Page 28 of These Eternal Bones

How I Have Missed You

Engravings - Ethan Bortnick

Molly

I swallow against the bile and my disappointment, my forehead pressed against the cool toilet as Elric doesn’t come back in.

My emotions are as turbulent as the waves below the cliff, the heavy onslaught making a burst of tears fill my eyes.

For a moment, I’d thought I was going to die, that I was trapped, truly trapped.

He’d gotten there so quickly, but still the sudden darkness, the swell of the storm, the pure static energy I felt, was so strong it’d woken me from my sleep seconds before the building had come down around me.

My body trembles and I’m terrified…and cold.

It takes a fair amount of wincing before I manage to get to my feet.

I’m sore, no doubt bruised up, but I’m…okay.

I’m okay. I brace myself on the dark countertops, unable to shake the chill from my bones.

It’s th en that I take stock of where I am, of the heavy, intoxicating smell of the Vampire of Port Clyde.

His rooms.

My eyes widen with that thought, my shaky hand upsetting a wooden pin on the counter, one of the ones he always uses to tie up his hair.

A hair stick, he’d called it once. I had always thought such things were only for women, but the sight of him twisting his inky, straight hair high on his head…

the smooth grace in his movements as he slid the stick into place had made me flush.

Something, of course, he’d taken notice of immediately. He’d smirked, leaning close...

But that is not now.

That is not the version of the man I have come to know these past few days.

I still, for the life of me, do not know what changed.

My own shaken green eyes meet me in the mirror.

I can’t remember the last time I truly stared at myself.

I don’t know what I’m meant to feel when looking at the sight of my red-rimmed eyes and wild, heavy hair.

Something crashes outside, making me flinch.

That seems to do it. I quickly clean my mouth, taking the precious few seconds that are awarded to me to steel myself.

Like that day we went into town, the quiet things in my chest decide to no longer stay quiet. I glare at myself before shoving away from the counter, jerking the door open with little to no payoff in the form of dramatics. The door itself is impossibly heavy.

I’d wanted it to slam, creak loudly, something .

It only annoys me more.

I scour the room looking for the stupid man, the stupid old vamp–

My lips part, my heart jolting in my chest when I find him.

His chest is bare, his muscles rippling and lean…

toned, as if they were made from marble.

I can see fully for the first time where the black veins originate.

It ’s like a hole in his chest, only it’s not concave, simply an endlessly deep black spot the size of a salad plate over his heart.

Elric’s eyes are wild, bleeding that same abyssal thing that runs in his veins.

The sight excites me more than it frightens, as his tendrils… tighten…binding him further.

Because Elric is very much so… bound .

His chest heaves with the weight of his pants, his arms restrained behind him by his own tendrils. Others snaking around his parted mouth like a muzzle, but his fangs are…dripping a clear, sweet-smelling liquid. My heart thunders as a deep, eerie growl leaves him. “Mine.”

The word sets a deep pulse off deep in my core, such an intense longing that I nearly take a step forward.

It feels…right.

He inhales deeply, a groan leaving him. “I can smell your need, syringa.”

My need?

“Do you know what that means?” His growl is rough, and my lower belly tightens at the sound as I shake my head.

“Your cunt is wet.”

I suck in a quick breath at his crassness.

I hadn’t imagined anything so…harsh could sound so alluring.

Again, I get the feeling we’re at the precipice of something…

altering. Emotions well inside me, sharp and suffocating when I realize how badly I want that, how badly I want him.

How terribly I wish to tip the scales for good or bad.

I want his soft smiles back, his adoring touches.

I want to feel…needed again by him. Like I’m the only one capable of helping him pass the years. Only my company is tantalizing enough.

His dark eyes track me as I walk away from the bathroom, my eyes dipping to the tendril running up the length of his muscular legs. It binds around his thighs, joined by another, only adding to the monstrous length tented in his pants.

I had said once that monsters were upfront about their intentions to defile.

I wish to be upfront now.

“Your tendrils….why don’t you just release them?”

“They do not listen.”

I step toward the door, making him thrash violently, and for a moment, I see it, what they all fear…but it has the incorrect effect on me. He stills again, his body rigid as his tendrils tighten around the post at his back. The heavy wood is already cracked. We both know he could snap it with ease.

Even in this state, he’s holding back.

I take another step toward the hall. Vibration fills my blood, startling me as he lets out a savage growl, apprehension barreling through my need for a moment before I can steady my breathing.

It takes a few rapid beats of my heart before I realize he doesn’t hurt me, simply… feels the only way he can.

Reaching for what he desires.

Elric hungers .

And I wish to feed him.

“You once warned me not to run away from you…” I trail off, watching the odd animalic way his head tilts, tracking, regarding, hunting.

He is more vampire than Elric right now, I have little doubt.

But he will not hurt me. I feel it in the very marrow of my bones.

Bones that feel frailer without him nearby.

“You see, there is an issue with that. Perhaps you had forgotten…running is something I excel at.”

My hair whips across my face as I take off down the hall, the haunted, loving eyes of all the beautiful women who came before me watching my descent into madness.

The sound of snapping wood and a vicious roar sends a thrill through me.

I don’t look back, not until the sound of crashing fills the hall.

My feet pad off the cold marble as he blurs forward, only to be snapped back by his own tendrils.

They grasp and bind, almost panicked, only to be snapped off or dematerialized.

Where he dismisses two, four snap into place.

The urge to scream bubbles up in my throat as I hit the stairwell, only to feel one of those silky soft appendages band around my waist, jerking me off my feet. I’m dropped almost as quickly, my ankles rattling from the hard land as chaos sounds around me.

Well behind me…until it’s not.

This time, the scream erupts as Elric appears in front of me.

His nose flares as he jerks closer, making me trip and land on my butt against the steps.

That clear liquid drips onto my flesh, heating my skin where it slides.

It fizzles and pops like when your leg falls asleep as he jerks me into his arms. I bite back my hiss from the pain as his claws dig into my flesh.

I’m caged, trapped against his chest, yet only anticipation fills me.

The pain could be horrible, truth be told, I’ve never been great with pain, but I have no doubt I would endure it.

I squeeze my eyes shut, but the bite doesn’t come. Elric…trembles against me.

He…what?

“I need you, syringa, please,” he groans, his fangs softly dancing across my neck, sending goosebumps across my flesh.

It occurs to me then what he’s doing.

He’s asking for permission .

“Yes.”

My mouth gapes as his fangs pierce the delicate skin of my neck, his claw tipped hand cradling my head, while his other bands across my waist keeping me against him. The first two pulls make my head spin .

My spine tingles as he whimpers against me, clinging to me as if I’m his only tether, as that sizzle on my spine erupts. Heat explodes across my flesh like a bomb, everything inside me, everything deep tightening before it…bursts.

I cry out, unable to control myself as I grind against him, pulsing, feverish waves of pleasure rolling off me as I feel myself grow impossibly wet between my thighs.

That night in the cabin where he licked at my core, I’d thought I could never feel that good again.

I was wrong. I am…shamefully aroused. I don’t care; God, I don’t care.

My nails prod his flesh as I grip him back, needing like I have never experienced before.

He groans, and God help me, the sounds he’s making alone send me over the edge where I had not yet realized there was a cliff.

The tightening happens again, and then the burst. I’m lost to it, my mind separating from my body as he pulls deep, sating himself on me.

Like I am the only thing that can sustain him.

I want to be.

My fingers are weak as they knot in his hair, tugging him deeper into my neck as my head swims. The tightening comes a third time, but my world goes black just before the burst.

When my eyes flutter open again, my back is pressed into plush, soft bedding, but it’s the cool, rough pants on wet, angry flesh, the gentle lap of his tongue that makes a guttural sound leave my throat.

I feel the loss of his fangs immediately, my shaky hands desperately trying to pull him back to me.

He just peppers feather soft kisses there instead, gifting me with a drag of his tongue.

“Feed. Please. I need you. I need it again.” My voice is a breathy moan, my core soaked as I grind down on anything I can find purchase.

He growls against me, and the sound sends waves of need bouncing through my core, my nipples hard and taut against my dirty sleeping gown. “I have taken too much already, my love.”

My love.

Yes, yes.