Page 61 of Lustling

“Too much?” she asks, hands trailing down her hips.

I want to break noses. My claws itch in my fingers. A low growl rattles my ribs before I can stop it. My golden eyes sweep the store, counting the men who dare glance. I want to gouge them out one by one. Feed them their tongues. Mark the lot of them so they remember what hunger looks like.

She’s mine. She doesn’t know it yet, but she will.

“Change.” My voice comes out rougher than I mean it, closer to a warning than a request.

She pouts, shifting her weight on one hip. “But I thought you liked red.”

I do. I fucking do. But not wrapped around her like a ribbon, not when it invites every mortal bastard here to imagine she’s theirs to unwrap. She knows exactly what she’s doing.

Next it’s lingerie. Black lace that clings to her the way sin clings to a wanted woman's skin. She steps out in strappy, sheer things that leave little to the imagination and everything to question. She walks slow, deliberate, fingers exploring the lines of her body.

“So?” she asks, spinning. “What do you think?”

The scent of her arousal hits me and it is like throwing oil on a fire. Power hums along her skin, a thin ripple of heat that crawls up and down my spine. She’s glowing with hunger. Lights overhead blink. One of the clerks glances nervously our way, the poor bastard sensing we are a storm.

She’s focused on me. She’s feeding from attention and she’s using me for it. It lights her up and ruins me.

“Lillien,” I growl, voice low like gravel.

She smiles a smile that could be a knife. “Yes?”

I step closer, close enough that my breath fans the hollow of her throat. My hand tightens the straps of the bags. “If you don’t stop teasing me, I’ll rip that off you right here, in front of everyone.”

Her breath catches in a small, wicked hitch. For a second I expect her to push harder. Instead she brushes her fingers along the front of my shirt, a touch so small and so precise it feels like a dare. “What’s stopping you?” she whispers, mischief dripping off every word.

My restraint is a miracle of will. I grip her wrist, stilling the hand, feeling the warmth under her skin like a hot brand. “Careful, Hellcat,” I say, but the warning tastes weak in my mouth when the rest of me is on fire.

She smirks and surrenders to practicality. “Fine, fine. I’ll buy it and save it for later.” She turns and disappears back into the dressing room, leaving me with the weight of the bags and the echo of her small, perfect smile.

I step out into the air to clear my head, the automatic doors whispering closed behind me. I dig my phone from my pocket and call Cassiel, because sometimes even a furnace needs a vent.

He answers on the third ring. “Bastion,” he says, voice guarded like a blade sheathed. “How is Lillien?”

“She’s fine,” I say. “But she’s not settled.” I keep my eyes on the street, scanning, always watching. “Deimos find anything yet?”

“We’re getting close,” Cassiel says. The word is clipped, heavy with the kind of hope that is usually flanked by dread.

“She’s slipping into her power fast.” My hands ache with the fictional toll of her teasing. “Her hunger’s getting stronger. She’s teasing, pushing—feeding already without even trying.”

Cassiel’s answer is a soft, resigned murmur. “She’s a succubus. It’s what they do.”

“She’sours,” I snap, the word more command than statement. “She needsall of us.”

“I know,” Cassiel says. He does not make promises he cannot keep. The silence between us is the kind that maps the places we cannot speak.

I hang up before goodbye because there is no small talk in the middle of this. The phone slides into my pocket. I take a breath and the air tastes of ozone and something worse.

When I go back inside she is at the counter, signing the receipt, paying for her purchases with a wrist flick that betrays nothing. She meets my eyes with a smirk that is pure provocation, a little flare tucked behind a softer look. She knows I am wound tight. She likes it. God help me.

We are wrapping the trip up when her phone buzzes in her hand. She looks at the screen, and the smirk drops away as if someone has cut a thread.

“Lillien?” I ask, watching her closely.

She stares at the phone. It keeps ringing until she silences it. “My mother,” she says quietly. “She calls every week.”

The way she says it is small and perfect and full of a weight I cannot lighten. I see it in the way her shoulders tense, in the forced mask she pulls across her face. She’s water and smoke,trying to hold form. I have watched her grow into something hard and hungry, but this is a place that still leaves her exposed.