Page 2 of Ghouls and Girth (The Knottiverse: Halloween Monsters #4)

Khalid

The curvy blonde locks eyes with my ghoul form, and for a terrible moment, I can’t force myself to look away. Hunger rips through me.

Not my ghoul’s constant yearning for dead human flesh, but something much more visceral and primal.

He doesn’t want to feed. He wants to fuck.

So does my human disguise.

My cock hardens in my trousers and tents my robes.

Fuck. She has The Sight.

A low growl rumbles from beside me. My brother steps forward. I bar him with my human arm and dig my talons into his ghoul’s concave stomach.

“Mine,” he snarls.

I yank my gaze away from the gorgeous blonde’s wide-eyed stare and study my brother’s face.

Terror sweeps down my spine. His human eyes gleam with icy demand while his ghoul orbs shine with bottomless hunger. The feral glint in both sets edges me toward my own mania.

He will never return if he spirals again.

“No,” I growl.

He bares his teeth and snarls.

I grab his wrist. The watch on his human arm covers the oozing wound on his ghoul form.

Our original curse.

Caused by his gluttony. Cast by the witch he killed in his mania.

Doomed to roam the earth forever. Never satisfied. Always hungry. Tied to The Keeper of Halloween, Sathanas, and his insatiable need for power. Ferrying souls to his kingdom in The Knottiverse as we dine on their corpses.

I squeeze my brother’s wrist. Black sludge bursts from his bubbled white flesh and agony twists his accursed features. Pain pulses through my arm from my linked curse mark.

“No, Umar. She is not yours,” I growl.

He scowls. Cocks his head. Quirks a brow.

“Ours,” he demands.

I twist his wrist. Inky goop drips onto the mausoleum’s threshold.

“No. I will send her away,” I say.

Fury blows his ghoul’s pupils and flushes his human face. I lift a long, razor-sharp talon to my throat.

I would rather lose my human form and wander as a mindless ghoul for eternity than watch him descend into madness again.

“Choose, brother. Me or a female who will die.”

It isn’t a choice, not really, but he is the only one who can decide.

His pupils shrink, leaving pinpricks of black in his eerily white visage. Centuries of misery shimmer in his dark brown irises as his human face pales.

Although a dozen instances seem scant against the millennia since the witch cast her curse, each time my brother loses himself to his ghoul, he returns more feral.

The last time was six hundred years ago when we found a rare fully grown human female with The Sight.

She died with his teeth in her throat. Although he regained consciousness, his ability to speak never returned.

He will not recover from another bout into mania.

I would rather die than roam alone again.

He closes his eyes and takes a long, deep inhale before cupping my cursed wrist as his answer. I nod my understanding and slip my hand over his nape, smearing black sludge over his white robes. He leans forward. I press my forehead to his in silent support.

Less than three seconds later, we pull apart and head in separate directions; my brother toward the yoga class surrounding the viewing pool and me toward the parking lot.

A breeze ruffles my hair. The most delicious scent fills my nostrils.

Her scent. Like lilacs and raw sex, her natural perfume punches through me so hard I stumble.

My brother’s low moan rumbles through me. I lift my head and suck down an addictive lungful as the female bounces toward her friends.

Her tits and ass jiggle in a mouthwatering display as her tight shirt and even tighter jean shorts struggle to contain her curves. She’s the perfect ratios of tits, ass, and legs.

A lifted truck with ugly-ass wheels drowns out the clicking of her bootheels against the pavers. My brother’s hungry visage reflects off the gleaming red metal as he stands frozen mid-step, torn between joining the yoga class or following the heady scent of ripe female.

Umar turns on silent sneakers and stalks back into the mausoleum.

I uncurl my fists and force my hands to hang loose at my sides as I step forward.

The blonde hugs her friends and gives the truck a scathing glance.

I step off the curb and dip my fingertips into the fountain as I pass, using the cool water to ground me in the present.

No longer are my brother and I forced to lurk in the shadows.

We have found a balance that allows us to blend into society.

The truck swings into the corner of the lot, taking up three parking spaces. A muscular male about the age of the blonde emerges from the backseat. I hate him on sight, but his mannerisms seal the deal.

“What the hell, Daisy? You scared the shit out of us,” the egotistical jerk says as he stomps toward the blonde.

She evades his reach by twisting around her brunette companion and leaning into the backseat to tug another woman out of the vehicle.

I step onto the sidewalk, but the meathead is too focused on the blonde to notice me. He also misses the stiffening of her friends’ shoulders as I draw near. The truck doors open and close as I angle my shadow to fall over the man-child.

Whether he is her lover or not is inconsequential since she cannot be mine, but my ghoul snarls as the scent of her flesh wafts from his hand.

Footsteps scuff closer as the couple who exited the truck cross the parking lot.

The boy finally wises up and stiffens. I enjoy the widening of his eyes as he turns and takes in my size.

Even without my extra bulk, I could destroy him in the blink of an eye.

Living flesh does not appeal to my ghoul, but savage delight pulses down his spine at the thought of tearing this lowlife to pieces and consuming him bite by bite as the light fades from his eyes.

The blonde—Daisy he called her—pivots as she settles the friend she just pulled from the backseat of the car against her side.

My cock jerks inside the confines of my trousers as she sucks in a startled breath. Her breasts threaten to spill from her top at the movement. I clear my throat and clasp my cursed wrist at the small of my back, using the pain to keep my ghoul in check. My suit coat strains at the shoulder seams.

“Pardon the interruption,” I say. “I apologize, but we’re closing soon,” I lie.

A few seconds pass as the group studies me, the females in starstruck awe over my build while the males blanch in instinctual fear.

Both men show their stupidity when disgust enters their eyes as they notice my attire and label me as a pansy.

The older lady shifts behind her husband as though expecting him to protect her, and the redhead thrusts her breasts toward me in blatant offering while the two brunettes look ready to swoon from fear.

But not the curvy little blonde. Acute disappointment outshines the wariness in her rich brown eyes. Whereas my brother and I have irises so dark they appear black instead of brown, hers glow like pale gold in the afternoon sunlight.

Uncertainty and lust waft from her.

The delicate column of her throat shifts as she swallows. My loins tighten.

A masculine scoff sounds from the overgrown boy.

“See, I told you coming here was a waste of time.” He turns his back on me and reaches for the blonde despite the disgust twisting her face when she looks away from me to glare at him.

“Let’s go, Daisy.” She steps back. He grabs her shoulder anyway.

“Pops found a real good haunted house less than thirty minutes from here. We can get there before—”

She leans so his shoulder no longer blocks her view of me and pierces me with light brown irises.

“I booked a tour.”

Her feminine voice washes over my senses. Yearning fills my soul. I squash it and return her gaze.

Warmth flows through me. From afar, she’s sin incarnate. Up close, she’s ethereal.

I twist my hand around my wrist behind my back until agony streaks up my arm and sludge coats my gnarled digits.

“Unfortunately, we’ll have to reschedule,” I manage in a passably courteous tone despite the lust, fury, and pain roaring through me.

Desperation fills her honeyed orbs and tugs at heartstrings I thought dead millennia ago. She swallows, looks away, and pushes the male’s hand off her before shifting her attention to the reflection pool.

Her eyes widen and a blush deepens her rosy cheeks. I don’t need the sun’s reflection in her gorgeous light brown eyes to show me my brother’s massive frame in a low lunge pose to know where she’s looking. Her reaction says it all.

The scent of her arousal tests my control. Saliva floods my mouth and magma pulses in my balls, but I dig my talons into my blisters so hard my vision flashes white before the world settles around me again.

She clears her throat and averts her eyes from my brother, and for a few moments, she looks around the cemetery with longing.

I don’t understand the yearning in her gaze until she sneaks a glance at my ghoul through her lashes and studies the shadowed ground around the mausoleum.

“Are you the owner?” she asks.

Her discreet prodding should fill me with disdain, but my ghoul preens and leans closer, ready to fuck and devour every inch of her.

The brunette tucked against her side elbows her.

“Don’t pry, Daisy. Let’s just go,” she whispers.

Daisy gives her a squeeze and lifts her chin toward me.

“It’s okay, Gabby. This place is exactly what we were looking for. We’re safe here,” the blonde beauty declares without an ounce of doubt.

She’s a queen. Women with her curves and poise have ruled kingdoms, commanded thousands of troops, and conquered the hearts of entire nations, but none have done so while facing off with a lust-crazed ghoul.

I quirk a brow and refrain from scowling until the overgrown man-child scoffs. She gives him a withering glare before spotlighting me with her gorgeous brown eyes.

“If you aren’t the owner, then you must be a co-owner, and the man on the orange yoga mat is your partner,” she decides.

I grind my teeth and swallow the excess saliva flooding my mouth.

She sees too much but keeps her knowledge of what we are to herself, proving her sharp insight and quick wit.

A female with The Sight wouldn’t have survived into adulthood if she wasn’t smart, but watching the calculation in her eyes makes my hard cock throb with the need to tame her.

“Daisy, stop pestering the man and get in the truck,” the flabby male past his prime demands.

My female shrinks in instinctual fear as horrible memories lurk in her eyes. Possessive fury swells through me and every muscle in my body primes for violence, but I mentally snarl at myself. She is not mine. She cannot be mine.

My brother comes first. Always.

She straightens her spine and ignores the male.

“May we stay for yoga?” she asks.

Fuck. The desperation hidden within her polite request nearly drops me to my knees.

For the first time in ages, I waver. My mouth speaks before I can control it.

“Do you have a mat?” I ask.

She chews the inside of her lip. I bite back a growl.

The curvy country queen would look amazing with her lip trapped between my brother’s teeth as I take her from behind.

Thoughts of Umar smack me into the present.

She cannot join the yoga class. She must leave.

Now. I open my mouth to correct the situation, but she shoves her hand into her pocket, shifting the waistband of her jean shorts dangerously low on her hip.

Her belt buckle digs into the softness of her belly.

“I can buy a mat for anyone who wants to join, if you have them for sale,” she insists.

Fucking hell on earth, her exposed midriff fills my mind with lewd thoughts. I want to flex my fingers into her hips and bury my face in the soft roundness of her stomach while my brother exposes more of her smooth flesh.

“Are you tryin’ to embarrass us? You ain’t done yoga a day in your life. Let’s go.”

When the younger male hooks his arm around her waist and yanks her away from her friend, a red haze falls over my vision.

I stop myself from gouging out his entrails at the last second and instead grab the front of his shirt, yank him away from my female, and shove him so hard he pinwheels and lands flat on his back on the pavement.

Leaving the idiot starfished on the ground and fighting for breath, I angle my body toward the blonde and gesture toward the gift shop with a slight bow.

“We have over eight colors to choose from,” I say.

The guttural rumble in my voice barely hides the low growl my ghoul demands I release.

He isn’t satisfied with a mere shove of the puny human, but knowing our female plans to stay eases his angst.

Not ours.

She must leave. I can’t believe I let the situation get so out of hand. My alpha instincts have never dictated my human form for anything but feeding before.

I failed my brother. I vowed to make her leave but instead follow her and her friends—sans the older couple and the humiliated man-child—toward the gift shop.

When I realize I can’t peel my stare from the delicious sway of her ass, I burst another wrist boil with my talon and lengthen my stride, pinching my cock with my trouser seams. The pain sharpens my mind as the breeze clears my nostrils of her pheromones.

I’ll ensure she places her mat as far away from my brother as possible, then usher her and her friends off the premises as soon as the class is over.

I must. Umar’s sanity relies on me. My life is at stake. We’d never survive rutting, marking, and losing another female.

We have too much to lose to claim the curvy little country bumpkin.

No matter how tempting she may be.