Page 67 of Fallen: Darkness Ascending, Vol.1

EDDIE

I am pleasantly surprised and exceptionally intrigued when she doesn’t scream—only little broken gasps break free.

The kind that flutter out when all of the air’s been knocked from your lungs and you’re teetering on the edge of panic and collapse.

It’s sensational music to my ears. Even better than music.

It fuels me. She fuels me. The slight tremble in her thighs where the soup blistered her porcelain skin.

The way her body shudders beneath my hand… I drink down each wince of her pain.

God, I live for this.

Her kitchen reeks of burnt garlic and broth, but all of my attention is on the heat of her body against me. She is mine to devour. The fragile neck pulsing rapidly under the edge of my blade. Her pulse— my pulse now—racing with a rhythm I want etched into my skull forever.

“You feel that?” I whisper mockingly in her ear, memorizing how her tears trace down her cheeks, tiny, symbolic lifelines. The dampness of them soaks into my skin, warm, salty proof of her unraveling. It makes me insatiable.

“That’s fear, little rabbit, and it’s delicious.”

Her body goes stiff under my words. I gulp it down, every satisfying second of her paralysis. I could end it now. It would be easy. Fast and abrupt, identical to the others, but I can’t bring myself to end our passionate game before it has reached the precipice.

It’s her. There’s a stillness in her, and I can feel it beneath the fear.

I notice an odd sense of purity to her pain, untouched by the usual filth I scrape off the streets.

A heightened moment of clarity chipping away at the chaos I’ve been swimming in all night.

She is a rare moth pinned down in a frame.

A fragile beauty, quivering, yet unbroken.

She hasn’t begun to beg yet, or babble out an ancient prayer for the divine to come and save her.

She’s terrified, not shattered, and that infuriates me.

At this point, they’re usually wailing in desperation, collapsing into a slurring pile of snot and hysteria.

Lies fall from their mouths as they bargain for me to spare their pathetic lives.

Disease-carrying filth don’t deserve mercy.

And then it hits me. Someone had tried to break her, but they failed to shatter her.

I quietly chuckle to myself. She is not broken, yet.

I grant myself the privilege of truly looking at her.

Haunting amber eyes pierce back at me, revealing a tiny spark still holding on, helplessly clinging to the notion this evening might turn in her favor.

The spark in me reignites the ravenous hunger I thought I had drowned hours ago.

The same wild, rabid appetite that sent me sprinting from the alley with blood in my teeth and laughter in my chest.

She’s more than prey to me, she’s a challenge, and fuck me if that doesn’t make her even more beautiful. And I’ve never backed down from a challenge worth bleeding for.