I don’t. I can’t.
Not yet.
Not when she tastes this good, not when her essence fills the empty spaces in my soul.
As her orgasm subsides, I keep drinking. She’s gasping into my mouth, writhing beneath me, her thighs clamped around my hips like she’s trying to keep me as close as possible. Her nails rake down my back through my cloak, leaving trails of fire in their wake.
More. I need more. My power demands it, singing with greed as it tastes something it’s been denied for a century. Hannah’s energy is like sunlight after endless darkness, and I’m drowning in it.
And then something shifts in Hannah’s breathing—less pleasure, more desperation. The dark tendrils between us shudder. Branches creak as if trying to reach for me. Her fingers dig into my shoulders, not with passion, but with something that might be panic. The change is subtle, but I’ve felt it before.
Stop. It’s time to stop.
A voice in the back of my mind, small and desperate, fighting to be heard.
Through the haze of power and pleasure, it keeps whispering, begging me to pull back. This is exactly what Rebecca wanted—for me to prove I’m still the monster who killed Charlotte. For me to drain another innocent woman who offered herself to me and confirm that I haven’t learned a thing.
But the voice is too quiet, and Hannah’s essence is too sweet, and the power flowing into me feels too good to stop. I’m starving, and I have been starving for over a hundred years, and she’s offering herself so completely…
Hannah’s movements grow weaker, her gasps turning shallow. The warm flow of energy falters.
She goes limp beneath me.
The sudden stillness breaks through my frenzy like a splash of ice water.
“Fuck.” I jerk back, gasping, and the tendrils of darkness snap with a deep, sharp echo that reverberates through the forest.
The magic cuts off like a door slamming. The silence is deafening—no wind, no pulse of power. Just the sound of my ragged breathing. Frost has spread outward, climbed every tree, and encased every branch and leaf.
Her face is ghostly in the moonlight. Her eyes are closed. Her head lolls to the side, her arms falling slack on the decayed leaves.
My hands shake as I press my fingers to her throat in search of a pulse—the same ones that are still wet with her desire. Veins of darkness form webs under my skin.
Monster,snarls a voice in my head.
But her pulse is there, steady but weak, beating against my fingertips. Her chest rises and falls in shallow breaths, but she’s unconscious.
“Hannah?” I brush her hair back from her face.
No response. Her skin is pale, almost translucent, and there are dark circles under her eyes that weren’t there before.
The frost begins to melt, the ground around us crackling, water running off the trees in rivulets.
I sit back, breathing hard. I’m uncomfortably aware of how soaked my undergarments are. In other circumstances, this would not be over, and it would not have ended in one of us losing consciousness.
But this isn’t other circumstances.
I clutch my chest, searching for a sign of the binding spell. Did Hannah’s surrender break it? How can I tell?
I study my blackened fingers. Magic crackles between them, and I feel it stirring properly for the first time since I awoke. It’s strong—perhaps stronger than ever.
Have I done it? Am I free to leave this girl, this place, this century of imprisonment? Free to find Rebecca and show her what real power looks like?
A laugh bubbles up inside me, erupting from my lips. It fills the forest, making crows rise in a flurry from a nearby tree, cawing.
God, this power feels good.
Standing on unsteady legs, I straighten out my clothes. Hannah remains motionless on the ground, her breathing the only sign of life. She’ll recover. I somehow stopped in time and didn’t drain her completely.
