But Pike hadn’t attacked.
Hadn’t hurt her aside from the bite, which—Marlowe grudgingly admitted—likely wouldn’t have happened if she hadn’t brought a knife.
If the creature’s intention was to kill her, surely she would have drawn her into the lake already.
Her head cleared, slowly, and still Pike loomed over her.
Unblinking.
Waiting.
A trilling sound garbled from Pike’s throat.
Marlowe swallowed again, and the tightness in her chest loosened slightly. Words felt agonizingly out of reach. She curled her tongue in the back of her mouth, imitating Pike.
Pike’s lips peeled back.
A clumsy smile, just as disturbing plastered on the lake creature as it would be on a stumbling deer.
Marlowe’s heart thudded against her ribs a little less.
They were communicating.
Pike released her wrists and slid down her body, fleshy hands smoothing her ratty, acid-flecked shirt. Marlowe’s slight smile faded.
They were communicating, and Marlowe had just agreed to something.
Eaten Alive
Knobby, webbed fingers pressed into the bones of her hips. If Marlowe wasn’t pinned down like a beetle in a shadow box, she would have shuddered.
God knew what she’d agreed to. Being eaten, consumed by the teeth lurking inside Pike’s cunt? Being fucked?
Oh, she was so fucked. A knot of nerves and tension pulsed in Marlowe’s cunt. Without the slick press of her thighs, there was no relief.
Pike’s tail scraped across her bare legs, fleshy hands drifting across Marlowe’s thighs, and her eyes slipped shut as the ache in her gut worsened.
Right now she didn’t care what Pike would do with her after, as long as she’d fix the horrible, desperate pull that had driven Marlowe here in the first place.
Even though Marlowe’s body was stagnant, her delirious state had cleared.Fuck, she needed Pike to touch her.
Marlowe had almost managed to coax a moan from the thick heaviness lodged in her throat when Pike’s hands wrapped around her ankles.
Panic squirmed into her chest.
She tried forcing her fingers to move, willing them to curl, to grab onto something. Her sunken knife handle scraped against the back of her useless hand. Muck seeped into her hair and a leech wriggled against the shell of her ear.
Pike dragged her into the water.
Head locked in place, gaze darting wildly at the black pines stabbing toward the stars, Marlowe tried to form words around the stones pinning her tongue to the back of her throat.
A rasping sound wheezed from her lips.
Lake water soaked her shorts and bit into her ass. Algae filtered between her still fingers and a crayfish snipped at her, pinching skin.
It was all Marlowe could do to drag in a labored, weak breath before her head went under.
Frogs chirring in the distance dulled to a low hum. They grew louder, pulsing through her body in waves. The hold on her ankles faded.
