Which is absurd. How can a monster like me be afraid of a human woman?
“I’m Oliver’s babysitter!”
I jolt at her voice, at how loud it is. I was so distracted by her presence that I didn’t realize how close that presence was.
Acting on a surge of panic, I melt further back into the trees, just as she pushes past where I’m standing. And I see her. A glimpse of her, anyway: her long, thick hair, falling around hershoulders, and her bare arms with their golden sheen from being out in the sun. She ducks beneath a long, spindly branch, then glances around.
For a split second, I see the flash of her eyes, and I feel like I’ve been skinned alive, like she’s staring straight through me.
But then she looks away and keeps going. I let out a low, quiet breath, but I swear my heart is louder.
I should kill her. I should burst through this brush and wrap my fingers around her throat and squeeze the air out of them. Or slam the back of her head against one of the nearby tulip trees over and over until the grey of the bark turns red with her blood.
It’s an image that turns my breath shuddery. That makes my cock grow in my pants. And I still don’t want to fucking act on it.
Her footsteps stop. She must have found the cemetery.
I take a deep breath, trying to calm myself down. It’s fine for her to find the cemetery. There’s no real sign of my presence there. But I need her to turn back, to go back to her side of the lake, before I do the thing I’m made to do.
I slip through the trees, gliding closer to the clearing. I duck beneath a shrub of azalea and, my breath thick in my lungs, peer through the gap in the leaves.
And there she is.
Seeing her like this, up close, is so much better than seeing her from across the lake. Her features are delicate and pretty, her lips full, her hair slightly mussed from the wind. Oliver’s portrait of her, the one I currently have tacked to the wall above my bed, really is an excellent likeness.
Chloe, I think, and my chest feels strange again. Overly tight.
Chloe tilts her head and steps into the cemetery’s overgrown grass. She’s looking at something.
And when she pulls the grass away, I know it’s my grave.
I feel like my soul is growing to crawl out of my skin. Chloe crouches down, runs her hands over the stone.
“Theodore Shorn,” she says.
Hearing my name in her soft, sultry voice makes my heart pound and my cock stiffen even more, enough that it’s uncomfortable, all that hard length between my legs. The early-evening light spilling through the trees overhead gives her skin a soft, golden glow, and I want to know what it would feel like beneath my hand. I want to feel the warmth of her blood pumping through her veins and the dampness of her breath on my cheek. I imagine myself killing her again, this time settling on the intimacy of choking. That’s not usually how I kill. I want the blood. I want to see the inside of a body strewn across the floor.
But there’s no touching when you kill like that. The blade does all that work. And god, do I want to touch her.
I step forward, delirious with lust. And I step on a branch like one of my fucking human victims. The crack is thunderous.
Chloe gasps and jerks up, her eyes wide as she whips her head around. Her fear scent slams over me, and I have to bite back a groan.
“Hello?” she rasps. I squeeze my hands into fists, trying to stop myself from stepping out of the trees and killing her because I don’t know any other fucking way to show her that she’s beautiful.
“I’m leaving now,” Chloe says, her voice shaky.
Then she runs, the sound thunderous as she dives back onto the path.
I breathe, trying to get ahold of myself. I don’t follow her, just listen to her retreating footsteps. It’s only when it sounds like she’s nearly to the beach that I follow, my own steps slow and cautious. I tell myself it’s because I want to make sure she’s fled, and not because I want to see her again before she does.
By the time I make it to the treeline, she’s already pushed out on the water. I recognize the boat as Oliver’s, and I feel a littleskip in my heart. Did he send her out here? It seems strange that he would send her alone, though. He knows I don’t like trespassers.
Is she a trespasser?
I stand among the poplars, watching Chloe row back toward her house, with its huge windows reflecting the setting sun. The boat turns sideways a little, and for a moment, she’s haloed by golden light. Heat surges through me, flooding into my cock again.
Normally, killing is more than enough. What need does a monster like me have for sex? For companionship? The few years I spent with my father showed me how treacherous that can be, especially if a human is involved. The killing urge is always there, bubbling under the surface.
