Page 5 of Ghouls and Girth (The Knottiverse: Halloween Monsters #4)

Umar

The little whore traipses toward my den with a friend on either arm as though they might shield her from the horrors within.

They won’t. Nothing will stop me from fucking all her holes before I sink my teeth deep into her flesh. She will belong to me and my brother before the end of the night.

Her golden locks shine in the last rays of sunset, and I grin as I recall the righteous fury pouring off her as she slapped the puny human male.

She was gorgeous. Vicious in true warrior glory. A graveyard gladiator.

“I’m sorry, but we’re closed,” Khalid tells the redhead for a fourth time.

She simpers and twirls a lock of her hair around her finger as she looks up at him through her lashes. My brother ignores her as my graveyard gladiator stops a few paces away.

“Excuse me, is there a restroom we can use before we leave?” she asks.

My hackles rise. A low growl escapes from my chest before I can stop it. Startled honey-colored orbs shift my way as I stalk through the deepening darkness, but she yanks her attention back to Khalid when he runs his fingers through his hair.

Expecting my brother to turn her away, I move behind her, caging her in so she can’t leave, but to my surprise, he nods and gestures for them to follow him.

His warning glance before he turns away does nothing to deter me.

He leads the group of females deeper into our den, stalking down the center of the main chamber in all its splendid glory.

The yellow and orange sunset streams through the glass ceiling and bounces off the stone fronts of the crypts.

Flowers fill each of the vases, lending pops of color to the otherwise monotone view.

The females react in various stages of awe and reverence.

My ghoul looks down from his towering height in edgy, impatient amusement while I quirk a human brow. Their reverence is wasted. No corpses lie in the crypts and no souls linger in the silence.

My graveyard gladiator should worship me instead of throwing so much effort into useless emotions.

“How many people are buried here?” she asks Khalid.

He answers with his typical tour guide response.

“We have seven hundred crypts in this chamber alone. The smaller side chambers have five hundred each. Overall, we have eighty thousand gravesites, including niches, crypts, burial plots, and tombs.”

“Right, but… how many people are actually buried here?”

Khalid’s ghoul whips around and bends down into her face, studying her with such intensity she shrinks back. His human form merely glances over his shoulder as he continues walking.

His answer is pure bullshit, but we’ve perfected our spiel throughout the decades of running Hollywood’s most lucrative cemetery.

The friend on her right tugs her along while the one on her left skips forward to link arms with the disgruntled redhead.

Khalid recalls his ghoul in time for him to duck through the glass doors and glide past the vine-covered wall into the courtyard. The scent of earth and lingering sunshine is no match for the thick, ripe scent of my little whore.

After my brother and I fill her belly with our seed, she’ll be our little ghoulie whore, mindless and begging for us to stuff her full of our cocks.

It must work. She can’t die. I’ll stay in control this time.

She’s ours. Forever.

I’ll make her ours, no matter how dirty I have to play.

Khalid leads the group around the fountain at the center of the courtyard and past the rows of marble statues. The likeness, names, and life and death dates are all true, except the urns locked in the glass cases at the base of each statue are as empty as my soul.

Their corpses once filled my ghoul’s belly, but now they are little more than black sludge in my veins. No trace of their passage remains on the earth. Khalid and I ushered them to Sathanas one by one. They will never return.

We will never leave, and with the tiny female with The Sight linking us together, we will no longer suffer in isolation.

My brother stalks through the columbaria, weaves through the halls, and strides down the center of the cathedral pews to the vestibule. A sharp turn after exiting ends at the largest public restroom in the entire sixty-four acres.

I don’t hide my smirk when he sneers at me.

He thinks leading them to the brightly lit, modern toilets will prevent me from catching my prey.

It won’t. Too much is a stake. He may fight every step of the way, but I won’t give up, even if he gives up on himself. He’ll never have to roam alone again.

Sickeningly sweet, our graveyard gladiator thanks my brother and slips into the women’s restroom without a backward glance at me.

Khalid narrows his eyes on mine and closes the distance between us until the shiny tips of his dress shoes stop half an inch away from the toes of my sneakers.

“You had your fun, now leave,” he snarls.

I quirk a brow and tilt my head.

He deepens his scowl. His eerily white face turns toward the bathroom, more interested in the feminine voices echoing from within than the brother he stood beside for millennia.

I shove his borrowed suit coat and shirt against his chest. His nostrils flare. Pure lust shines from his eyes as our little whore’s scent plumes into his face. He snarls, fists the fabric, and drops it to his side. After several stilted breaths, he runs his hand through his hair and steps back.

“I know I failed, but you had your fun. Do not touch her again. She must—”

“Where is my daughter? Where is Daisy?”

The aging woman clutches her husband’s arm as the vestibule’s door closes behind them. I bite back a snarl even as I relish my little whore’s name. A muscle ticks in Khalid’s jaw.

The glass doors open again and the fucktard strides through. I take sordid satisfaction in the bright red handprint on his face.

“The ladies requested a restroom, so—”

“Is the main entrance on the other side of this wall?” the older man interrupts with a jerk toward the brick wall covered in flowery vines.

“Yes, it is,” Khalid says.

The humans are too stupid to realize how close to death they are. By the tightness in my brother’s eyes and the clipped quality of his speech, I know he’s close to shredding their chests like butter and severing their heads from their bodies.

Ever since we became morticians and found legal ways to acquire dead humans several centuries ago, we haven’t needed to hunt and kill, but some skills never diminish.

Slaying these fools would be as easy as breathing.

“Is there a gate nearby?” the father asks.

“Yes, but it’s locked,” Khalid replies.

“Unlock it. I’ll pull my truck around. You, lead me back to the parking lot,” the overweight asshole demands with a chin tilt toward me.

I grunt and cross my arms over my chest.

“I’ll walk you back. My brother will retrieve the keys from our office,” Khalid growls.

Knowing the assholes won’t move until they believe I’m gone, I give them a disgruntled glance and stalk around the side of the cathedral. After blending into the shadows, I roll my eyes as father and son argue until father hisses under his breath.

If we were humans, my brother and I wouldn’t be able to hear him, but we aren’t. We hear every damning word.

“I’ll make sure you get payback later. For now, come with me and we’ll knock this Goody-Two-shoes down a few pegs.”

Fury sharpens my senses, but the words don’t change my plan. Khalid will have no problem filleting them alive.

My target is Daisy, the ripe little ghoulie whore. She already blossomed under my hands, now I just need to part her petals and fuck inside.

The cathedral door opens and closes as they follow my brother back through the grounds to the parking lot.

Heady anticipation shivers down my spine as Daisy argues with her mother in the bathroom.

Their voices echo off the tiles and float into the brisk autumn night.

Her friends support her. Her mother does not.

Blood means nothing without loyalty and support, and from the picture her family has painted over the last hour or two, she’d be better off without them.

I’ll happily remove them from the equation. Not sure I’d enjoy feasting on the two males, but I’d find perverse pleasure in ushering their souls to Sathanas.

I move to the corner of the building and smirk as the telltale click of boot heels against the polished floor head my way. Lilacs and feminine arousal fill my nostrils. Daisy stomps out of the bathroom and beelines toward the chapel with her head bowed and fists clenched at her sides.

The moment her heel slips out of the light, I snatch her off her feet, clamp a hand over the lower half of her face, and pin her back against my front with ease, my ghoul eager to help.

I open the cathedral door and release it as I pass, letting it swing closed on its own. Without a sound, I slip around the far corner of the building and carry my writhing, luscious prey down the narrow alley between the brick wall and the stained-glass windows of the sanctuary.

Hidden in the vines covering the brick wall lies the nearest entrance to the underground tunnels known only by me and my brother. I slide it open, duck inside, and descend the ladder two rungs at a time.

My captive clings to my arms in the darkness. Terror emanates from her, adding a delicious tang to her unique bouquet. When I reach the floor of the tunnel, she sags. Three steps later, she passes out.

Not from fear. Desperation and fury waft from her despite her dive into unconsciousness.

Ah. My fault. I flex my grip on her face, marveling at our size difference before slipping my hand down to her throat. She sucks down a noisy breath before coughing and resuming her attempts to free herself. As her panic resurfaces, her sluggish movements become more coordinated.

Her ass pillows around my cock. I press harder against her stomach and hips, grinding her against me with every step, but snarl a warning when my ghoul reaches for the juncture of her thighs.