Page 35 of When Death Whispers

The shadows inch closer, tendrils of darkness reaching toward me. My heart thunders as I remember the way they felt on my skin in the shower. Something I don’t want to name mixes with my fear, coiling tightly together. He inches closer, and yet, I don’t move.

“Hello, my Snow Pea,” he rasps, voice gravelly and inhuman. “You’re almost ready…” He inhales deeply, like he’s savoring something only he can scent. “And it will be… exquisite.”

The words slither around me like a vice, but there’s something hypnotic in the way he speaks, in the way his presence pulls at me. My instincts scream to run, to fight, to doanythingbut stand here as he closes the distance. But my feet are rooted to the floor.

The light in the living room flickers again, dimming as his shadowy tendrils coil tighter, wrapping around my ankles and creeping upward.

My breath catches—because it’s not just cold this time.

It’s heat, too.

Sharp, electric pulses skitter across my skin like static, waking up nerves I didn’t even know existed. My legs tremble. My thighs clench. My stomach twists, not in fear, but somethinglikeit.

I’ve never felt this before. Not when I was younger. Not in all the years he haunted my dreams. Back then, his touch was nothing but dread—pure, bone-deep terror that left me paralyzed.

But now?

Now it drags a gasp from my lips that’s too breathless, too eager. And I hate how easily it comes.

His burning orange eyes narrow, sensing it—the shift in me. The way my body reacts before I can even think to stop it.

I still can’t see a face, or hands, or any human shape. Just a towering outline. Smoke and darkness with eyes that see everything. Usually, he’s a wisp—suggestion, shadow. But tonight, he’s dense. Heavy. Real. And his presence presses in around me like a storm cloud ready to break.

“No,” I whisper, trying to breathe, trying to fight—but the word barely leaves my mouth.

The shadows crawl higher, squeezing my thighs, curling around my ribs, inching up between my breasts until it feels like my body might shatter under the pressure. My heart races, and my fear twists into… something else. Something hotter. Something worse.

A tendril strokes between my legs.

It moves over my pajama pants, but the fabric doesn’t matter. It feels like the shadows arebeneathit—beneath my skin—stroking, claiming, fervid. Hot and cold, deep and consuming, each brush more intense than the last. I want to scream. I want tostay. I want it to stop. I wantmore. All at once. All at the same time.

Then the shadow finds the wetness it caused.

His orange eyes burn brighter.

He doesn’t hesitate. The shadows pulse in approval, like they’re savoring the proof of my reaction. One moves higher, toward my throat, curling with a slow, terrifying grace.

“Parker,” he rasps, voice low and dark andfinal.

But underneath it… there’s something else.

And then?—

Light. Blinding, sudden light.

The other lamp in the corner flares to life, brighter than it should be. The shadows reel back. And from the hallway, a voice cuts through the room.

“That’s enough.”

It’s not loud. But itcrackles.

Standing in the doorway is... something out of a fever dream.

A creature leans casually against the doorframe between the living room and kitchen. He’s tall, his head almost touching the ceiling, his broad-shouldered frame covered in shadowy fur that ripples with every movement. Frost-blue eyes, the exact shade of mine, glint from beneath two curling horns that emerge from his head like jagged crowns.

His grin curls up, sharp and dangerous, revealing teeth too pointed to be human. His ears swivel towards me, as if listening to sounds I cannot hear. His clawed hands rest at his sides with deceptive ease, while his wolf-like feet grip the wood floor lightly, his tail flicking lazily behind him, completing the aura of predatory calm.

Where did he come from? How did I not notice someone,somethingthat big walk into my house?

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