Page 67 of Demon Monster's Little Human

She’s on her side, her body barely covered by the tattered sheet. Her breathing is uneven, lips slightly parted, skin flushed in the dim light filtering through the cracks in the wooden walls.

The smell of her blood, laced with mine, still lingers in the room.

I swallow against the tightness in my throat.

She shouldn’t look like this.

She shouldn’t feel like this.

I tell myself it’s the binding. That this pull is nothing but the effects of shared blood, of magic that should never have intertwined.

But it’s a lie.

Because even before the blood, before the magic, before any of it… I wanted her.

The realization is like a stone dropping into my gut.

I watch her shift, her body arching slightly as she turns onto her back, exposing the delicate line of her throat, the curve of her collarbone, the slope of her waist beneath the sheets.

My claws flex.

She’s clueless as to what she’s done to me.

She’s clueless about what she’s become.

What I’ve made her.

I should wake her.

I should shake her until she hates me, until she understands what a mistake this is.

But instead, I reach out.

My fingers graze the side of her face, just once. Just once.

But once is never enough.

The moment I touch her, something inside me breaks.

Heat.

Pure, consuming, wildfire heat erupts in my veins, spreading through every inch of me.

She shifts beneath my touch, her breath catching.

I should pull away.

I should stop.

But she leans into me.

Suddenly, it is no longer about logic, no longer about restraint. It is about need.

Mine.

28

LIORA

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