I would do that for her.
Blood splattered across my face, hot and warm as it dripped down my cheeks and neck. The metallic-sulfur stench twisted my stomach, but I shoved aside the urge to heave. Instead, I focused on pushing my dagger the rest of the way through the neck bone to sever the head from the stolas’ shoulders. Feathers and flecks of gore dotted the grass, barely visible under the grim moonlight.
The head dropped to the ground, and the humanoid-bird body dropped like a feathery puppet with its strings snipped.The wet squelch of flesh and the crack of bones didn’t earn a flinch or grimace. Nor did I shrink back as I lit a match and tossed it on the carcass, watching the feathers catch fire.
More of the apostles-turned-monsters were prowling the woods behind the Ashcroft house. Now that they had realized where Ophelia was, she had a target painted on her back, and she didn’t even know it. But I was there, night after night, to keep the monsters at bay, watching over her from the cover of darkness.
Watching.
And watching.
A drug—watching her was like a drug.
And like an addict hungering for another hit, I couldn’t stay away.
My breath fogged the bay window glass, and I forced myself to take a step back. The frigid night air couldn’t compare to the heat burning in my chest as I observed Ophelia run through her nightly routine. Tracking her steps from her room to the bathroom, where she indulged in a luxuriating bath before returning to read, to edit assignments, or to collapse into bed when the fatigue from stress caught up to her.
Tonight, she went for a long bath in the claw-foot tub she favored over the shower. I used the time to run a perimeter around the house. My hand hovered over the dagger holstered at my hip. As much as I wanted to prowl after her and watch her through the bathroom window, I stayed focused on the task at hand. Her safety was my utmost priority.
The neighborhood and trees were vacant for the time being. As if bewitched, I returned to the glass, peering through the gap in the curtains as movement caught my attention. Ophelia wasreturning from the bathroom, draped in an oversized white shirt that nearly swallowed her. I glimpsed pale leg as she entered, and my chest constricted.
Her hair fell in damp, pale waves past her shoulders, with her fringe drying and framing her delicate face perfectly. The fire she lit nightly painted her in glorious hues of gold, highlighting the warm tones of blonde in her hair and the dormant fire kindling in her eyes. A fire I longed to spark, to claim, to own.
Fervently, I tracked her little routine through the room, devouring the hint of curves hidden under the shirt as she moved. I wanted to kneel and open my mouth for her, to lick every inch of what she was hiding from me. When she turned off the overhead light and crawled into bed, my heart drummed faster.
Time and space came crashing to a halt. Under the swaying orange-yellow glow of a crackling fire, the sight rivaled a goddess emerging from the flame. Cast in ethereal light, shining brighter than the sun, and I wanted to sink my teeth into the exposed side of her neck and mark her for the world to know I’d claimed her.
Fuck. She was gorgeous.
Ophelia couldn’t stop wriggling under her blanket. One of her restless nights.
Then she kicked off the blanket, and my gaze cut to her legs. Soft and long enough to lock around my waist. That was where I needed to be—between her thighs, making her shake and tremble as my cock sent her mind and body into a sea of bliss. I’d fuck her until she forgot the sound of her own name, eat her until she begged for mercy, and worship her past the point of overstimulation.
Our thoughts must have been in sync. She had to feel the sensual energy connecting us together. A cosmic itch she couldn’t scratch.
Ophelia reached into her bedside drawer and withdrew a pink vibrator. My jaw snapped shut, and my teeth gritted as jealousy swept through me. She shimmied her underwear down, but her bent knee blocked my view of her pussy. I hated that it wasn’t my hand, my tongue, my cock, that her needs were alleviated with. I could do it so much better, and I wouldn’t stop until she had orgasmed her brains out.
I clenched my teeth, watching as she carefully lowered the toy down her body. No teasing or warm-up. No, she was already beyond that point. I bet she was already dripping and ready. Those thoughts made my already aching cock strain painfully against my zipper.
Ophelia’s back arched, and her tempting lips parted in an O as the toy made contact. Like a caged wolf being taunted by prey, a cloying madness gripped hold of me. It took all my restraint not to slam into the window and break through the glass to get her.
She was a dream, a vision, and I couldn’t contain my desire another second longer. I freed my cock from my pants, gripping it hard and instantly going for faster strokes. Ophelia was gliding the vibrating toy up and down, rolling her hips to meet the electric stimulation. I wanted to join her—to ruin her.
My hand moved along my erection, slightly twisting at the top. I didn’t even feel the biting nip of the chilly night air as a veritable inferno roared in my blood and heated my skin. Each rasping breath tearing from my lips fogged in the air, and all my attention poured into the erotic performance taking place in her bed and the sensation of my dick throbbing in my hand. All the while I wished it was her hand, her mouth, or her tight little cunt squeezing around me.
What was she thinking about to make her ride the vibrator like that? The way she was rocking into it and making breathy noises I swore I heard through the glass sent me into orbit. Shewas a celestial body, a star, and I was a comet destined to burn along her path. Too appealing for her own damn good.
As her trembling increased, I jerked myself faster, biting my tongue to muffle the grunts building in my chest. Her head arched back into her pillow, and her thighs trembled. God help me, it was like watching a galaxy being born from stardust.
I imagined myself in that bed with her, thrusting deep and turning her silent moans into loud cries of pleasure. She would be so wet, so tight, so perfect beneath me. And there she was, on display and toying with herself all for my benefit. For me. Only for me.
When she came, twisting deliciously on her sheets, I spilled my release into the narrow shrub between my body and the window, wishing it hadn’t been wasted. I needed to come inside her and watch my seed leak from her pretty pink cunt so I could fuck it back into her where it belonged.
14
September rolled toward an inevitable end, and the chill worsened as October rushed at me like a brick wall. The essence of winter dragged across the campus, fog and gray gloom and sleet crushing Kilbride with a deadening chill. I was constantly annoyed by the state of the weather, but it had simply become the dreary background to my new life.
I felt like I was going insane, though the logical side of me sustained that monsters weren’t real.
