I watch as she talks to the puny useless mortal following her like a lovesick fool. However, there are too many sounds in the park at this hour for me to hear what they’re saying. My excellent hearing only picks up birds chirping happily in the tree above me and the bags of fleas barking in the enclosure a little further down to my right. Irritating beasts.
The incompetent sod seems to fumble like a baby deer, as if existing in her orbit is too much for his delicate sensibilities.
He shouldn’t underestimate her. She is small and gives nothing away, but there is considerably more to her than that.
I wonder, not for the first time, if she knows exactly how special she is—whether she has any idea of how important her role is and will be.
Soon.
Very soon.
She will take her rightful place in the shadows.
As if sensing eyes watching her, she turns towards me, her eyes catching on my form but moving on, just to come back to seek me out again.
Except I am no longer there.
A dark smile spreads on my lips as she searches for me, looking in vain.
Her subconscious knows me before her waking mind does. Her eyes drift toward me the moment I’m near, pulled by something she has no name for, her body already turning before her thoughts catch up, her soul reaching for mine, even though she doesn’t realize it.
It’s happening more frequently now, which can only mean one thing.
Soon, my lovely.
You will be mine.
Chapter Seventeen
APOLOGY PIZZA
My shoes are off before the door’s even shut behind me.
“Dead,” I call out, already moving toward the couch.
“Corpses don’t announce themselves.”
“This one does.”
I drop onto the cushions face-first.
Casey appears from somewhere, wraps a hand around each of my ankles, and tugs.
I roll over and squint at him.
“What are you doing?”
“You said your feet were killing you literally fourteen times on the way back.”
“That’s an exaggeration.”
“It is not even slightly an exaggeration.”
He sits down and pulls my feet into his lap with the air of someone who has made a decision.
“Casey, you really don’t have to?—”
“I know.”
