“I know you’re here,” I purr. “I can smell your fear.”
I drop down to my fours and stalk forward. Slowly, toward her figure tucked behind a curtain. Foolish, really. I seize her from behind the curtains with her shriek, dragging her out with predatory delight as her terror washes over me.
That thread—that magical call I’ve been drawn to—tugs insistently.
A sinister smile lifts my lips, anticipation rumbling within my bones.I suppose I don’t need Lady Bethany after all.I crunch down into her frame, ending her immediately, before tossing it away.
Prowling about the hallways toward that thread, I come across several groups of guards and slaughter them immediately. Leaving corpses and pools of blood in my wake. The power, the draw of the one I crave, luring me forward.
As I turn down the last corner, a scent wafts over me. Filling every crevice, every shadow. I grumble as I close my eyes, my pupils dilating until they’ve completely taken over my eyes. When I reopen them, I slip to her door and check the handle.
Locked.
I rear back and slam my head into it. Once, then twice. The door snaps as it swings open, splinters of wood showering the floor.
The room is red…everything but her.
I rise onto my hindlegs to get a better view of her. The blue dress draped over her frame. She’s standing before her window. Her eyes connect with mine—and I’m struck.
Blue.
My pulse jumps, her magical scent sending me into a spiral. Enveloping me, twisting within my very bones, my soul, and calling me deeper.
Mine.
She answered the magic. Called upon the thread to lead me here.
“I’m not afraid of you,” she whispers, her blue eyes skewering me.
I drop down onto all fours, slowly crawling toward her. “I don’t want you to be.”
“Then why have you been stalking me?” She shifts closer to the window. “Why have you been flooding my dreams, my visions, with all the awful things you’ve done and plan to do?”
My gaze softens on her. “Sometimes the truth is awful. I am what I am, in the light, and in the darkness. I wanted you to see it.”
“Kill me then. Be done with it,” she snaps.
I stop a few strides away from her, my tail fluttering behind me. “Oh, I’m not here to kill you, Lyra Goldbrook.”
I flood the thread between us with magic—pulsing, waving, rippling. Until she gasps, body arching back against the wall. Calling her magic with mine.
A perfect match.
At first she fights it. Not wanting to accept it, wanting to block me out. Until her eyes flutter, rolling back into her head at how good it feels. The power, intoxicating. Humans and beasts alike are called to it, swept away by it. Her lips part, head lolling back as she begins to drink it in.
Smiling, I inch closer to her, our magic pulling us together. Each step solidifies the tie.
“Yes, Lyra,” I purr, slipping closer to her. “You cannot deny it any more than I can.”
Her head rolls to face me, her eyes glazed in white. “It was you in the dining room that night, wasn’t it? You who pinned me up against the column?”
“Yesss,” I hiss. “And now I’m here to claim what was always meant to bemine.”
Bonus spicy “the beast & Lyra” scene:
https://www.courtneywhims.com/huntedbonus
Fifty-Four
