Page 69 of The Flesh Remembers
She clenched her jaw, shaking her head.
He grabbed her wrist, guiding her palm to his chest, where something inside him pulsed, something inhuman. The heat of it surged up her arm, igniting a familiar pang between her thighs. The connection burned, and suddenly, she wasn’t sure where she ended and he began.
"Say it, Eleanor. Or I’ll take it anyway."
Her lips parted, a whisper slipping free before she could stop it.
"You."
Then his mouth was on hers, brutal, consuming. Eleanor’s nails raked down his back, the bite of pleasure laced with something darker, something that bound her even tighter to the monster he had become. Her mind screamed, but her body yielded, burning for him, desperate for the only release he could give her.
He swallowed every sound she made, every last flicker of resistance, until she was nothing but trembling limbs and shattered breath, lost in him, lost in the darkness.
And she knew this was not love.
This was possession.
Eleanor jolted awake, her body slick with sweat, the damp fabric clinging to her skin. Her pulse thundered in her ears as she whispered the same reassurance repeatedly; it was just a dream. But the words rang hollow when she turned to the mirror, where the unmistakable impressions of bite marks bloomed angrily across her breasts, stark against the dim light.
The letter arrived that night, silent, impossible.
Eleanor had locked her door, and no one had entered. Yet, it sat on her bedside table, waiting.
The parchment was aged; its edges curled like something unearthed from a grave. Deep crimson ink smelled faintly metallic, like rust, like blood. She knew the seal before she even touched it.
Lord Blackwood. The architect of their descent.
Her fingers trembled as she unfolded the letter, the paper brittle beneath her touch.
My dearest child,
Did you genuinely believe it was over? Did you think you could slip away, untouched?
The garden may wither, but the roots remain.
James is only the beginning.
And so are you.
The world is not yet ready for what we have birthed.
But it will be.
The wax seal throbbed beneath her fingertips. A heartbeat. A promise. Awarning.
Something pressed against the edges of her mind, familiar, terrible. She wasnotalone.
Excerpt from the diary of Dr. Eleanor Ashcroft
I ran from him. I fled like a thief, slipping into the night without thought, without plan only instinct, only desperation.
But now that I am alone, I can’t recall when the decision was truly made. Did I choose to leave, or did something force me to flee?
The thought churns inside me. Did I really believe I could return to my old life? That, after all I have seen and done, I could simply step back into the ordinary, slip into the skin of the woman I was before?
I am not her anymore. I know that.
And yet, I linger. I hover between realities; caught between the life I abandoned and the one waiting for me if I return.
