I can feel the shift in the air as the shadows draw near, a static charge that makes my skin crawl. There's a hunger in the darkness, a craving that feels both foreign and intimately familiar.
Shadow looms in the doorway, his form a grotesque exaggeration of the creature I once knew. The horns that crown his head have grown even more, twisting back into exaggerated wicked spirals, casting elongated shadows across the room. I expected his eyes to be blood-red, but they are hard orbs ofobsidian, burning with a feral light. The wildness of him sends a shiver of primal fear through me.
"Shadow, what's happening to you?" My voice is barely a whisper, drowned out by the sound of my own heartbeat. The fear is overwhelming. Every part of me is acutely aware I'm in the presence of a true predator. A hungry, out of control predator.
He doesn't answer with words. Instead, there's a low, rumbling sound that vibrates through the room. The sound speaks of a hunger that's barely contained.
"Tell me," I demand, though I’m afraid to push him in this state.
"I’ve been doing what I must to survive," he finally answers in that same drawn-out slur I barely recognize. "Consuming the hearts of my brethren. To grow strong, unconquerable." Fangs appear in the darkness, his forked tongue flicking out.
Shock slaps me cold in the face. "You’ve been deliberately eating the hearts of other monsters?" Should he do that? Is that normal?
Judging by his change in appearance and mood, I’m going to go withno.
"The Guard willnotcapture me. I willnotreturn to the Pit. I will rip every other monster limb from limb and lick out their hearts and entrails." His voice booms through the room, but I resist covering my ears to protect them from the onslaught. I can’t show weakness to whoever… whatever this is. The silence coming from the wall between me and Elijah Cohen tells me my neighbors aren’t home.
"But I smelled you, Evie. I smelled you from across the boundary and I couldn’t stay away." His voice suddenly tremors as if he’s come back to himself. As if he is doing everything he can to hold himself from whatever impulse is tempting him to act.
"Evie." He draws my name out this time like it is the most delectable treat to roll across his tongue. "I want you. I can’t stop wanting you. You fill my head, my senses. I want to consume you." Every word he says is harder to understand, as if his primal monstrous nature is devouring the bits of his humanity, or whatever it is that makes him humanoid.
"I can feel your heart beating," Shadow continues, a note of despair in his voice as he tilts his head and closes his eyes. God, his horns are massive now. "It’s all I hear, all I want. Your scent, your warmth… they’re driving me mad. I want to plunge into your chest, tear out your heart and consume it. It's an urge stronger than I've ever known."
I believe him.
The shadows don't recede. Instead, they press closer, a tangible manifestation of Shadow's inner turmoil. In this moment, I am both the object of his deepest affection and the focus of his most basic, vicious instincts.
"Evie, you need to run." When he opens his eyes, there’s a glimmer of the creature I know, a plea for me to escape his monstrous desires.
I hesitate, rooted to the spot, my heart racing with a mix of fear and a desperate hope. "Shadow, you won’t hurt me. You can’t…"
"You don’t understand," he hisses. "I’m losing myself, Evie. The hunger… It’s consuming me. You’re like a siren’s call. I can’t resist you." The doorframe crunches under his claws, as if it’s all he can do to hold himself back.
The monster before me is on the edge, teetering between the remnants of his control and the need to rip out my heart. The shadows are now mere inches from me, their cold tendrils caressing and snapping at the air around my body.
I continue to stand there, frozen, caught between the instinct to flee or stay and try to save his sanity.
"Please, Shadow," I plead, my voice trembling. "Don't do this."
"Please, run," he urges, his voice strained as if the words themselves are a battle. "I can’t hold back much longer. You’re beyond temptation, beyond control. I don’t want to kill you, Evie, but I’m not sure I can stop myself. You need torun." The doorframe crunches more under his grip, the tension in the room nearly choking me.
I still hesitate.
"Run, Evie!" he roars.
All of the shadows in the room snap into his body, leaving only the hard muscled cuts and long horns of a very real monster who can’t resist his nature another second.
My muscles unfreeze. I yank the door open and flee.
Run
Bolting out the door into the night, the cold air hits my lungs and body like a bucket of ice water, stealing my breath even. My heart pounds in my ears in time to my pace as I sprint unevenly across snow in shoes that aren’t properly tied.
Panic floods my veins. As I race through the quiet streets, I realize I’ve lost before I ever started. There is nowhere to run, nowhere to hide from my monster.
"I'm coming for you, Evie." His voice is a husky growl that echoes in my ears. His words send shivers down my spine. They’re laced with a dark, sensual promise—a predatory claim.
He’s toying with me before he ends me.
