Page 68 of Malicent (Seven Devils #1)

The Hungering One

FINALLY, SHE IS WORN DOWN.

My teeth chitter. A wet, bubbling laugh escapes me as I peer from behind a boulder. Her slumped form on the floor. Still alive…barely viable yet brimming with power.

Our favorite.

She is perfect, the most perfect. I giggle, her voice merging with mine until they’re one.

Delicious little sleep, delicious to eat, delicious for thee! Oh, a sweet treat!

I crawl from my corner, moving fast. The hunger gnaws inside me. I can feel the insatiable drive to feed.

First, we eats its flesh, then sucks on its bones. Then, then, then! We takes it! We takes…takes it all!

“Yes! Yes! Very nutritious.” My teeth loosen and spill from my gums, pushed out by the long fangs that erupt in their place. I pounce—

Only for her to whip around and seize my throat.

I snarl, shifting my body, bones snapping as I attempt to change, to become something capable of ripping her apart.

“Someone’s hungry,” she says. That voice. No, that voice is not hers. No, no, this one’s far too deep. Her eyes are no longer blue. They’re infinite voids that pierce into me.

Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. I hiss, clawing at her, and recoil at her insulting presence.

“I am starving,” she groans.

No. She is mine. This one is MINE! The voice inside me shrieks, withdrawing from her, desperate to escape. Wings burst from my back as the thing within tries to remake me.

Millicent cocks her head. “Naughty,” she hums. “I almost want to let you run, so I can hunt you.”

Then her hand punctures through. She grips my esophagus and rips it from me.

My body convulses from the violent assault, but the power thrumming in me refuses to let me die, forcing me to witness it all. I swipe, trying to gut her, but miss when she leans back and laughs at my failure.

She tosses the trail of tissue aside and drops me only to plunge her arm back in and tear out my upper spine.

The entity shrieks.

MINE! The screaming rips through my throat, so strong it projects without sound.

Her hand crashes into my chest, and my heart is torn free.

“You dare challenge me?” She sneers. “What unintelligent parasite drives a host to such arrogance?”

She nudges my body with her foot and devours my heart.

“ Not good, not good, ” it hisses, before fleeing, leaving only nothingness as everything goes to black.