Page 15 of Collected By the Crow

“What have I become?” he ridiculed.

It was the image of her hips swishing, her lush thighs rubbing together in that heavenly way, that finally did it. The bump below his navel tingled, a tremor that shot straight down to his cock.

“Blast it, there’s no hope.”

He sat in front of his thick silver laptop. It powered on slowly, the aged fan inside working triple-time. He navigated to the web, patiently allowing the device to catch up. He had to find answers to his burning questions. It’d been centuries since he’d last lain with anyone, and even then, it’d been a vampire woman who worked on his twisted team. A brave scientist who later sacrificed her life to defy Dracula VI. As he typed his question, he muttered it aloud.

“How to please a human woman?” He backspaced the word human and clicked search.

He clicked through the first few articles, which all detailed the many ways to a woman’s heart through cosmetics and clothing. After amending his search to add the word intimately, the onslaught of images, articles, and videos was total overwhelm.

The first link he clicked nearly gave him an aneurysm. The couples in the thumbnails acted out scenarios much like he’d done with lovers centuries ago, but with a lot less blood and teeth. His cock stiffened at the thought of sharing these experiences with Cassandra, but when he scrolled past one with a female wearing a long white lab coat, he couldn’t suppress his groan. Clicking the video, he had a dire urge to palm himself.

With his upper hands, he clutched the monitor in a death grip as he undid his trousers with his lowers. His cock sprang free from the bonds that’d kept it under wraps for nearly half a millennium. It bobbed back and forth in front of his bump. The circular ridge of puckered skin was another blasted gift of the curse. Thankfully, it hadn’t developed into a full-blown cloaca, though it did seep with mating liquid similar to the pearl steadily growing at the slit of his cock. He hesitated as he reached for the gray rod, wondering if he’d still know what to do if he ever found himself in Cassandra’s arms.

“Damnation!” Qadaire slammed the laptop closed and hastily pulled his trousers over his waist, shoving the offending appendage back where it came from.

For the next few hours, he worked out harder than ever. With his super speed suppressed, he ran to feel the burn. He climbed the many staircases in the mansion, counting every single step he took, as though he could outrun the images swirling through his imagination.

Chapter Nine

Qadaire

When the human returned, Qadaire gravitated to the front room. She held a few plastic sacks and a brown bag that smelled like grease. His nose scrunched at the unappealing scent.

“That bad, huh?” Cass laughed. “I guess if you haven’t had fast food before, it’s pretty bad.”

“Most of my food is fast. But I am faster.”

Cass snorted. “Another joke? You know, you’re actually pretty funny!”

Qadaire smiled smugly, although he resented the actually. He was funny. Who said he couldn’t be funny? Had the crows been telling rumors to her pup?

He led Cass to what used to be the servant’s kitchens. He cringed inwardly at the amount of dust everywhere as he cleared cobwebs and helped arrange things into cabinets. She reached into the offensive-smelling brown sack and pulled out a long, greasy thing whose smell could hardly pass for a potato.

“Would you like to play a game?”

“Huh?” Cassandra’s hand paused in mid-air. Her pulse sped up, her heart pumping an especially tart beat of citrus. “What, like, a-a scary game?”

What on earth was she talking about?

“You dislike board games?” He frowned. “Everyone likes board games.”

Cassandra started to laugh. It was a remarkable sound that made him instinctively lean closer to inhale her sweet, sweet scent, but it didn’t appease his confusion.

“Sorry. Wow! You scared me!” She straightened and ate the potato string. “There’s this old horror movie—I mean, yeah, let’s play a game. As long as it’s not Twister. You’d have an unfair advantage.”

Would he ever understand this human and all the nonsense she spoke of? The desire to know her inside and out hit him like a piano over the head, followed by the equally painful knowledge that he never would.

“Right this way.”

Zero was curled up under the table. His tail perked up at their entrance, but his head didn’t move. Cassandra kneeled to scratch his ears while Qadaire pulled out the wooden chair for her.

“What is this game? It looks so old.”

“Most of what you’ll find around here is old.”

“Oh?” He could practically hear the questions rattling around inside Cassandra’s mind as she took her seat. He knew which one she would land on. “How old are you, anyway?”

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