Page 58 of Cruel Cravings

She shakes her head in frustration, a cry bubbling out of her. The panic explodes from within. She’s terrified of me, convinced this is her worst nightmare.

“Stay away!” she yells, backing up.

“No,” I answer simply in my thick voice. My grin spreads from behind my mask. “Never.”

It’s the prompt she needs to make her next move.

Jael flees.

She runs for it, vaulting over the wooden banister and landing in a heap on the grass below. Quickly bouncing to her feet, she’s up and sprinting in impressive fashion. But I’m in no rush even as she races toward the trees. I’m her shadow and no matter how far she runs, I’ll be right there with her, playing this latest game of cat and mouse.

We have all night.

19.Jael

Vampire - Persia White

The world feels distant, like I’m no longer a participant in what’s happening. I’m stuck behind glass, disconnected from my own body. I’m watching as Brontë appears on the cabin porch, huge and hulking in his minotaur mask, a creature from my nightmares.

He’s monstrous as he rips the deputy away from me and then batters him to a bloody pulp. The deputy doesn’t stand a chance. He’s lifted off his feet like he’s not a grown man, he’s a toy to be played with. Just something to be rattled and smashed.

Brontë snaps his neck. He slams his head into the wooden beams on the porch. He tosses him away and then quickly returns to bash his face in some more.

The deputy never even has the opportunity to fight back.

It’s a brutality that I’ve never seen before.

It’s the kind of violence that only a beast could be capable of. No sane, civilized man could ever be so barbaric, so primitive.

When he’s done, streaks of blood paint the cabin porch. Both officers lay dead. McGrath from the bullet to the chest. Dudley far less lucky.

I’m still frozen in shock, disturbed to my core. My limbs refuse to move until Brontë turns toward me.

Sweat slicks his large, scarred body, gleaming in the sunlight. His thick veins throb as his chest rises and falls, his ragged breaths suddenly the only sound I hear. Shattered chunks of the wooden chair are still chained to his arms, proving how he’d muscled his way to freedom and confirming what I’d suspected all along—he could’ve escaped anytime he wanted to.

He simply didn’t because this was always some sick game to him. Just another way he was toying with me.

The minotaur mask hides his mangled face, but his dark and violent eyes pierce through. They tell me all I need to know.

The roles between us have never reversed. I’m still the prey and he’s still the predator.

Every instinct screams at me to run. My legs struggle to obey as I push myself to my feet and shout at him to stay away.

The sick humor bleeds into his rough, low voice.

“No. Never.”

Maybe the most disturbingly real words he’s ever spoken to me. It’s the plain and simple truth that he’ll never stop following me. I’ll never be rid of him no matter what I do. No matter where I go.

Yet I still can’t give in. I refuse to let him take me over. I have to fight until the very end.

Run. RUN!

I throw myself over the porch banister and crash into the grass below. The rough landing knocks the air out of me. Palms stinging and knees scraped up, my adrenaline refuses to slow down. I scramble to my feet and then take off toward the trees.

It’s the only direction I can head in without having to pass the monster behind me.

The porch steps creak one by one as Brontë makes his slow and deliberate descent. Each step feels like a countdown. He’ll reach me in no time.

---