Page 89 of Demon Monster's Little Human

She’s weakening.

The bond between us makes it impossible to ignore.

My jaw tightens, fury spiking through me at the reality of it. She should not have this power over me. And yet, every nerve in my body is on fire, my mind snarling against the way it craves her. The longer I go without seeing her, the more I want her.

The more I need to claim what is mine.

I track her through the smell of her blood, faint but unmistakable, a whisper against the night air. The wounds she carries are slowing her down, and though I should take satisfaction in it, I don’t. I only feel restless, agitated. My muscles coil tight, my wings twitching with the instinct to close the distance.

She is close.

I slip through the trees, their canopies a hollow shelter against the moonlit sky. The land shifts, slopes downward, the smell of water and stone thick in the air.

I see her.

She stands at the edge of the cliff, the wind tearing at her hair, her dress clinging to the slender shape of her frame. She is still, the tension in her shoulders unreadable.

My breath halts in my chest, though I don’t understand why.

She is waiting.

She must sense me.

As if hearing the unspoken demand in my mind, she turns.

The instant her eyes meet mine, something sharpens, fractures, a moment stretched unbearably thin.

She is crying.

The sight of it knocks the air from my lungs, but the emotion that follows is nothing but raw, blinding rage.

Why is she crying?

She ran. She did this. She betrayed me.

Yet, when she looks at me, it is not with fear.

It is with relief.

A soft, broken sort of peace settles across her face, and I feel it like a wound. Like a betrayal.

She does not get to look at me like that.

She does not deserve peace.

"Don’t."

The word rips from my throat, the command instinctive, absolute.

But she smiles. A faint, wistful thing.

She steps backward.

Lets herself fall.

The world collapses in on itself, and something inside me changes, vicious and unforgiving.

"No!"

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