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My muscles tighten and I fight the urge to change, just to clear the street, just to make sure she can find me.
I dash into a darkened alley, the flickering streetlight casting a glancing, harsh glow.
There’s a muffled grunt, and for a moment I think I must have walked into some couple’s idea of a good time. But—
Lacie’s pressed a man up to a wall, her lips on his throat. He groans again, blanketed by her faint, shimmering light. Hers is lighter than mine: an electrifying, youthful yellow.
“You should never, ever grab someone without their consent,” she’s whispering.
Stifling a frantic, relieved laugh, I huddle behind a wall of trash bags to watch.
Lacie has a nervous tremor in her fingers but otherwise seems in control. She tips the man’s head back and places her lips a breath from his. “Promise me.”
“Y-yeah, yes, of course.”
“That wasn’t a promise,” she insists.
He moans, “I promise—please—”
Lacie silences him with a deep kiss. His eyes widen with panic, then go glassy as the long rope of her tongue digs down his throat. It bulges and widens, and Lacie’s glow gets stronger, sharper, as though she’s made of neon. Her skin cracks and pulls away, sucking and wet and black to the core of her. Her spine crackles from the darkness, uncoiling, her jaw unhinging and dripping as she feeds.
Goddess, but she’s gorgeous.
The man screams, a faint, swallowed husk of a sound, and she eats that, too.
After a few moments, she pulls away, the barbs of her tongue retracting into her throat. The man slumps, his golden hair sticking to his sweaty face. Lacie wipes her mouth on a piece of folded-up napkin she fishes from her dress, then turns.
“Did I do okay?” She’s already blushing, her fingertips squeezing the napkin.
Ah well, I’ve been made. I emerge from the shadows, brushing past the passed-out man. They’ll think he had too many. Worst case, he’ll end up at the hospital for a night.
“Well done, my lamb.” I cup her cheek and kiss her, and she still tastes like a Pimm’s cup or whatever it is they drink down here. Swizzle. Something. My mind can’t put thoughts together properly. She pulls away, her tongue swiping her lips.
“Your lamb?”
“Mine.” I wrap a hand around the back of her neck and pull her close to me.
She kisses me again, flushed and exhilarated and living, and I can’t think of anything more important than her.
When we break away, Lacie leans her forehead to mine. “Thank you,” she whispers.
“Mm? What for?” I tongue a dribble of blood from the corner of her lip, run a thumb over the plush curve of her cheek.
“Keeping me safe.”
“I would move mountains for you, love.” I wrap my arms around her waist and peck her again.
She smiles, radiant and warm and mine, all mine. Forever.
Lacie
New Haven awakens to a bitter cold early September day, yet I’m curled in front of a fireplace, my head on a pillow as I reread Snorri Sturluson’s Prose Edda before my first class of the fall semester. Just going over the material helps soothe my nerves. It doesn’t hurt to have Bellatrix purring at my feet, her paws flexing as she kneads the deep pile rug.
“Lamb, look at this,” Marcella murmurs, handing me her phone.
The Times app is open, and I know already that they’ve dedicated an entire section to the Preston Fire, as it’s known now. My finger taps the latest article.
Boston, Preston University.
