Page 15 of Peacock Me Like a Hurricane (Rise of the Resistance #2)

I can feel it burning inside of me all the time now.

In theory, it's a cosmic irony that with great powers come great drawbacks. The inability to control her seemed like enough balance for the universe, but I was wrong. The more I let her out, the worse this feeling gets. The drive, the need, the hunger— it can’t be fueled only by needing energy to support the various powers within me.

Laugh it up. It’s a big, old joke on Deli.

That reaction is why I haven’t told anyone about my suspicions. As if I don’t have enough on my plate, there’s a fierce, unrelenting hunger to mate. Satisfying it is the only way to get the fire inside of me to subside, so that I’m capable of rational thought.

Until I find that release, there’s a gnawing at my bones that thrums in my veins in a heavy staccato rhythm: hunger. I need, she needs, we need . It’s only want, take, have.

All the time. Everywhere.

The smells—with my enhanced sniffer, they make me crazy. Everything smells delicious or disgusting in equal turns.

It’s like demonic possession.

The urge to mate in the most primal sense swamps my brain when it rolls through me. Given her proclivities, the ceremonial one has become necessary as well. The need to tear in and drink deep—to mark as mine—feeds off the need to screw until my brains spill out my ears. I can barely control her to start with. Once this has me, it’s like a haze settles over my vision and everything shuts down. I have zero higher-level functions.

All I can see or feel is her hunger for possession.

Afterward, I can barely form words properly. Desire slaked, passion spent, and she’s still growling. My eyes dart around the room, ready to spring if danger should arise. I come back to my senses in time, but it’s slow—little by little, I trickle into consciousness.

When it happened the first time in January, I freaked out. The complete inability to control myself terrified me. I mean, what if I started jumping random people on the street? It took me a few days to figure out I could get a grip on the waves of lust enough to choose my partner. Sari has talked about losing herself when the coyote takes over, but I chalked that up to her making excuses for the damage she does when she lets loose. I couldn’t imagine not being able to get a grip on your faculties.

I can now.

That doesn’t mean I believe her. I still think her babble is an excuse. She’s never described her coyote having mental autonomy like my beast has, nor has she mentioned having lava in her veins until she fucks the living shit out of someone.

For the first few weeks, I only pounced on those she was interested in. That made for some tricky explanations to folks she didn’t fancy. It caused issues that I couldn’t fix, like with Mercury. I can’t explain why she prefers one person to another. Her reasons typically have to do with something hedonistic. Fortunately, after the Mercury mess, she limited her choices back to people I could drink from.

When the beast first started manifesting, there was rarely a struggle for dominance inside. I thought I had her under control when all the stuff got kinky with Alistair and she chose his demon to be her consort. That didn’t last long, though, as my primal side wanted an equal, not a submissive. Not long after that, she stopped getting sex that tooted her horn because the problems with Wilde began.

That’s when I decided to seek out Taurus for answers. I had to get rid of this shit so my life could go back to normal. I mean, as normal as polyamorous, clone loving hedonists can be, but we all have our niches.

Taurus taking me to hunt helped. It slaked some of my desires and helped replenish energy. That wasn’t enough, though, because the fire still burned in my veins. My sex life turned into torture sessions, and I couldn’t allow Her to do what needed to be done to quench the hunger.

When she lost Alistair, she started hungering for a taste of what was not hers. It freaked me out for so many reasons. She had not been not interested in people that weren’t ours after Mercury. Suddenly, she was demanding someone we definitely couldn’t have. What she wanted was a can of worms that was not getting opened. My fear of accidentally stepping over the line of no return with Taurus was excruciating.

I’m one lucky feline that Taurus and I mated before she accidentally ruined everything. She wanted him like he was oxygen and She couldn’t breathe. His demon called to her; she needed him. Now, he’s the one thing keeping that lava in my body at bay. I slake the burning fog of desire when we’re together as she drinks.

She has what she wants now, but it’s still not enough. We’re pushing ourselves to the limits every day and something unbelievably bad is going to happen.

I don’t even want to contemplate the repercussions of that screw up.

After dropping the samples to Diz, I decided that research might hold the key to confirming my suspicions once and for all. I’m currently buried under a pile of books that would make a PhD candidate cry. Unfortunately, the ones for my DNA research say nothing about sudden bouts of insane, lusty cat woman rampages. Tapping the pen on my teeth, I close my eyes, sighing deeply.

I don’t want to admit it, but the niggling thought at the edge of my consciousness might be right. It’s humiliating, and I’m never going to live this down if I’m correct. Standing quickly, I untangle myself from my pile of materials. I scamper over to get my laptop, a sense of dread filling me. Bringing it back to the bed, I hit a search engine. It’s not long before I’m gaping at the screen, blinking like a wall-eyed trout.

Son of a bloody bitch.

It’s spring and my goddamned beast is in frigging heat. Stifling the self-pitying laughs that are threatening to break free, I close my eyes.

Fuck. Me. Raw.

Literally.

If there ever were a person that did not need help being a lusty bitch, it’s me. This explains a hell of a lot, including the insane lust fog. It also raises a fuck ton of questions. If the beast is in heat, how long does it last? Weeks? Months? What stops this madness?

I skim down the page, hunting for the answer.

Fuck! Six to eight weeks?! Are they kidding me with this?

Why in the hell am I in heat, anyway? The primary purpose of that is procreation, which isn’t possible with clones. Everyone knows they shoot blanks. One of the best things about mates in the Rift is that none of the dudes can knock you up, so every shitty form of birth control is unnecessary.

Blanching, I suck in a breath. Am I stuck like this until I get…? If I can’t, am I stuck forever?

Motherfucker.

They might have to lock me in a padded room. This gets worse every day. Each time I indulge, I’m more out of control. Thank the Goddess clones are so resilient and my healing is so prolific because I tear us both ragged.

Flipping through the related links, I’m fascinated, especially because of the comment Diz made about feline DNA. There’s obviously a connection. I’d love to ask him, but I know it hasn’t been enough time for him to have anything conclusive to offer me.

I growl in impatience, noting how familiar—and embarrassing—the details are. My nose wrinkles as I consider the possibility that Diz might not help with this aspect of things. I guess I gotta find a vet? Worse comes to worst, I suppose I could let the eggheads at the Company take a gander at me. They’ve probably been dying to get their grubby hands on me.

Ugh, no. I’m no one’s lab rat.

Not that I don’t trust Taurus to keep them in line, because I do. It’s the thought of someone using me as their personal lab experiment gives me an Aldous Huxley style wiggins. But I may not have another choice. I can’t go on ripping everyone to shreds forever.

Something has to give.

If only that damned phone would ring.