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Rolling my shoulders and taking a deep breath, I dragged my eyes away from the mirror. Shower, sleep, and tell Thorn about my thoughts in the morning if he wasn't already monitoring them. But I didn't feel him, and for the first time, it was disappointing.
I wished I'd returned to the apartment and Chastity instead of doing what Thorn commanded and going to bed alone in this house. Or I could have even stayed in the warehouse instead.
Showered and still restless, the night sky beckoned, and who was I to refuse? I took off into the woods behind the house in nothing but my tank top and sleep shorts, my bare feet hardly making a sound in the grass and undergrowth beneath the cedars and cypress trees.
The insects quieted as I passed, the small, scurrying things keeping to the shadows and the ferns to avoid detection. But I can find them. I focused and pushed out tendrils of power through the undergrowth, searching for heartbeats.
I find the mice that live in the tree roots and the hungry fox that’s been hunting but has had no luck yet. There’s a stray dog, too, snuffling somewhere ahead of me, and beyond him lies the swamp.
The swamp is full of things to hunt, and I’m hungry.
With more care to hide my presence, I moved toward the water. I wanted bigger prey, and up ahead was something I couldn’t resist. Warm-blooded, nice, steady heartbeats. At this time of night, I figured them to be poachers who could use a good scare.
I climbed the nearest tree, barely feeling the bark scrape the bottoms of my feet. Scooting to the end of the limb, I pushed my energy toward the men. Two of them, both armed, their reddish auras visible thanks to the marks. The moon peeked out from a wispy cloud, and I turned my face up, shivering from the energy that coursed through me.
The demon stone wanted to hunt these men. I jumped down, landing as silent as any shifter, and crept closer, walking almost on all fours to stay in the foliage understory. A few more steps and I'm behind the older man, a well-built forty-something with broad shoulders and a rifle slung across his back.
The mark warmed, and I glimpsed a vision of myself attacking the man, sliding up behind him, holding him against my body, and sinking my teeth into his throat, blood pouring from the gaping wound as I tore the wound open.
The unbidden mental image froze me in place.
What was I doing?
The mark sings in my head. “They are bad, they deserve this.”
Bile rises in my throat at the thought of the man’s flesh in my mouth, but the mark fights me, and my feet move against my will, sidling me closer to him.
The younger man yelped and cursed, and my gaze moved to him. He’s slight, maybe only in his late teens or early twenties, with tobacco stains on his fingertips and a plug of chew pushing out his cheek. The mark wants him, too. Images and sensations assault my mind, his body torn apart, blood hot and slick all over me.
Overwhelmed, I fell back into the brush, breaking the small twigs of a wild dewberry bush. Both men pivot, their guns in their hands in a flash.
Shit.
I stayed still, willing myself invisible, as the older one slowly walked toward me, his headlamp throwing light in an arc as he turned his head from side to side. I was right in his path, impossible to miss. They're just looking for alligators. It's not reason enough to kill them, but there's the thrill of realizing I have to kill —or be killed.
I am invisible. I’m not even here. Just a fox, startled to find humans in her territory.
The man took another step, putting him less than six inches from me. He moved forward, his headlamp still bobbing like a pendulum as he searched. “I think it was just a fox. There are a few around here. Let’s keep moving. Nothing to catch here anyway.” He turned back toward his companion, and they moved off further down the edge of the water.
I sat in the thorny dewberry bush for a long time until my heartbeat slowed its hectic pounding, and my mouth no longer felt like the Sahara. I’ve had to fight. I’ve even hated people. Never in my life have I envisioned cold-blooded murder.
Not even as a shifter, but I still have the hunger.
Super fucking super.
It didn’t matter now, though. Thorn would take the mark, and I’ll be free of the temptation ever again. No shifter gets to say that.
But my stomach was still tied in knots, and I wouldn’t sleep tonight. Was it something Moira did or did I have this thing inside me for too long?
Whatever had changed in me, I needed to change it back. Because around here, there is no turning back when you turn into a monster.
Eventually, I regained enough control over my body to return to the house, barely noticing the wildlife around me. I couldn’t stand the thought of going to bed, more afraid of what I might do if I sleep, than I am of the pack.
I examined the scratches and cuts on my arms and legs and checked my feet for remaining burrs, then took another quick shower to get the blood off me, grateful that it was all mine this time.
I dressed in jeans, a white tank, and a hoodie and walked into town. The nice thing about living in or near a city that never sleeps is that I can always find something to eat and a place to be in the middle of the night. I don't know if that's due to the factions or the tourists, and tonight I don't care.
George's Barbeque is quiet when I walked in, but just the right kind of quiet. Enough patrons that it doesn't feel lonely, not so many that I'll be stuck waiting forever for a drink or listening to an obnoxious table chat about stupid shit all night.
