Page 13 of Consumed (Shot in the Dark)

“And you dare to speak to me about lying?” My laugh was cold and hollow.

I wove my fingers into his golden brown locks and gripped tightly, ignoring the hiss of pain as I drove his gaze back up.

I hated that he forced my hand, but he was so stubborn.

“Who forced you to return to this place day after day after I revealed myself to you? For years ? No one but your own greed and infatuation.”

Eoin breathed heavily, his silence prolonged this time. The fire in his gaze wavered as he gazed up at me. A part of him acknowledged the darkness in him that he had tried to deny day after day, as all humans did.

“Why me?” he finally asked. “I’m no one. Fix your obsession on someone else.”

More tears welled up in my eyes—tears of love despite everything he had done to me. “Love does not offer a choice. It is devastating, all-consuming. You belong to me. And we can still be happy together. I can forgive everything.”

“I don’t want it. Any of it!” But his attempt at a heavy, commanding tone was no more than that—an attempt. He shut his eyes as though depriving me of his gaze might suffocate me from existence and make it easier to resist his feelings.

“Eoin.” My voice caressed him with more tenderness than a mortal woman’s touch could hope to achieve. “Don’t be ashamed. We share the same want. You’ve done nothing wrong.”

My fingertips brushed his lips, tracing down his jawline to rest upon the fluttering pulse of his neck. I pressed my forehead to his and did not move. My patience was rewarded when, slowly, he opened his eyes and lifted his gaze to meet mine.

“I can’t,” he whispered. “I can’t.”

His eyes flickered down as though finally registering how deep the neckline of my gown was, how kissable my lips were.

“Don’t deny yourself,” I breathed back. “You’ve waited so long. ”

Something gentle shivered beneath his stare—painfully familiar. Temptation.

As I lowered my lips to his, he did not pull away, did not protest. I breathed into him with terrible, wordless elation and sensed the instant that the tension fled his body.

He kissed back—a tentative brush of lips that became a hungry, wanting thing.

The brokenness of a man who had nothing left to lose.

The forest released him gradually—shoulders and arms first. His hands flew up to my neck at once, and for the briefest moment, I thought he was trying to strangle me again.

But his touch moved higher, slipping into my silvery hair.

Our mouths crushed together as his fingers wound their way through my tresses.

“There you are,” I whispered as he paused for breath.

When the forest released the rest of his body, I leaned back to regard him.

Bits of twigs and leaves clung to his hair and clothes like the forest couldn’t bear to relinquish him entirely—the way I could scarcely bear it.

As I drank him in, the calm in his expression morphed into something wicked and wanting.

“Róisín ,” he groaned, surging forward to envelope me in his arms and find my lips once more. I returned his brutal affection with fervor.

He pushed my gossamer gown up, his hands desperately finding their way up my legs, squeezing my waist, and sliding back down again .

I unfastened his cloak, and he was seemingly unaffected by the chill of the night as he removed layer after layer. There was no cold. Nothing existed beyond us and the forest as he lay upon a bed of winter decay and shadows, and invited me atop him with feverish desire.

I crawled slowly onto him, leaving a trail of kisses from his abdomen to his chest.

As I spread my knees and welcomed him into me, Eoin gave a choked noise of pleasure and threw his head back, fingers digging painfully into my hips. I savored the ache. Finally, he had accepted that I had rooted into the dark and hollow spaces of his soul—that we shared the same sinful pull.

Each passing second was a gift. Time had never sat still for me, but here and now, I committed every breath, every heartbeat to memory as we joined beneath the eyes of the forest.

The trees bent around us, oscillating in gentle sync with my storm of labored breathing. Branches groaned, echoing the pleasured sounds that escaped our lips.

“More,” I moaned, my hips moving feverishly. “ More , Eoin.”

More, more, more , the forest echoed in a sharp, cutting breeze. It was as hungry as I was.

Eoin’s tunic had been shed, leaving his bare torso gleaming from exertion. One strong arm wrapped around me, flipping me beneath him. His thrusts became more punishing, filling me deeper.

“Nothing has ever felt like this,” he panted. “No one.”

His kiss was hard and claiming, like a starving man.

I smiled against his full lips, moaning into his mouth before claiming his lower lip with my teeth.

I bit down hard enough to make Eoin gasp.

The coppery tang of blood blossomed on my tongue.

Even still, this fervor only brought a wild glint in Eoin’s eyes, like this was a challenge—and I wondered if my forwardness surprised him, even now.

He ducked, his lips against my neck—then teeth, delicately pinching my ivory skin. Taking everything from me that he had wanted to for so long.

He spilled over the edge with a vicious moan, a sound that made me shiver with pleasure.

He rolled onto the ground where the forest had created a carpet of waxy green grass beneath us, seeming to notice this for the first time.

I lay tucked against his bare chest, feeling our hearts hammer out the same feverish rhythm.

We were still lying there, trembling with the sin and the rightness of it, when I heard a faint call on the horizon. Voices. Many of them.

“The Wild Hunt,” I breathed.

Eoin sat up beside me, losing a shaky breath. His wide eyes scanned the treeline that led down the rolling slope toward the village.

“What have I done?” he whispered.

I looked at his face in the moonlight, unable to tell if our sacred act was the abomination, or calling hunters to my home to spill my blood.

The possibility of the former couldn’t sting me now.

In a minute more, neither would matter.

Not bothering to fix the straps of my gown, I stood up. The freshly blossomed grass was waxy and cool beneath my bare feet.

“Come.” I extended a hand to Eoin, hauling him up.

As the glaze of lust in his eyes began to sober with fear, I squeezed his hand, pressing myself against his front.

“The only way out is forward,” I said, my voice calm and quiet, as though the pricks of torchlight appearing between the trees were worlds away.

A tear snaked down my cheek. I caught the droplet in my free hand, curling my fist around it.

I pressed the sparkling gemstone into Eoin’s calloused palm and closed his fingers around it.

“What more have you to lose?” I kissed his knuckles, peering up at him with a smile that offered everything.

There was something broken and vulnerable that latched onto my offer—rewarding my long, suffering patience. Eoin did not shy away from my unblinking gaze. He gazed down at the tear, eyes flickering toward the approaching hunters.

He knew as well as I what they would do to someone who had shared such an act with a creature like me.

He closed his hand around the gem firmly, his rough palm locked against mine with the other. I squeezed his hand, rising on my tiptoes to brush my lips against his.

“You won’t leave me?” His question was a soft breath against my skin.

“Never,” I whispered.

His steps followed in stride with mine, scarcely audible on the forest floor, allowing me to lead him deeper into the forest, where we could at last make an everlasting home together—walking right past the brambles stripped of their deep purple berries, only a few left dangling.

My heart swelled as the trees latticed above us, slowly blotting out the silvery moon overhead. I had always known Eoin was different. He would be far better than the other men before him, wouldn’t be afraid the way they’d been when my gift made him new and incorruptible.

It wouldn’t be long now.

And finally , he would be home with me.