Page 14

Chapter

Fourteen

Syros

“ W hat is that?” I growl, the noise vibrating down to my bones. “You call this music?”

It’s biting, offensive, and hardly appealing. If this is what humans call music, they can keep the atrocity to themselves.

Erin seems unbothered, and continues fiddling with the buttons, the wailing shifting and changing as though she’s attacking it into submission.

“Make it stop,” I demand, pushing my palms harder against my ear holes to alleviate the assault on them. “This is offensive.”

She doesn’t obey—such a stubborn thing—but she adjusts a few knobs. Finally, the wailing stops and a faint, delicate noise floats into the air. Afraid it’ll revert back to the demonic mating call from moments ago, I slowly lower my hands and focus on the noise.

It’s unlike anything I’ve ever heard, some kind of slow siren call that fluctuates from low to very high, and she turns it up a little louder.

The tension in my chest releases the longer I listen.

“See? Music,” she says, pointing to the machine like she’s proud of herself.

I can’t deny that I’m a little proud of her, too. Who knew the radio would function after coming through the portal? There must be something powerful that ties it to Earth, regardless of being in a different realm.

Just one more thing I don’t understand.

“You really don’t have music here?” she asks, her eyes softening. “Nothing like this? I find it hard to believe.”

I shake my head. “No. Nothing of the sort. This is alien and unique.”

Although I can see exactly why the humans would want to listen.

“That’s sad,” Erin says, moving in time to the music spilling from the radio. “So you don’t know anything about dancing either?”

I hesitate, wondering what she could possibly be referencing, but I’m clueless. Radios. Music. Dancing. What little I knew about humans before seems even less impressive now, and as much as I hate it, I find myself wanting to know more about them. More about her .

“No.” I say. “Explain it.”

“Well,” she starts, cocking her head. “It’s not really something you can explain. More, it’s a feeling, a release. I’m not the best dancer, but I guess I could show you. It’s a way of moving your body. You let the energy of the music push you.”

She positions herself in the middle of the floor. I step back, expecting something grand, but when she starts swaying back and forth on the spot in time to the music, I nearly laugh.

Every shift of her arms or her hips matches the timing of the so-called beat .

“This? This is dancing?” I sway mockingly from side to side. “Are humans entertained by this? It seems like a waste of energy and time.”

I’m skeptical but entranced. The more Erin twists her form, the more I find myself unable to look away. I memorize her movements, greedy for more, staring at her hungrily.

This human is full of surprises.

“Well, there are lots of different dances,” Erin explains. “Some are faster. Some slower. Some with a partner.” Her eyes land on me and a curious glint, a look of pure mischief, appears in her eyes. “Come here, I’ll show you. You might even like it.”

I still, entirely unsure of what she’s thinking, and when I don’t move toward her, she stomps over and takes my hands in hers. I flinch, never having had someone willingly touch me before, and the sensation is strange. Unfamiliar.

Taking her in the woods was different. She hadn’t exactly been willing but aroused enough to make it a pleasurable process for her. This time, she made the decision herself.

She’s soft, delicate, dainty. Everything I’m not, but it makes me want to be careful with her.

I’m not willing to break her.

Not until I get to the bottom of the feelings inside me.

“So you’d hold your partner like this,” she says, positioning my arms out in front of me. “You can be closer, or farther away, and you move in step together to the music. It can be kind of romantic depending on the dance style…” Her voice trails off and she tugs me until I move, swaying with her to the music. “There you go. You’re getting it.”

The size difference between us is astonishing.

She is like a tiny toy compared to my towering frame. Yet something between us works. Something in the way our forms move together where it seems as though we are of one mind.

It’s strange, and would be laughed at by anyone else of my kind. But for what it’s worth, for Erin to take the time to teach me about things I’ve never seen, even when I plan to devour her eventually…I enjoy it.

She looks up at me, her eyes boring into mine, and for the second time I’m taken aback by her beauty. Dark lashes fan out across pale cheeks when she blinks. She’s unlike anything I’ve ever seen before, foreign and gorgeous. Like a moon goddess with her pale hair and small, perfect features.

The perfect rose of her lips, lifted in a slight grin, entrances me.

And then a sliver of doubt enters my mind. Something I hadn’t considered before.

What if I… don’t kill her?

Is it even an option when I’m starving?

So far, I’ve managed to sustain myself through the time between solstices with several herbs and plants along my riverbank. They aren't much, and they don’t give me the energy of a fresh kill, but they’ve worked to get me this far.

What if I keep her forever as a pet?

Learning from her what I can, enjoying her how I want. I don’t know that it’s ever been done before, but surely another Grim at some point has kept their human prey for longer than a few days.

We are not a talkative bunch. There is no connection or contact between the Grims, each of us only doing our best to keep living. As such, I have no way of knowing what has or has not been done before.

It would be incredibly dangerous, and she could never venture far from the house. I’d prefer if she never went outside at all, but I know that’s impossible.

Eventually, she will want to wander and explore this world, as is natural.

The curiosity in her is not the sort to be banked.

Erin won’t take kindly to being kept inside for the rest of her life.

My home would be her own personal prison, but I don’t care. I’ll keep her here if that’s what it takes. And if things get too dangerous, if other Grims come snooping, I’ll kill her. I won’t let them take her away from me.

We dance together in time to the music on the radio and her touch is delicate.

A low growl rumbles in my chest as I consider the gravity of what keeping her would mean and the changes to my own existence. Can I really go against everything I’ve ever known and fight the hunger burning through me just to keep her alive? Ignore the yearning to eat her flesh and drain her body of everything it has to give?

I shake my head, annoyed that I’m even considering such things. This has to be her doing, because I would never willingly deny my hunger on my own.

Is she some kind of witch? Seductress?

I wasn’t aware that humans possessed such powers, but there’s no other explanation. The way we’re swaying is hypnotic, almost as though she’s swaying my thoughts without much input from me, and I don’t like it.

I can’t fight it, and the longer I stand here, the stronger the pull is.

I’m aroused by her in more ways than simply physical.

Abruptly, I pull away and step back, breaking whatever spell she’d had on me. Thoughts of keeping her here fade, replaced by my aching hunger, but there’s still so much I need to know. So much knowledge I can obtain before I kill her.

“What’s the matter?” she asks in an undertone.

Space . I need space.

To consider the options and figure out what the hell I’m actually doing. One small decision and it has the capacity to change my entire future, and hers.

I can try to hunt for scraps of food to soothe my hunger pains just enough to get by and clear my head before I do something rash.

Surely she wouldn’t run. She has nowhere to go, no way out of this hell. There’s no way back to Earth until the next solstice, if she survives that long, but she already knows that.

Staying here is her only chance of survival.

“Stay here,” I demand, turning toward the door and stomping heavily across the hard floor. “Do not go outside unless you wish to enjoy a painful, slow death. I’ll be back.”

If she decides to disobey, so be it. That will make the decision for me.

I’ll devour her and enjoy every second of it, if something else doesn’t catch her first.

At least that way, I won’t have to deal with this insufferable sense of doubt. The questioning, wondering about the possibilities that have no right taking up residence in my mind.

With a final look back over my shoulder, I whip the curtain aside and step out, finally able to breathe normally again. On edge, my skin goes tight and the rest of me is hot and tense.

This human has turned me inside out and it began before she ever told me her name. Or used mine in return.

I follow a thin pathway leading away from the door before wading through the waist-high stream that disappears into the forest, my mind troubled with conflicting thoughts.

This isn’t going to end well for either of us, but I refuse to be the one that suffers most. I’ll return once I’ve taken the edge off my biting hunger with whatever measly scraps of food I’m able to find. Maybe by then I’ll be able to clear my head.

Then, I’ll be able to decide just how this mortal will live.

That is, if I let her live at all, when the prudent thing would be to end her and be done.