“You’re so fucking hungry?” he snaps, pressing me into the ground with his weight. “I’ll feed you!”
His hands squeeze, and my lips tingle as I claw at him.
“All of you!” Grey barks, spittle flying into my face. “Greedy bitches! Never satisfied!”
Blood vessels burst around my eyes as his hands constrict, and when my lids slide shut, and my breath leaves my lungs, he begins to laugh.
In that moment, I realize that Grey has made the very grave mistake of believing he can just kill me if he cannot have me.
It’s an easy mistake to make. Tales of succubi are steeped so heavily in desire and fantasy. They almost always forget how our legends end.
They almost always forget that our kiss is deadly.
I fist my hands in the dirt, grounding myself as I call upon my magic, and it answers without hesitation.
My teeth narrow in my mouth, another row sprouting from my gums, my nails sharpening into claws, and the strength in my muscles expands.
Like a dark urge made manifest by his arrogance, the change takes hold. All of it so I can more easily tear the flesh from his bones. But Grey is too busy laughing to notice.
It is a little funny, I suppose—how stupid he is.
The grating noise of his cackling is abruptly cut off as I rake my right hand over his face, digging my claws down to the bone. He screams as his blood sprays across my body, and I take the momentary distraction to bite through his jugular.
It comes away clean, one giant chunk of tendon and sinew.
For a moment, in the brief time between my tearing out his throat and the last breath leaving his body, he panics.
He tries desperately to stem the bleeding, clamping his hands over his neck as I shove him off me, scrambling to my feet.
There’s still hope in his eyes as I look down at him. But I don’t tell him it’s too late. That my venom has already worked its way through his body, stunting his wolf’s ability to heal. I don’t tell him he will die here in this clearing. And I don’t tell him his pleas are nothing but gurgling, squelching sobs. I merely watch as he shudders and twitches, waiting for the moment he goes limp.
And when he does, all I can do is stare at his mutilated body.
He looks ugly.
Eyes bloodshot. Face pale. As if he’s been strangled.
But the gaping hole in his neck is evidence to the contrary, along with the pieces of him now smothering me.
I can taste his blood in my mouth, feel it sticking between my fingers, and I cringe as I look down at my hands.
“Fucking boys.”
Chapter3
Don't Look Down
IRIS
I don’t knowhow long I’ve been sitting here. Long enough that my butt is wet from the dew-slicked moss, and my heels are caked in mud. Long enough that the moon has changed her position in the sky. And definitely, long enough to know that I should get up.
I know I should be worried about his blood soaking into the grass and the smell of his rotting body reaching the house. I know I should be concerned that someone might find me here, looming over him like a wraith. And yet, here I am, still staring, even as footsteps draw nearer and a voice calls my name.
“Ashbourne?” he calls from over my shoulder.
I don’t answer.
“Ohhh, fuck,” he whispers. “Holy, shit….”
