Total pages in book: 71
Estimated words: 64359 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 322(@200wpm)___ 257(@250wpm)___ 215(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 64359 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 322(@200wpm)___ 257(@250wpm)___ 215(@300wpm)
“Three… two…” I start to count down.
Sure enough, the meal reaches the fence, trips, and scrambles through the dahlias. It’s very cute.
It’s also very much…
The End.
For him.
Ifeast on my meal’s flesh until it stops twitching inside my throat as it slides down. I am beautifully, delightfully full. I delicately lick the blood from my fingertips. It is a nod to some genteel impulse though it makes no real difference. My hands are covered in blood, and it trickles all the way down to my elbows in little rivulets.
There are bits of him strewn across the lawn because I started consuming him before he was completely gone. He crawled away from me and I let him, picking pieces off him little by little. It was cruel, but it satisfied some nameless pain inside me. I want to hurt this kind of thing - and I did. I hurt it hard and I long. I hurt it until it couldn’t feel hurt anymore.
Some of my appetite has been sated, but not the part that wants numahns to suffer. I don’t think I will ever have my fill of that.
“Such a messy, hungry little thing,” a strong voice growls.
I look up from the remnants of my meal to discover that another husband has come for me. Not the husband feeding Rhys. A different husband. A husband with long hair, and strong but noble features. I smile broadly as he wraps me in his arms and begins to wipe me down with a warm, wet cloth. He has come prepared.
“You have fed,” he says. “And now it is time you were bred.”
His words are warm and rich with carnal undertones. I melt into him happily, feeling his big, strong body protecting mine and lusting for mine at the very same time. Funny that a monster like me should enjoy being protected. I don’t really need it. I could save myself time and time again. I am a predator, driven by hunger and the kind of rage that burns inside me like a furnace.
No matter how pretty my dress, how neat my hair, or how flawless my makeup, I will always be searching for fresh flesh.
“Yes,” I murmur under my breath. “I should do my wifely duty by you.”
He turns me around and looks down at me. I see that little sadness in his stellar gaze. There is a ping of recognition, and the world seems to glitch, the sky breaking apart into little jagged pixels just for a moment. When I look again, it is all back together - but I am left with the indelible feeling that there is something unreal about this place. I might be real. He might be real. But everything around us is…
“What’s your name?”
“Kr… Karl,” he says, not looking very happy at having to say that. I wonder why he lies about his name? Is it the same reason he is wearing a t-shirt and jeans, both of which look as uncomfortable on him as his fake name?
“No, it’s not,” I say. “It’s not your name, is it? What’s mine?”
“Ours,” he says. “Your name is Ours.”
I forgot my name long ago, if I was ever given one. But my husband should know it.
“Ours isn’t a name. It’s a… a word that denotes ownership.”
“Ours is a pretty name,” he says, pushing some of my hair back behind my ear. “Though I always enjoyed calling you Mine.”
He lowers his head and claims my mouth in the kind of kiss that drives all concerns about reality or lack thereof right out of my head. There might be something unreal about this world, but there is nothing fake about this. The physical chemistry and magnetism is a hundred percent real. I sink into his embrace, seeking not only the pleasure he is offering me, but the sense of something meaningful.
“Yes,” he growls as he senses my sexual surrender. “You are a perfect mate. You are a wonderful wife.”
I know I am fortunate to be so well-regarded, because I am not a perfect or wonderful anything. I am a monster wearing the shell of a good wife. I am a creature stitched together from pain and regret and a thousand wounds I no longer remember. I am holes and voids held together by the breaths I just keep taking.
I let him pretend I am perfect. I let him kiss me as if I deserve it. I let him caress me and hold me and I let him lie me down on a patch of grass that is less soaked with the blood of my prey than some other parts. This husband loves me. I can see it in his gaze, and I can feel it in his touch.
He strips the shirt and jeans off his body before joining me down in the bloody dew. The shirt rips as he pulls it off over his head, tearing at the seams. He casts it away and yanks the rough material of the jeans off his legs too. Without that human clothing, he looks closer to alien.