me.”
“You know little of pain…” he hissed, nails biting into my skin as his grip tightened. “But you will. I see now what you want from me. You want the beast. The creature you have heard much about. You will soon come to know that I am what you make me. Fool me once,beauty, and you will not have the chance to do it again.”
With a heave he threw me to the ground before him. I scrambled across it, trying to put distance between us. The corridor we were in was dark, untouched by the candles that burned in the distance. The darkness played tricks on my mind as it pulled and twisted at his face.
I stopped, not by choice. My back pressed against a door, I felt the rigid wood as it stopped me in my tracks.
“In.” He flashed his pointed teeth in warning. “Now.”
I barely had a moment to stand. I fumbled with the brass knob of the door, hands coming away covered in dust. I even noticed the mounds of it that now clung to my trousers and dirtied tunic.
I threw the door open, slamming it against the wall behind it. I did not register what lay within before the creature was there, hand gripped around the door, wood creaking beneath his grip.
I stood frozen. Body a mess of aches and pains, and I seethed, “Do… do not touch me again.”
He barked a laugh. “You are in my home now. You are my Claim. Did they not warn you of what that meant?”
