Page 89 of Shadows in Bloom

How is this happening?

“Because I willed it so,” the voice in my head whispers into my ear, the voice more human this time. In fact…it almost sounds like mine. “Feels good, right?”

I try to shake my head, my nostrils flaring as a wave of Winfred’s scent washes over me. Her lavender soap. Her arousal, musky and sweet.

She’s so close…

So close and yet not enough.

I watch as my hand appears in the corner of my eye, guided by the shadows between our bodies, fingers curling gently around Winifred’s throat.

Her pulse flutters rapidly against my fingers as the tip of my nose dips toward hers. My hair falling around our faces, the inky black ropes getting lost in the shadows writhing around us, pressing down on me, pinning me against Winifred.

That hair-raising foul breath of the thing ensnaring us coasts over my ear once again, followed by the slippery forked tip of a tongue flicking at my lobe. Another cry sounds from behind my clamped lips.

“Look at her. She thinks it’s a dream. A good dream, by the looks and smell of it.”

I try to close my eyes—hold my breath—but it’s no use.

“Go on, take what you need from her. You know you want to. You’ve been dying for it, haven’t you?”

It’s not until the lean, lithe silky-soft body beneath me arches up, wedging a thigh between my legs, right where I throb hotly through my thin lace shorts, that I realize the words weren’t for me this time.

She’s talking to Winifred.

My throat constricts with a pleasured moan I have no hope of containing, one that actually manages to escape me. And it’s in that moment, Winifred’s eyes fly open on a gasp, her body going eerily still.

Confusion swirls in her bleary eyes when she takes me in, doing very little to bury her arousal. Flushed cheeks, blown pupils, chest heaving…

She’s as gone for this as I am.

Her lips move, tracing my name—the nickname she used to use for me. Ophie.

She’s so close…

“Yesssss. She issss.”

So, so close…

“Just say the word, and this can be all yoursssss. All…yourssss…”

I…

Winifred’s chin trembles, and she cranes up toward me ever so slightly, like she can’t help herself. Lips parted, eyes crinkled and pleading like she too aches from within—hungers for what could’ve been…

“Say it. Say the word, and you can have thissss. You both can have thissss.”

A beat passes, then?—

“Right, little bunny?”

The voice this time is mine.

But it’s…it’s not me.

It—she—the thing…

It’s using me…

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