Page 78 of Born for Lace

My little flower?

Well, fuck me.

“Lagos! You’ll bleed out there,” I hear called after me. The voice belongs to a nameless, faceless no one, though her pussy would know my cock.

I may bleed—it’s the least I deserve for touching her again. Tainting those sweet, inexperienced lips.

The Missing Moon is vengeful tonight, leaving The Cradle in stark, deathly darkness as I pace. Feeling the wind lash my hide-like skin, I beg for more. More lashes. More violence.

I open my arms, pulsing my muscles, wanting them to rip free of my skin. Show me I’m human! Prove it! Make me feel. Give me agony. Regret. Make me feel just a slither of what she makes me feel so I can be worthy… So I can be worthy of her touch.

There has to be more sensation than this left inside me. I feel nothing until she looks at me, and then too much too suddenly. I can’t keep it.

The feeling.

It comes and goes with her.

Why her?

I don’t fucking know. Perhaps it’s that tight, untouched body—I am a fucking beast after all. Innocence is like honey. But I’ve seen innocence and beauty before, tasted it, fucked it, killed it. But her…

Being with her as she fights the pain in her ribcage, strong upper-lipped. As she explores her new freedoms, her own thoughts, her sweet awe.

Perhaps it was watching her stifle tears to breastfeed another woman’s child, a Xin De, at that. A creature, not a human, and then to watch her…fail.

To. Watch. Her. Fail.

I felt more than I’ve felt in decades, almost more than was bearable.

I wander around this land like a mere part of the landscape, acting on impulse, owing my life to Tomar, so I serve him. But I’m not experiencing anything anymore—agony, happiness, joy, devastation. It’s all been bled from me, drained to a husk of male flesh.

I inhale the wind, daring it to shred my nostrils as it should, fill my lungs and drown me, blind me?—

Nothing happens.

Inhuman—the gills in my nostrils activate, filtering and removing the shards from my indestructible body, and my nictitating membrane slides to shield my irises. And the numb… the numbness I feel in response to a gruelling Redwind is enough for me to abandon the idea of her.

And me.

And us.

I know what I said, what I want, what her body wants, but I won’t take more from her than I already have. I should stop this now.

Because I’m not fucking human, not organic, not real—I will not taint her further with my bloodied hands.

I rear to the left and head back inside, heaving, chest pumping.

My eyes dart around, landing on a girl by the bar, petite in stature, with medium length, red hair—she’ll do. I can turn her around, wrap that red hair around my fist, and rearrange her guts, never looking at her face—pretend it is her. Get my fix—calm the fuck down.

“Yes?” The redhead slinks from the bar as my hot gaze burns through her, my intent ripping her clothes off. Hopeful stupidity quirks her lips.

“Are you clean?” I stalk forward. The little thing caught in my snare flushes across her chest and to her cheeks.

She nods. “Yes, Lagos.”

I smell her heated arousal in the smoky air.

“I know what I look like to you.” I stop in front of her, forcing her to crank her neck back just to hold my sharp gaze. “I know you like what you see, but I’m fucking ugly on the inside, believe me. Are you ugly on the inside?”

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