Page 2 of Venomous Lies (Greywood Conservatory for the Arcane #2)

Echo

MONDAY

I have a mate.

That damnable sentence ricocheted in my mind until it threatened to rid me of the numbness that had taken over since I’d heard those words. No matter how hard I fucked the woman beneath me, all I could see was her .

I hated her.

Despised the hold she had over me, her ability to cause this much pain. We had just met, but it already felt like every moment was somehow less without her beside me.

The woman under me sobbed as another orgasm tore through her body. Long nails dug into my shoulders, desperately attempting to make me still, but I kept rocking into her, savoring the pain. The scrape of her nails into my skin made me feel something other than the emptiness plaguing me.

Speeding up my thrusts, I closed my eyes, imagining it was Isla under me again.

Flashes of the rut ran through my mind.

Wide hazel eyes holding just the right touch of fear. Black hair spread across the ground as Isla clawed to bring me closer to her. Lips and skin stained with rich, dark-red blood as she arched her back, calling out my name when she came.

A fleshy pop, then a warm gush of hot blood covering my cock and thighs.

The girl beneath me was staring up at me with a pleading gaze. Pain glittered in her tear-filled eyes as I continued to fuck her.

I tore through her cervix.

Lust and power skittered down my spine at the realization. This domination was fucking intoxicating.

“Please, please.”

“Shhh,” I whispered as I pulled back to revel in the light leaving her eyes.

But no matter how much I thrust into her warm body, my orgasm was nowhere to be found.

A loud curse escaped once I shoved away from the fresh corpse, not giving a shit when she rolled over and slammed into the storage shelves nearby.

Frustration coursed through me as I sat against the wall and tried to imagine I wasn’t in some random room on campus by myself.

Wrapping a hand around my throbbing, bloody cock, I used the woman’s fluids as lube to get myself off.

Closing my eyes, I swore I heard Isla’s voice moaning my name. The husky timbre made my stomach twist, and I came instantly, like a fucking schoolboy.

I kept jacking off as I recalled the curves of her body. My grunts filled the room with each punishing thrust into my fist, refusing to give my body a break. Almond and vanilla with a light hint of jasmine, the unique scent of that damnable witch, filled the room.

She had mated with someone else.

That wasn’t the worst part, though.

No… The worst part was the question that kept running through my mind. What the hell is so wrong with me that she didn’t choose me ?

Better to be numb, to feel nothing, than the ever-growing doubt and self-loathing that every woman in my life inspired.

Another man, a real man would stake his claim on her anyway.

But incubi weren’t real men—a lesson all succubi taught us at every opportunity. Isla had just driven that point home like a knife.

I wasn’t even an afterthought, just the unwanted echo of the son no one ever wanted. There was no chance at all I could be a real man, so why pretend?

Sudden knocking jarred me from my spiraling thoughts.

“Echo?!”

Another punishing orgasm tore through me even as I growled in annoyance.

Aizel.

He’d somehow tracked me down, probably wanting to have another conversation about me listening to Isla. Aizel kept pointing out how dangerous I was becoming, with my incubus instincts taking over my humanity in small spurts. All I needed to do, he kept repeating, was sit down and talk to the witch.

What a waste of time.

The corpse in the room with me wasn’t going to help get him off my back, but I didn’t care.

“Echo? Look, I don’t want to overstep?—”

The door to the storage room opened, but the moment my twin came into sight, he froze.

Muttering a curse, he quickly and quietly closed the door behind him.

His gold and green eyes focused on the dead student at his feet, then the sight of me still stroking my hard dick, blood and cum all over myself and the floor.

“ Shit. ”

“I don’t need your help,” I rasped, cutting off the lecture I knew was coming. The memory of Isla’s body against mine made me slam my head back into the stone wall as I came again, aiming my seed at the body on the ground.

This witch was going to be the end of me.

“No, you need a fucking tub of hydrogen peroxide to get this shit cleaned up,” he hissed in warning, eyes flashing with annoyance. “There are already dead bodies popping up, and you want to add to the count? This is the third person in a week! You just had a rut?—”

Aizel stopped when I snarled at him. Without waiting for him to keep talking, I pushed myself up onto my knees then used the dead girl’s mousy brown hair to clean the cum off my dick and thighs before looking for my clothes.

The bitching restarted once he got over that shock. “You can’t keep doing this?—”

“Don’t tell me what I can and can’t do.” I cut him off coldly, laughing at the way he paled and stepped back from me.

No one was ever scared of me, and right now his nerves were a fucking high I wanted to savor for as long as I could.

“The rut wasn’t enough. Isla wasn’t enough… Not surprising, considering.”

“If that were true, you wouldn’t be reacting this way,” he pointed out softly, flinching when I threw a nearby box at his head.

I got dressed, each movement jerky and abrupt, and wrapped the coldness around me, unwilling to let him break the ice my subconscious had embraced .

I sneered. “She made her choice, Brother. Let her live with the consequences.”

Aizel didn’t say anything, watching me closely as I straightened my clothes. Knocking into his shoulder, I pushed him out of my way, but before I could leave, Aizel made one last attempt to talk to me.

“You should talk to her, Brother. This isn’t you.”

“But that’s the thing, Aizel… This is the most me I’ve ever been.”

I let the door close softly between us then shoved my hands in my pockets. There was a hint of blood on my black jeans, and I was sticky from where it still coated my thighs... but I couldn’t care less.

My predatory instincts loved that nearby students gave me a wide berth as I meandered down the hall then outside.

I was dangerous enough that their subconscious need to stay safe had been triggered, and goddess, that was a heady feeling.

Vaguely, I wished there was a way to bottle the scent of their fear.

Maybe if the women in my life were like this, I wouldn’t have so many issues dealing with them.

A slight rain had started since my first class ended, making the campus look almost surreal.

The dark, rich green grass and the surrounding forests were more shadowed than normal.

The very campus was thrumming with magick, and I inhaled deeply, clearing the metallic scent of blood from my lungs.

This place wasn’t anything like the fancy, cold mansions where I had grown up.

Too bad my trauma remained no matter the scenery. Fate was a twisted bitch like that, forever branding me as inadequate. Since that was how my life was determined to go, then I had better fully accept this detached version of myself. It was the only way I would survive.

A husky laugh slithered into my awareness, and I was instantly on high alert. Scanning the area, I found her across the quad. She and Wells seemed to be sitting down for lunch. Conversation flowed easily between them.

Isla.

Pain filled me as I spat into the dirt by my feet.

There was no way I could stay out here with her.

She was the only one with the ability to tear down the walls I was building, and there was no way I’d give her the satisfaction of doing so.

I started for the dorm, walking right past them, and fucking basked in the way they fell silent.

That satisfaction kept me going until I got inside my shower. Cleaning the blood off my body, I batted away the wisps of memory that tugged at me, putting my victim’s face in the forefront of my mind. That was when I faced the truth I’d hidden from Aizel.

My hunger hadn’t stirred since the rut.

Not once.

For as long as I could remember, that hollow hunger in the pit of my stomach had always been in the background.

But after feeding on Isla… I was satiated.

I’d thought that gnawing feeling was the epitome of emptiness, but I was now learning how wrong that assumption was.

This, the absence of it, made me feel emptier than I ever had.

How did people exist with nothing stirring in their body besides their own emotions?

There was a sense of utter loneliness that came from being left alone with myself.

Every person I’d been with since the rut was just a means of me desperately seeking a way to feel something , but they had all fallen so fucking short. Maybe if I kept feeding off others, my hunger would awaken again. It would only be a matter of time before it resurfaced, but I wanted it now.

The pain was fleeting.

Pleasure almost non-existent.

The only person I wanted was Isla, and she was the one person I would never have again.

Isla had stolen my hunger from me.

She might just be crueler than my mother.

Tears stung my eyes as my lungs constricted. Damn it. I can’t break down, not here, not ever. Crying had never saved me before, and it wouldn’t now.

Such a crybaby , my mother’s disdainful voice taunted. You won’t have any tears left once I’m done with you. You are nothing. You will always be nothing.

Empty.

Useless.

You’ll learn your place eventually, but until then, I’ll keep reminding you.

Every lesson she’d taught me was branded in my mind, having become part of my psyche. On the outside, I might appear like I was okay, but nothing would ever make me matter.

My fist slammed into the tile as I gasped. Needing to focus on something besides the ghosts of my mother’s taunts, I tilted my head back, letting the water rain down on my face.

Maybe if I stayed here long enough, I would drown, then I wouldn’t be anyone’s problem anymore. Maybe then, I’d finally matter.

After all, an echo isn’t noticed until it’s gone.