Total pages in book: 25
Estimated words: 22620 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 113(@200wpm)___ 90(@250wpm)___ 75(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 22620 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 113(@200wpm)___ 90(@250wpm)___ 75(@300wpm)
When I blink back, the parlor isn’t the same. Billowing red fabric spills around the windows. A low, blue and orange flame flickers from black logs in the hearth. The velvet under me is no longer dusty. The whole house feels awake… pleased.
He presses a slow, claiming kiss to the inside of my thigh, as much as teeth and bone can kiss, before lifting his head. The skull should be terrifying, but somehow it isn’t. It’s just him. His eyes drink me in like he’s memorizing every detail of my face.
“Mine,” he growls, the vibration from that single word whipping around me, squeezing, and I have an odd sensation like a crown has been placed upon my head.
I nod, wordless as my fingers test the top of my head, but there’s nothing there but the texture of my hair. He makes a sound of amused satisfaction.
“Tell me you are mine, Eve. That you understand that means your will belongs to me now. All your choices will be mine from now on, and you will do what I say. You will be a vessel for my wickedness, whether that is pleasure or pain.”
“I’m yours.” My voice shakes, my brain spinning as I try to understand what I’m agreeing to, but my heart is in his control. “I’m yours.”
“Good girl. You are so beautiful. Born for something greater than this.” He waves his talons toward the ceiling, and the dark light fixture sparks to life, spinning and casting a dancing glow across his grotesque face.
Heat blooms on my cheeks at his praise. I want to please him more than I want to do anything for myself. There’s no logic here anymore, just me and this inhuman spirit that feels so close to a father figure in a way I don’t fully understand. I do not fear him, but I fear disappointing him.
He rises in one smooth motion. A hand slides under me, and I’m lifted as light as air itself. Instinct has my arms wrapping around the mixture of bones and tendons that make up his neck.
The sensation has me shivering for a moment before the cold turns to heat. Fire and ice, just like the old stories say.
“Where are we going?” I ask as he more glides than walks toward the open door.
“Up,” he says, voice rough. “My room.”
My stomach flips, but the house seems to approve. The chandelier trembles, the fire in the hearth bursts and crackles.
“Your room?” I blink up at his bony face, swallowing hard. “What do you mean?”
“This house is mine. I spent many of your human years here, once upon a time, and as the master of his house, I have a room of my own.”
He carries me into the hall. The door swings shut without his touch. That giant phallus that he pumped with his hand earlier seems to cradle me from below, solid and curved at my back like a third arm supporting me.
As we pass, a mirror along the corridor ripples, and I see how huge he is, with me like a child in his arms.
On the staircase, I press my face to his throat. There is no skin there, just cold shadow over bone, but I can smell him like stones after a rain. I inhale, filling my lungs with him, because I want him inside me.
A low, pleased growl rolls out of him. “I can hear your thoughts, little witch. Soon enough, I will be inside you, in every way possible. You are a strange and lovely little creature, Eve.”
He’s pleased, and it warms from my center outward. Need and wetness gather between my legs as his hold tightens around me.
We pass a tall window where I stood many nights talking to the moon, waiting to scurry back to my room when I heard the sound of my father’s truck pulling down the long driveway.
Next to that window, there’s a door that’s never been here before.
It opens on its own, and he carries me through into the night air, cool and fresh around me.
I look up and see the dark sky, with clouds and lightning streaking through the blackness as a deep rumble of thunder echoes the breath I feel drawing in and out of his chest.
“What is this place? Why are we outside?”
I look down, and there is a floor, covered in a rich gold and red rug. Candles flicker around the perimeter of the space, refusing to yield to the gusting wind that blows around them.
“What happens now?” My voice is breathless as my heart speeds.
“Now,” he rumbles, “I make you my bride.”
The room is vast and dark and open to the elements: curtains blow in the storm wind around a king-sized bed beneath a carved canopy, as a fireplace flickers to life with midnight-blue flames.
Rain lashes down around us, and I bury myself deeper into his chest, but even soaking wet, I’m not cold.