Page 39 of Lustling

His arousal. Faint but unmistakable. The scent hits the back of my throat like smoke—thick, bitter, male. Something deep inside me responds. Not my heart. Not my mind. The hunger. It rises low and vicious, dragging claws through my ribs. My mouth waters.

“But nooo, little virgin wants to wait for marriage,” Shawn mocks, pitching his voice high. Laughter ripples through the group. Then his tone darkens. “Bet she’s not a virgin anymore, though. I saw the way those guys were looking at her at the bonfire.”

Something inside me snaps.

A sharp, visceral heat floods my veins, burning away the cold, the shame, the last remnants of hesitation. My fingers curl tighter, and for the first time, I feel something sharp. I glance down. My nails aren’t normal anymore. They’re longer. Blacker.Sharpened into delicate, inhuman claws. They shimmer faintly in the moonlight, then shift back before my eyes—one blink, and they’re gone.

My tongue drags across my teeth. They feel… different. Sharper.

I should be afraid. Horrified. Instead, a slow, twisted thrill rolls through me, curling low in my belly, hot and heady. Power. That’s what it feels like. Power, uncoiling in my chest like a serpent waking from sleep.

Shawn wants to talk about me like I’m some prize? Like I’m a game?

Fine.

Let’s fucking play.

By the time I make it back to my dorm, my entire body thrums with something volatile—rage, power, hunger. It coils through my muscles, slinking beneath my skin, like heat, like a creature I don’t know how to name.

The door clicks shut behind me, and I pause for only a second, long enough to register that Penny’s gone. Good. I’m not in the mood for soft voices or worried eyes. Not in the mood to be told I should calm down.

I strip quickly, tearing off the stolen hoodie and shorts, letting them fall where they land. I don’t even bother with the laundry basket. Nothing matters except the way I feel. And the need to shed it all—everything I was before.

The water in the shower scalds when it hits my skin. I lean into it anyway, letting the heat strip me bare. Steam fills the room in thick curls, fogging the mirror, wrapping around me.But this isn’t absolution. It’s not purification. It doesn’t feel holy. It feels primal.

I close my eyes and tip my head back. Let the water slide over my face, my neck, my shoulders. It should feel like a cleansing. It should feel like penance.

But it doesn’t.

Instead, I imagine it red. Not metaphorically—viscerally. I imagine blood instead of water. I imagine it thick and warm and dripping, and the thought doesn’t repulse me. It soothes. As if my skin is remembering something my soul won’t say aloud.

I should feel guilt. I should feel shame for the hunger I felt when I heard them. For the way my body responded to the scent of arousal like it was cologne. For the way I fantasized about sinking my teeth into Shawn’s throat and drinking down his moans like wine.

But I don’t feel shame. I feel powerful.

I open my eyes and the girl I see in the mirror isn’t the same one who came here. She’s taller somehow—more certain. Her eyes gleam darker, deeper, like pools of something too old to be water. Her lips are plush, bitten, the color of ripe fruit. Her skin—dewy, golden, radiant with something that feels less like health and more like hunger sated.

My breath catches, chest rising as I lean closer. And then, as if summoned by the truth I’m only just beginning to admit, I see them.

Horns.

Black. Smooth. Beautiful.

They curl elegantly from my skull, arching back like polished obsidian. I should scream. I should weep. I should fall to my knees and pray.

But I don’t. Instead—I reach up and I touch them. They’re real. Solid beneath my fingertips. A crown of my own making.

Mine.

A low hum pulses through me. Not fear. Not horror.

Recognition.

She stares back at me from the glass, this stranger in my skin. But I know her. I’ve always known her. She’s the whisper that lived in the back of my mind when I was told to smile. The heat that flushed through me when I was told to stay pure. The howl behind every prayer that ended in silence.

She isn’t a tease. She’s temptation incarnate. And tonight, I’m done playing games.

I towel off with slow, deliberate movements, every inch of my body humming with purpose. My closet is a graveyard of good-girl clothes, but I find what I’m looking for—something I bought once and never had the courage to wear.