Page 110 of When Death Whispers

“Fuck y?—”

But the creatures are already on us. They charge, snarling and screeching. And my monster—my monster—doesn’t hesitate.

He moves like inevitability. Like a force the world itself cannot stop.

Every motion is precise, devastating—less like a fight, more like a reckoning. One creature lunges, and he meets it mid-leap, catching it by the throat and slamming it to the ground hard enough to rattle the trees. Before another can reach me, his cloak flares and a shadow launches, cleaving through the mist and impaling the creature mid-air—stopping it a breath from tearing into me.

Holy fuck.

I should be running again.

But I can’t seem to move. It’s as if I’m frozen, rooted to the spot.

Because I’ve seen him stalk. I’ve seen him haunt. But I’ve never seen himprotect.

And the way he moves—brutal and precise, like every creature that dares to touch me is an offense—does something to me.

It terrifies me.

Awes me.

And somewhere, deep in my chest, it stirs something darker. Something I don’t want to name.

Because I don’t know what’s worse—watching him kill for me.

Or how it makes me feel.

I shake myself. No, hekilledDonovan and Jenna. And no telling how many others in my life. I cannotstart feeling some type a way about my fucking monster. I need to move. I refuse to become his next prey.

Something in the fog moves and it’s not like one of the creatures he’s fighting. It’s smaller, smarter, and it slithers toward me through the haze, low to the ground. No snarls. No noise. Just that steady, inevitable crawl.

Then—

A shadow peels away from its body and slides toward me. It moves across the ground like oil on water. And when it touches my ankle—I freeze.

It’s cold and heavy. Suffocating. It steals my breath. But the thing is?

It’s not wholly unfamiliar.

No.I know this.

I know the way it presses against my skin.

This is what Steorfan used to feel like.

Before he found me in Creek Haven. Before the aching intimacy and the twisted comfort. Back when he was just a shadow. A monster.

The creature’s shadow slides higher—across my thigh, my waist. My heart stutters. My chest locks.

This is the feeling that haunted my childhood. That made me afraid to sleep. That whispered to me from the closet, from beneath the bed, from the corners of my mind.

But this isn’t Steorfan.

It onlyfeelslike how he used to be.

And somehow, that’s worse.

Because it means…

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