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Ruby stood. She usually spent her alone time exploring the void, cooking in the giant kitchen, or playing with the dog spirit, but she wanted to see what happened after he came back from a hunt.

She told herself it was so she would be reminded he was a Skullstalker, not something she could ever have a future with.

But if she was honest, she wanted to see the feral, inhuman creature inside him for other reasons.

Reasons that made her tender hole throb with need.

Another rustle in the trees.

The dog spirit’s head snapped up. His tail thumped happily.

“I know,” she told him.

Slate appeared out of the trees. He was smeared with blood, long tongue licking his skull mask clean as he lumbered out of the trees.

Then he froze. He had spotted Ruby.

Ruby lifted her hand in a silent wave.

Slate waved a hesitant hand back. He wasn’t wearing his loincloth. His skin was bone-pale, which only looked paler in contrast to the blood coating his body. His skull mask was dripping with it, gore hanging off his bare chin.

The dog spirit barked and took off, tail high.

Ruby followed him. Slate seemed reluctant to move, petting the dog distractedly until Ruby arrived in front of him.

“How was the hunt?” Ruby asked.

Slate blinked. There was a shred of flesh on his eyelashes.

“Good,” he said cautiously.

“What did you eat?” Ruby asked, bracing herself. She was determined not to balk if he told her it was a human. Unless he hunted near Sweetsguard. Then she would have to ask.

“A demon.”

Ruby frowned, remembering the thin, ashy limbs of the demons she’d seen. “A shade?”

“No, a kobald. It was in another void.” Slate wiped a hand over his bloody jaw, only succeeding in smearing the mess instead of cleaning it.

Ruby nodded, keeping her face blank. Then she asked a question that surprised both of them. “Can I see it next time?”

Slate didn’t move. The dog spirit barked, jumping to lick his dripping hand.

“You cannot eat,” he told the spirit. He turned back to Ruby and said, “I was last hungry several years ago. You will not be around next time.”

“Oh.” Ruby forced a smile, hiding her disappointment and trying to figure out why she was so disappointed in the first place. Why did she want to watch the monster she was sleeping with rip a demon apart with his teeth?

“That’s fine,” she said.

Slate grunted. Even though she couldn’t see his expression under his mask, his averted eyes were enough.

“Is something wrong?” she asked carefully.

Slate made another noise. A wet gurgle, like there was something meaty stuck in his throat.

“I thought it would be decades until I hunted again,” he said. “My hunger has gotten weaker with age. Until you came along. The fact that I would eat after mere years is… disconcerting.”

Ruby laughed. No wonder he had been baffled that she needed to eat multiple times a day.

“A kobald would have been more than enough, last time,” Slate continued slowly. “Now I am… I am still not full.”

“Is that so bad?” Ruby asked. “There will be other kobalds.”

“I am not worried about running out of things to hunt. I am worried about…” Slate growled, and the prey-animal instinct filled Ruby with adrenaline. Getting her ready to run. To be chased .

“Changing,” Slate admitted.

Ruby pushed down her instincts telling her to get out of there as fast as she could. It was shockingly easy, especially with Slate looking so morose.

“Changing,” Ruby repeated. “In a good way or a bad way?”

“I am not certain.” Slate petted the dog spirit, who had started nudging his leg with its head. Ruby was glad nothing stuck to the dog’s fur, otherwise it would be streaked with blood.

Ruby twisted her old dress nervously, her heart pounding in her chest.

He wasn’t the only one changing. This void was doing something to her.

Making her magic more powerful. But she was now the kind of woman who knew what a Skullstalker felt like inside her—cock, fingers, tongue.

She knew how to navigate his castle and some of his forest. She knew secrets the mortal realm had kept from her.

How could she go back to her normal life after this? Would she spend her days living alone on the edge of that tiny town, reminiscing on the brief time she spent training to take a Skullstalker’s cock for a ritual?

She touched her old dress. It felt so thick and scratchy on her now. Would he let her keep the shadow dress, or would it dissolve the second she stepped back into her realm?

“I should get cleaned up,” Slate said, looking down at his bare, bloody body.

Ruby pulled herself out of her spiraling thoughts. She watched him take a step toward the castle, an idea forming in her whirling head.

She touched his arm. “I could give you a bath.”

Slate cocked his head. “You do not have to.”

“I want to.” She rubbed his arm, only remembering too late what he was covered in. Her fingers were coated in blood now, a thread of flesh sticking to her palm. She waited for the disgust to set in.

But it didn’t come. She was a witch, after all. She was used to a little blood.

Slate inclined his head. “If you wish it.”

They turned toward the castle. His gaze lingered on her dress, as it often did when he saw her wearing her old clothes.

“You’re stained,” he pointed out.

Ruby frowned and looked down. There was a spot of blood on her hem from where she had stood far too close. She looked up at him, waiting for him to draw out the blood like he had done the last time she stained her dress.

“It is not my blood,” Slate said, frustrated. “I cannot vanish it.”

“Oh.” Ruby held it up, wondering about the perfumed soap she found in his bathroom and whether it would get out bloodstains. Then she paused.

“Then I’ll have to wear something else,” she said.

He stood back, expectant.

Ruby looked around. The forest was empty except for them and the dog spirit, who was snuffling at some bushes in the distance.

She gathered her dress and pulled it over her head. The cool air on her bare skin made her nipples harden, goosebumps spreading over parts of her that had never felt a breeze.

Slate curled a finger. Shadows climbed over Ruby’s skin, draping her in black. A holster band hugged her thigh, and Ruby shifted on the spot to feel the dagger press into the tender skin.

“Thank you,” she whispered.

Slate stepped closer, his gaze fixed on her. His chin gleamed with blood. His mouth was wet with it.

Ruby wanted to kiss him anyway.

She was leaning up when a far-off yelp echoed through the trees.

She jumped. “What was that?”

Slate shushed her. His head was tilted, listening intently.

Another yelp rang through the trees. Sounds of a scuffle quickly cut off.

Then horrible silence.