Page 41 of How to Seduce a Slender

A portal would allow the rampaging beasts behind him to follow them. There would be no time to close the portal before they flew through it. He could blink a few hundred feet ahead of them...but then Melody would most likely spew pretty chunks all over the place.And getting sick in her condition would slow them down further.Plus, if he stopped to fight them, he’d have to put her down. She’d be open to attacks if he did. If he was going to hold onto the pretty werewolf in his arms...Smith had to actually run. And so, with his legs growing ever longer, he propelled them down the sidewalk at maximum velocity.

Melody shrieked, batting something before it could land on Smith’s back. If he took a moment to look, they’d crash. If he tried to fight them off, there was the chance they’d get Melody. If he did anything but run, things would get much worse. He needed to get ahead of this.

Smith hated being backed in between a rock and a hard place. Melody was in no position to fight her way out and without her werewolf side, there was no way she’d reasonably survive. Plus, eldritch beasts had a nasty habit of ripping into smaller versions of themselves so they could be more ravenous and annoying.He needed to lure out their keeper…their summoner.

“Nasty little bastards.” Smith rooted around in his pockets with a spare hand for anything helpful. He tossed a law textbook, several file folders, a stapler, a ruler, and a rubber chicken over his shoulder.Damnit, Kevin.Finally, he ripped out a spare copper pipe. They needed to make a stand outside the city, where the odds were even. Smith saw the barrier between the city and the woods grow closer. He needed to time it perfectly. But...first. “Ms. Deathless, I do apologize!”

“What!” she yowled, beating something with a spare branch she’d collected along the way. Then she twisted to growl, “Why!?!”

“For this!” Smith tossed Melody Deathless into the air as hard as he could manage. She screamed at the top of her lungs the whole way up. Smith came to a screeching halt before whipping around.

Beasts only wolven in shape, with several eyes, gaping maws, and tendrils of inky oblivion, lashed out toward him. Smith gripped the pipe with two hands and swung, ripping through the beasts like a hot knife through butter. They cleaved down the middle as the eldritch beasts rushed past him. He dropped the copper pipe, spinning on his ever-growing legs toward them. Looming like the very trees they limped around, the air began to shake. The snow stopped fluttering, instead turning into erratic, electric dots in the beasts’ vision. Static hissed around them as the beasts whipped left and right. Their eyes searched for Smith, sniffing the air with their split noses. They worked to put themselves together but there would be no time for them.

Hands the size of cranes descended from dark trees and closed around the shadowy beasts. His fingers sliced through them, rending them into pieces of their whole. Their snarls turned into wounded howls as they thrashed back and forth. Smith watched from the hazy gray sky as the beasts turned on each other, yelping and crying out for their master.

Everything stopped as a misshaped wolf stepped out of the trees. Like it walked around with broken bones that were forcibly made to move once more. A face made half of its skull, the rest was bloody matted fur. Chestnut brown, big ruby eyes, snarling with a singular fang bared through its skull side. The beast threw back its head. Instead of a howl, it sucked up the air. Smith pressed his heels into the ground as the forest around him was ripped away. The eldritch beasts were sucked up into a maw of rotating teeth that sawed through their smokey bodies.

Smith lunged for it, but in the half second it took Smith to act, the beast turned to ash...and disappeared.

Welp,That’s a bad sign.

Time returned to the realm. Snow began to float to the earth, collecting around him. And Melody screamed all the way back down. Through the canopy of trees, past frosted bark, and confused squirrels, all the way down into Smith’s arms.

Melody’s scream cut out with a grunt as she dropped into his hands.

“Hello, Ms. Deathless, long time no see,” he chuckled.

Melody sat still, staring at him with eyes blown wide and her mouth open. He wasn’t sure if she was going to punch him or scream or something. Shock was written all over her face. That melted away as she tried to speak but didn’t make a sound. Her face burned bright red. The hands she had gripping his shoulders dug into him tighter.

Then...very slowly...Smith realized a really crucial thing all of a sudden...somehow, in the quick exchange of blows...his gloves had been lost in the transaction.

And Melody fell into his arms, her dress blown wide.

And Smith was currently holding her, both palms flat and bare against the back of her thighs. Her dress draped around his arms and pinched up near her hips. Warmth flooded his system as Melody’s thighs clenched together. A soft whimper broke from her lips, “Can...can you put me down?”

“Oh...”

Oh no. Smith scrambled to oblige her. Melody immediately flattened the dress around her, face blistered, and shoulders rising and falling rapidly.

“Are-are-are they gone?”

“Yes, they’re gone. Melody, I am so—”

“Can we portal now?” she whimpered, peeking up at him.

“Yes! Yes, of course.” Embarrassment and dread filled him as he pulled the ring Sebastian provided them out of his jacket pocket.How could I be so foolish? Why wasthathow I fixed the problem? She’s probably shocked and betrayed.

Why did he toss her? He needed to remove her from the situation, lest the beasts get to her. Why did he not check for his gloves? Why did he think to catch her more modestly?

And gods, why did her legs tremble as she scurried through the crackling portal into the yard of Rosemont Manor…They needed to talk.

Chapter Fifteen

Melody

Ohno…ohno,no,no…Her legs were a wobbling mess, and her insides were tangled up. The sharp thrill and terror of being thrown, then landing in his hands…his palms pressed against her skin and the zap of his energy went right to her clit. There was no sugar coating it, she’d been on the edge of an orgasm and the shame radiating off her left her woozy. Warmth trickled down the inside of her legs and she wasn’t sure if that was delightful or terrifying.I might have peed a little? Who wouldn’t! He fucking chucked me into the air.She didn’t know what was going on, tried to scramble to grab onto something only to find a magical force pushing her up sharply and holding her there. It’s strange to be suspended in the air like time stopped. Even the bird in the sky above her froze in place.

Was that…was that him?Melody hadn’t been sure of the extent of a Slender’s power. Of course, there were stories about how they could lock down time in an area, freezing all those around it. Shadows, nightmares, stalking their prey, all things that were supposed to scare small children. So why did her insides clench when he ripped her back down into reality and dug his fingers into the backs of her thighs.He was so close, gods,Iwas so close, he could have just—

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