Page 36 of Fangs

He advances along the narrow ridge, savoring the hunt. “Leaving your room. Spying on private matters. Running through my house like a feral thing that needs to be broken.” He inhales deeply, nostrils flaring, and his eyes go dark. “And now this. This heat.”

His tongue traces his lower lip, slow and deliberate. “Do you have any idea what you smell like, little one? Like the ripest fruit. Like honey and fire and something far more intoxicating. It is driving me insane.”

He steps closer. I scramble sideways along the ridge, shoes slipping on the dew-slicked slate. The ground far below swims in my vision—too distant, too unforgiving.

“Your scent is everywhere,” he continues, stalking me.

I glance down at the cemetery. The shadows of the trees stretch longer now, reaching toward the chapel. They seem to ripple, to pulse, as if stirred by some unseen wind.

I look back at Thomas. He hasn’t noticed.

“The others should have been here by now,” he mutters, brow furrowing. “They were right behind me.” He pauses, scanning the grounds below. “Strange. They would not leave me to hunt alone. They would want their share.”

He turns back to me, and a slow, cruel smile spreads across his face. “No matter. Better for me. I won’t have to share.”

He lunges. I twist to flee along the ridge, but his hand closes around my trailing ankle and yanks. My chest hits the slate hard, the impact driving the air from my lungs. He is on me in an instant—his weight crushing me flat against the cold tiles, body pinned between my thighs and the roof, his breath hot against my throat.

I’m going to drink every drop of you,” he hisses. “Every single drop. I have wanted to taste you since the moment you arrived. And now you have given me the perfect excuse.”

His fangs sink into my neck.

Pain explodes through me. I scream, the sound tearing from my throat raw and ragged. He drinks deep, greedily, fingers digging into my shoulders hard enough to bruise bone.

I struggle beneath him, nails raking across his face, legs kicking uselessly against the slate. He doesn’t stop. He won’t stop.

From the corner of my eye, I see the shadows moving Long black tendrils sliding between the tombstones, coiling around the trees, gathering into a dense, pulsing mass. Silently, they slither up the chapel walls.

Thomas doesn’t notice. He is lost in the blood, eyes rolled back, throat working as he swallows. The sound of it is disgusting.

I feel myself weakening. My vision blurs at the edges. The pain is constant, unbearable, a burning river flowing from my neck into his mouth.

Shadows rise over the edge of the roof like a immense black tide. They coil around Thomas’s legs, his waist, his chest.

He jerks, mouth tearing from my throat. “What—”

The shadows constrict. They wrap around him like a serpent, crushing, suffocating. He thrashes, screams muffled by the darkness pressing against his mouth. His hands claw at the tendrils, but they have no substance—they are like smoke, impossible to grip.

I scramble free, pressing my hand to my torn throat. Blood wells between my fingers, hot and slick. The world swims around me.

The shadows lift Thomas into the air. He hangs suspended, legs kicking, face purple. His eyes bulge. His hands claw at nothing.

Then—a massive shadow-claw erupts from his chest.

I watch it happen in slow motion. The black talons, impossibly large, punch through his ribcage from behind. Blood sprays across the rooftop in a dark arc. Thomas’s eyes go wide, mouth opening in a silent scream that never comes.

The claw retracts.

His heart beats in its grip. Still pumping. Still alive.

The shadow-claw turns toward me, the heart suspended between its long black fingers as an offering.

Then the fingers curl. The heart bursts like a ripe fruit, disintegrating into ash between the claws. Long black nails dig in, crushing, grinding, until nothing remains but dark dust that scatters on the wind.

Thomas’s body crumbles. His skin flakes, his bones turn to dust, his clothes collapse into a heap of charred fabric on the slate. Within seconds, nothing remains but a dark smear and the faint scent of smoke.

Gone. Like he never existed.

The shadows dissolve, slithering back toward the cemetery, retreating into the morning mist. The roof is silent again. The wind stirs my hair. The sun continues its climb into the pale sky.