Page 149 of Lured By Shadows

Eventually, my fingers loosened their grip on his hair, sliding through the perfect strands as I forced myself to look down, needing to catch his face right then, to figure out if he looked satisfied or still starving or just as caught up as I was. The dim light wrapped around him in shadows that made everything feel heavier, more secretive.

Then I saw the blood.

My blood streaked across his mouth, smeared over his lips and down his chin, darkening as it dried. It glistened faintly in the low light, an undeniable reminder of how completely he’d feasted on me. The sight should’ve scared me. It should’ve made my stomach drop or my chest lock up.

Instead, heat bloomed low and slow in my belly.

My body reacted before my mind could object, a fresh pulse of arousal tightening deep inside me, my pussy twitching with renewed need despite the ache. My nipples hardened painfully, and I bit my lip, a quiet whimper threatening to escape as my thoughts betrayed me, imagining his bloodied lips trailing over my skin again.

Then the cold edge crept in slowly, making my skin prickle as reality settled heavier over me with every passing second.

Because in the darkness, his eyes shifted.

They weren’t catching stray light. They were lit from within, vivid and unnatural, glowing with a brightness that did not belong to anything human. I’d seen them earlier, but my mind had been too fractured to understand what I was looking at. Now clarity slid into place with cold, suffocating certainty.

The stories surfaced unbidden. Whispers traded through the Appalachian Mountains, warnings passed between locals and drunk hikers alike.

If you ever see human eyes glowing in the dark, they’d said, run. My body went very still.

Culver licked his lips slowly, savoring the remnants of me.

That was when I saw them: two elongated canines slipping free beneath his upper lip, sharp and elegant and unmistakable.

They were fangs. Then his mouth opened wider. Far wider than it should have.

The movement stretched unnaturally, the hinge of his jaw lowering with smooth, horrific ease that no human body could replicate, his mouth pulling open in a way that made my stomach twist violently. It looked wrong. Predatory. Like something wearing the shape of a man while forgetting the limits of one. The shadows caught along the inside of his mouth, too dark, too deep, and my body reacted, bracing away from him as my breathing turned erratic and scattered.

Silence fell over the room, thick and absolute, pressing against my ears until it felt deafening.

My heart pounded wildly, wondering if I was prey to some unknown creature.

Or something worse.

38

“Ishouldn’t have done that,” he murmured, his voice ragged and quiet, threaded with something close to shame. He reached toward me slowly, his fingertips hovering near my cheek like he was afraid I’d shatter if he touched me.

I flinched.

The reaction was instinctive, and the look that crossed his face cut right through me. His glowing eyes widened with raw hurt that made my chest tighten, his lips parting like I’d just struck him. And even though I kept telling myself I had to be strong, to push through the fear twisting in my gut, the reality of what he was wouldn’t stay buried anymore.

All the whispers that trailed after him in the hallways, the quiet talks I’d overheard, started clicking together in my head. The rumors I’d brushed off as people making up stories to fill in the blanks around someone they couldn’t quite figure out. Now it was all staring back at me, clear as day.

“Culv,” I murmured, his name breaking on my tongue. “You’re not human… are you?”

The question barely made it past my lips.

He didn’t answer with words. He just shook his head once, slow and resigned, like the truth was too heavy to dress up. He swallowed hard.

I don’t know why, but my instincts caught up to me in a split second, shoving my hand in his face as I pushed off the bed. My dress rode up over my ass, leaving me completely exposed while I bolted for the closed door, fumbling with the handle as panic clawed at my throat, my bare thighs slick with the evidence of what we’d done.

“Ira, my lovely lamb,” Culver sighed, his voice low and velvet-dark. “You are making it difficult not to chase after you.”

Finally, the door ripped open as my heart pounded in my ears, my breathing ragged and uneven. I wasn’t even sure where I was headed or what the hell was really going on. My brain had kicked into full survival mode, and running felt like the only move I had left. My body slammed into the wall before I shoved off it, my bare skin burning against the cool surface as I kept sprinting down the hall.

I heard Culver’s voice call after me, inhuman and unnatural, curling through the air like smoke. “Ira, come back to the room so I can explain, please?”

My body shivered as I kept running, forced to choose between the right hallway or the left without a clue which way led out. I hit the fork and veered left, only to run straight into the maid. The one I’d seen around before. Her face startled as her eyes flicked down my bare skin and back up to meet mine. I rushed behind her, my voice coming out frantic, my breaths heaving. “Quick, I need to get outta here! Help me!”