Page 16 of Feeding Beauty (The Lost Girls #5)

"Service me," I instruct Tan Fuckboy.

He obeys, falling to his knees and dragging my panties down. His hand moves on its own, drawn by the heat between my thighs. He slides one thick finger along my slit. His finger sinks in, slow, deep. The pad of it presses against my walls like a promise.

“More,” I bark.

Without another word of command, the redhead unzips his jeans and pulls himself free, already hard.

He begins to pump furiously. Then he joins Tan Fuckboy on the ground.

He pushes a finger up into me too. I gasp and claw at their heads as their digits pump in arrhythmic tandem, my arousal coating their hands.

Their mouths join, as they lick frenetically at their fingers, hands, and my cunt, though it’s a crowded mess.

Still, I can’t slow them down to sort out the choreography.

Every cell inside me screams for more. Begs me to sip.

To drink. To gorge myself on their sexual pulsating life force.

A half-whimper, half-desperate moan slips from me. It’s too much. Not enough.

It feels like it’s been forever.

My power coils, ready to pull. Just a sip. Just a taste...

Heat slams into my back as someone grabs me by the hips.

“Step away from her,” Talon snarls over my shoulder at the men.

The hands fall away. Tan Fuckboy stumbles, blinking slowly, prey confused by its own survival.

The other freezes, caught mid-breath. None of them realize Talon isn’t just being territorial. He’s saving them.

Talon yanks me back with a snarl. The emptiness inside me grasps for them. For the hands. The mouths. The life I could’ve fed from.

"Now," Talon growls, voice low and dangerous.

Whatever they see on his face sends them scattering. Shoes slap the pavement as they hustle up the alley, vanishing into the night.

I’m panting. My underwear is around my ankles as I trip but Talon doesn’t let me fall. His grip burns through my corset, but I can’t tell if it’s from his heat or mine. I break free from him to pull up my panties, then turn to face him.

His eyes sweep my face once. “We need to go. Now.”

Guilt and shame wash over me, but my pride rears up ready to protect me from both even as I follow him into Poison Apple.

Talon steers me along the hallway, past the bathrooms, away from the crush of sound and scent and temptation. He pushes open the breakroom door and scans it. Empty.

The fluorescent light flickers above the row of bubblegum-pink lockers. It smells like dust and Ariel’s lavender hand sanitizer.

He closes the door behind us and finally turns.

“You were about to feed,” he growls, eyes flashing dark and furious. “On some strangers?”

My brows knit. “Wait. Are you upset you didn’t get to pick the Johns out for me?”

Annoyance and what looks an awful lot like jealousy darken his face. “I’m upset you are losing control.”

“I’m fine.” I cross my arms. “I was just teaching those douchebags a lesson.” That sounds lame even to my own ears.

“You’re not fine,” he growls. “You’re starving, Aura. I can feel it coming off you in waves.”

Talon doesn’t wait for my answer. “You have to feed. We have to go home. We tried it your way. We tried to make this life work, but you were wrong, Aura. You can’t outrun this. You can’t fight it.”

I flinch like he’s slapped me.

“I’m not hungry,” I snap, even though I’m shaking. Even though my thighs are clenched tight and my nails dig half-moons into my palms. “It’s not that bad.”

He doesn’t move. Doesn’t blink. Just watches me with those inky, molten eyes that see through every lie I’ve ever told myself.

“I can see it, Aura,” he says, each word a hammer. “It’s pouring off you, heat shimmering on pavement. You’re lit up, Aura. Your power’s broadcasting to everyone who breathes you in, and you don’t know how to dim it. Because you can’t. It’s the curse.”

My heart slams against my ribs.

He steps a little closer, still not touching me. “I see it in the way your skin glows, lightning caged beneath it. I see it in your eyes when you look at everyone as though they’re a meal.”

He steps closer.

“And I see what it’s doing to you. How it hurts. How you’re trying to stand upright while your own body is screaming.”

His words fray, going rough around the edges. “It’s killing me to watch you like this. Do you get that? Every time you wince, every time I see that hunger clawing under your skin, and you pretend it’s not there…it's tearing me apart.”

I can’t breathe.

Because it’s not just the heat or the pressure or the ache. It’s him . It’s always been him.

We’re too linked. Too wound together in a way I don’t fully understand. He feels me when I unravel. I feel him every time I try to rethread myself. We don’t have a bond. We are the bond.

And still, I can’t touch him.

Still, I can’t have him.

The unfairness of it punches through me like fire through glass, white-hot and blinding.

“Then don’t watch,” I snap. “Go work the front door. Go do whatever broody solitary thing it is you do. But I’m not going home.”

“Aura—”

“No!” I whirl on him. “You don’t get to make this choice for me. I finally have a life. I have friends. I like who I am here. I choose this.”

His jaw tightens, nostrils flaring. “You can’t pretend anymore that you aren’t cursed.”

“It’s not my curse.” Only when the words reverberate off the lockers do I realize I yelled them.

Still, it doesn’t stop the anger from pouring out.

“It’s my father’s. He was the one who broke it off with a Midnight Fae princess and married my mother.

Why should I be the one to pay the price?

I don’t deserve this. I didn’t ask to be born.

I didn’t do anything. I was just a baby when she cursed me. ”

Chest heaving, eyes stinging with unshed tears, and the hunger still burrowing through me with relentless need, I register my own words.

I’ve never openly blamed my parents until now.

It feels like a betrayal. They love me and work so hard to take care of me, but finally tapping fully into the anger and blame feels good, freeing.

But it doesn’t change a fae fucking thing.

If Talon is surprised by my outburst, he doesn’t show it. “You don’t deserve it,” he agrees. Behind his words is the same tidal wave of injustice I feel about the situation, but it comes out so even, so controlled. “But it doesn’t change the fact you’re hurting.”

“I’m surviving,” I yell back, needing to drown out his logic. I can’t be composed anymore, not when I’ve finally cracked inside. “And that matters more than whatever version of myself you want to keep me locked inside.”

He doesn’t move. Doesn’t stop me when I storm past him, my boots loud against the tile as I shove the locker room door open and disappear into the thump of the club beyond.

I know he’s probably right.

But going back to who I was? I can’t do it.

I won’t do it.