Page 119 of Florescentia

His face neared mine, his claws resting on either side of me on the table.

I leaned back but kept my place.

“Are you sure you’re not even a little famished?” he asked again. “It’s been so long since you’ve had a meal.”

“No pleasantries. I do not appreciate illusions,” I said firmly, “even the emotional ones.”

“You’re right, I know the answer. So I’ll say it for you.” He turned his head to the side, his third eye bright. “There is a hunger in you—no, a longing.”

I laughed at the insinuation.

“Of knowledge, of curiosities unquenched, of things you’ve yet to experience.” His claw brushed by my leg. “Maybe you’d like to feel as I do when I feed from you.”

My own swallow caught in my throat, the statement stirring something in me. Whether it be morbid curiosity or the appeal of mystery, my monster knew my vices.

“You would, wouldn’t you?” His hand smoothed behind my thigh, pushing me up onto the table.

I startled, my fist clenching in a bundle of grapes, the wet mess slimy between my fingers as the fruit burst.

I held my hand up to push him, and he caught it. The shadows of his face parted, as if a human mouth were there, and just as human of a tongue slipped out before it stretched and snaked between my fingers.

“Is that what it was?” I whispered. “At the museum, with the mammoths.”

“Memories are sweeter than fruit.” He pulled my hand forward, pressing his hips between my legs. “You can taste it too.”

He leaned forward, and I leaned back, my body flattening against the table in between the assorted displays.

My body was tense, unsure, but not denying I wanted to try.

As he neared, I pressed my palms to his chest.

In this form, his eyes were cold, dissecting. I had no way to get a good read on him, not like this.

My hand smoothed over the inky mass. Then finally, I touched his face. The places I touched began to glow, the white light spreading even when my touch had since passed. His face began to turn, to change.

Inky mass turned to pale skin and black hair the more I touched him. The light crawled over his skin and exposed a human chest, decorated with symmetrical black markings from his neck down to his abdomen. Even the markings were moving. His arms were still beastly, muscular and clawed.

He placed his hands on either side of my head on the table. His eyes were so intense, so bright, it was too much to meet his gaze directly.

“What is it exactly you’d have me taste?” I asked softly.

Altair lowered his lips beside my ear. I could almost feel him breathe.

“Everything that you desire,” he said.

I turned my head away from him, but then his teeth were on my ear.

I flinched at the bite, albeit a gentle one.

His lips dragged along my jugular, sloppily so. A hot trail reminding me how real this was, no matter how dreamlike.

He closed his lips on my throat, a gentle suck before moving to a different spot, then a harder bite.

“Altair.” His name surfaced as a gasp as I pushed at his shoulders.

He replied with the scoop of his arm under my waist, squeezing me tight as he sucked on my collarbone next, then his free hand cupped my breast. His claws dug into the sensitive skin.

“I know what your heart calls for,” he breathed against my skin, those opal-blue eyes staring at me through his brow. “But you have to say more than my name if you want it,” he teased, his lips trailing back up to my jaw.