6. The Hunt

The Hunt

My words spur her on, carrying her deeper into the trees until she thinks she’s gained a distance on me. Little does she know, I’m lurking right behind her, waiting for her to realize that no matter how fast or far she runs, I’m The Hunt…The Bringer of Death. I will always find her. She’s just delaying the inevitable and ramping up my all-consuming desire for her by running. She’s playing with a predator who will never let her walk away. Her fate is sealed.

I start to run, eager to catch my prey and finally claim what’s mine. Her desecrated soul calls to me in a way no other has for centuries. I need to have it. Closing the distance between us, I unleash an icy cold breath on her neck, making her turn her head. I catch her by surprise, causing her to trip again. She lands on her hands and knees, reminding me of the carnal moment we shared in the woods earlier. Her body felt amazing, but her fear when she realized who I really am—who was really making her come—that made me feel a special kind of high I’d only feel once in my immortal lifetime. I could gorge myself on her fear and despair for the rest of my days and never be satisfied.

She tries to crawl away, but I put my foot between her shoulder blades, pushing her into the dirt so she can’t escape. I crouch to the ground, flipping her over so she is forced to look at the monster who finally caught her. I tear off her coat, exposing a sensual combination of soft curves, round hips, and ample breasts. Her pale skin reflects the moonlight, and my mouth waters. Images of me defiling her body, making her scream my name–my real name–so loudly she loses her voice come unbidden to my mind, but I shake them off. I want to focus on this, enjoy it. There’s nothing like ripping a human soul from its vessel. The screams of pure agony, the crying, begging, and indescribable pain. It sustains me for days, sometimes even weeks.

Her tear-filled eyes peer up at me under dark lashes and her entire body shakes. Her horror is so pungent that it’s opaque—I can see it swirling in the air, cloaking her. I’ve never found such a perfect, beautiful specimen to feast upon. I’m not sure if I can let her go by simply ripping her soul out. I can keep her forever, make her my personal toy. The thought of destroying her and claiming her mortal soul doesn’t fulfill me the way it usually has with past conquests. I never want to let her go. There’s only one thing I can do to get what I crave without killing her.

I grab her hair and rise, pulling her up to stand. Her lips quiver, and she averts her eyes to the ground. I use a claw to tip her chin up to meet my gaze, and it punctures the skin, letting a trickle of blood fall down her neck. I lick it, tasting her blood again, and my cock hardens. She whimpers, and the sound is music to my ears. Seems I’m addicted to everything about this lost little girl.

Her wide eyes take in my calculating expression and her panic hits my nostrils like a bullet. That’s right, give me all your fear, everything you have.

I can feel your soul, Wild One. It’s full of suffering, despair, and fear. It pains you to carry such sorrow everyday.

She cries, her tears falling down her face and rolling into the dirt below us. She nods, and I hear her small, breathless voice.

“Yes, I miss Daire every day and I keep thinking it will get easier, but it never does. My mind is breaking just like my heart has and I have no idea who I am anymore.” A hint of jealousy hits me at the mention of her late husband, but I brush it aside. She’ll be mine soon enough.

How would you feel if I could take away all your pain? On Samhain, anything is possible. The veil is translucent, allowing all kinds of creatures and energies to pass between the human world and what lies beyond.

She sighs, and breathes in deeply. Her silence stretches and I almost ask her again before she speaks.

“I don’t trust you. You’re the only man that has made me feel anything since Daire’s death, but you tricked me. You trapped me like unsuspecting prey in the woods. Then you feasted upon me and left me bloody and more broken than before.”

I am not a human man, Wild One, let alone a good man. I’ll forever be a Sluagh, a monster doomed to roam the world and feast upon the souls of the broken-hearted and dying. A creature so depraved that Death steers clear of me and the Unseelie faeries won’t even claim me as their own. I grab her throat and pull her closer to me, so that I’m whispering into her ear. But I can promise you that if you let me, I’ll make sure you’re never in pain again.

“How? By tearing my soul from my body and killing me? I don’t want to die,” she pleads, grasping at my claw, trying to pry it off her neck. I run my nose up the column of her neck, still smelling the blood from the open cut my talon left behind.

I won’t kill you. I’m going to rebirth you, create you in a different image where you’ll never be bogged down by your pain and suffering again.She stops crying, pulling away to pierce me with a questioning stare.

“You’ll end this? Free me from this life I’ve thought about ending so many times before?”

Yes. As long as you accept that you’re mine. Whether she accepts it or not, she’ll always be mine. She can never run fast enough, or far enough from me. She’ll never be able to hide from me.

From the moment I smelled her tantalizing scent in the air, she belonged to me.

She’s silent, a contemplative look on her face. I tap into her soul, so I can know what she’s feeling. Images from the past six months swirl around in her mind, drowning her in a salty sadness I can taste in the air.

The police coming to her door to tell her the worst news she’ll ever hear.

Her husband’s closed casket funeral. A man she dislikes and her mother leaving directly after and barely giving her the time of day.

Her Granda holding her as she sobs at the wake, begging her to come stay with him.

Neighbors whispering behind her back.

Days and nights spent in bed, drowning in her tears and anxiety.

Bottles and bottles of pills and alcohol that never numb the pain.

Hallucinations and dreams. The police coming again. A stint in a mental health facility.

Empty hope that is never fulfilled.

She stares me in the eye, and nods, closing her eyes in acceptance of her fate.

Words. I need to hear you say the words and accept your fate aloud.

“Take away my pain,” she squeaks through tears. “I don’t want to live this way anymore.”

I don’t warn her that this will hurt. For her to be free she needs to experience a final pain as payment. Before I collect her soul, I kiss her warm, plump lips and run my talons down the swell of her hips. I need to have her one more time in this form, experience the heat of her body before it’s gone forever. Breaking our kiss, she gasps for air and tries to push me away.

I push her against a tree and weave my talons through her hair, pulling her head back and opening her neck up to me. I bite, sinking my fangs into her neck to leave my mark. My claim that she’ll carry forever, and only her. I’ve never given anyone such an honor before.

I move down her throat, leaving bites as I go until I reach her collarbone. She cries and gasps in pain with every bite. I retract my claws so I can massage her breasts. She’s the image of temptation when her body is covered in my marks. They’re the ultimate decoration for her impending transformation.

I slowly lick every drop of blood off her body. Its tangy taste mixed with a hint of sweat makes me salivate. I run my tongue over her nipple, grazing my teeth against it. She moans as she grinds her body against mine; it begs for a release only I can give her. I bite down on her nipple, then switch to the other one while I kick her legs apart to dip two fingers inside her. My languorous, deep strokes have her squirming and reaching down to grab my hand in an effort to make me hurry my pace. I tease her, bringing her to the edge of orgasm and back over and over again.

“Please,” she begs. “Stop torturing me.”

“Wild One, the torture has just begun,” I promise her.

Fear flashes through her crystal blue eyes and her velvety sex is dripping by the time I finally let her come. I grab her hips and hoist her higher, forcing her to wrap her legs around my waist right before I impale her with my cock. Her pained screams turn to moans as I piston my hips, thrusting deeper inside her with reckless abandon. The thoughts swirling through my head push me to fuck her even harder, to the point that the tree bark is cutting into her back.

I’m claiming my prey. I chased her through the forest, hunted her down, and will take her for myself. Left my marks all over her so everyone knows who she belongs to. And now, I’m going to take her soul and keep it for eternity.

She tightens around me, strangling my cock as she falls apart again.

She sags against the tree in her post-lust haze after I come inside her, completely blissed out with pleasure. Wasting no time, I flick my talons out and slash open her chest, tearing through muscle and bones to reveal her beating heart. A small cloud of pale, golden mist rises from the wound. Her soul is as beautiful as she is. Only the truly good have a golden soul, and they always taste the richest. Electric gratification vibrates throughout my entire body, and I consume every last morsel of her humanity.

Holding her prone, blood soaked body to my chest, I gently lay her on the ground so her pale, youthful face is bathed in moonlight. The air is rife with spirits and energies one can only find on Samhain. I summon the second darkest being to walk the Earth–Death. A tall, thin figure cloaked in an opaque black robe appears. Her entire face is covered by a hood, and only a bony hand is visible where her flared sleeves hang back. Death glows with an aura of atrocity one can only gain by plucking the dying from earth and carrying them across the veil. When she approaches me, she bows her head in fear and deference.

“How can I serve you?” she asks in a scratchy, unnatural voice that echoes through the trees.

“Revive my Wild One, so she may always be by my side,” I command. I don’t ask Death, because she fears me. All the Unseelie faeries and creatures of the lore know I’m the baddest, most depraved being that walks the earth.

She kneels to Fiadh’s side, her cloaked head dipping to examine her wounds. “I cannot resurrect her as a human, as her soul is gone. I could make her a Sluagh like you, but she would be doomed to walk the earth for eternity, consuming ill and broken-hearted souls to sustain herself. Is that the life you want for her?”

I nod. “Her place is beside me. I consumed her soul so she could always be with me.”

“So be it,” Death declares before disappearing.

Fiadh’s wounds close, fading to scars. Her chest rises and falls again, although she’s still asleep. I cradle her prone form in my arms, grinning. It’s time to start our new lives together. I unleash my wings and carry her away into the night.