Page 26 of Yearning For Her

He glanced aside as he passed the polished windows of an office building. The reflection that greeted him was only moderately familiar. His cheeks were sunken, his eyes dim, and his skin had taken on an unsettling gray undertone even through his glamour. Though his body was hidden by his clothing, he knew what it looked like beneath. He’d always been lean, but he was thinner than ever now.

Four hundred years of inhuman vitality and beauty had nearly withered away in a mere three weeks.

He turned his face forward and kept walking. Willpower alone drove him onward. He wasn’t even sure how he was maintaining a corporeal form. His core, his magic, was so depleted that it was a wonder he hadn’t crumbled to dust. And as he’d weakened, his hunger had grown. It was impossibly vast now, impossibly dark and imposing. It was agony.

Kian had been a creature of desire, pleasure, lust. Now he’d become a thing of spite. He would not let the Fates win this cruel game. He would not succumb to this.

How could it be so difficult to find a woman with purple hair? A woman whose face was so ingrained in his mind that he saw it every time he closed his eyes, whose essence was so embedded in his soul that the memory of her haunted him at every turn.

He filled his lungs with air that reeked of garbage, sun-warmed concrete, and exhaust fumes.

If only he could’ve drawn something, anything, from anyone else, he would’ve had more energy to dedicate to finding Willow. But even the simple little pleasures humans constantly experienced had done nothing for him. Before, they would’ve been like snowflakes upon his tongue, not enough to quench his thirst but enough to dull it.

They were no better than ash to him now.

No. I will find her. I will have her. She is mine, and she will lift this spell, break this curse…

And then what? What could possibly come after that?

The answer that drifted up from the depths of his soul was quiet, soft, and startling.

I will keep her.

A harsh breath escaped his lips. Head spinning, he braced a hand on the low wall sectioning off the outdoor eating space of the restaurant he’d been passing. That thought couldn’t have been his own. That wasn’t how he worked, wasn’t how he survived.

Pleasure always faded over time. It was as fleeting as the lives of the mortals who experienced it.

Humans were also finite. Even if a single feeding did them no harm, they only had so much to offer before there was nothing left—and in the modern world, a great many of them were pushing themselves to that point without any help from Kian’s kind.

The notion of a single human acting as the sole source of sustenance for an incubus was laughable. It was the pinnacle of ridiculousness.

And yet…

One night with Willow had sustained him for six days. Not just sustained him, but sated him. He didn’t know what was different about her, didn’t know why she’d had that effect, but he knew he needed her. The why didn’t matter right now.

All that mattered was that he find her. Soon.

Kian closed his eyes and steadied his breathing. The city’s sounds wrapped around him—driving cars, honking horns, conversations from the nearby diners, the jarring cacophony of heavy equipment at a construction site. So much noise, so many people. Mortal cities had changed to an unbelievable degree during his lifetime, but their cores remained unaltered—people. People amassed in these places, so Kian had always relied upon cities to survive, to thrive.

But if he were able to feed himself from a single mortal…

Desire flowed all around him, so much of it from so many people that it formed an ocean, its waters rippling gently beneath clear skies but churning under the surface. All that potential, and nothing he could do with it. All that energy and no way to siphon it.

His heart skipped a beat as something familiar brushed against his senses. The breath caught in his lungs, and he held it there, expanding his awareness, searching out the thread that had teased him.

Just a whisper, nothing more, but so familiar, so strong, so alluring. He straightened, tightening his hold on the wall as he sharpened his focus, as he sifted through the desire of dozens of insignificant mortals to find that one strand he sought.

Laughter carried to him from amongst the nearby tables, and Kian’s heart burst into motion. It poured fire into his veins, flooded him with delicious heat, opened a well of strength hidden deep inside him. In that instant, he felt more solid, more real, more powerful than he had in weeks.

He felt more hopeful than he had in weeks.

That laugh, light, high, and unassuming, unburdened by self-consciousness, that true, heartfelt laughter, belonged to Willow. It was a sound he’d longed to hear for what felt like an eternity, and it washed over him like balm for his flagging soul.

His eyes flashed open. Somehow, he only turned his head toward the source of that heavenly sound, though his whole body itched with the urge to vault the low wall and charge toward it headlong.

Willow was sitting at one of the patio tables across from another female, her green eyes bright, her pink lips curved into a wide smile—a smile which she bestowed upon the waiter as he returned her card with a receipt.

Kian gritted his teeth, swallowing a wave of fury. After all this time, the first laughter he’d heard from her was not for him, the first smile he’d seen on her face was not for him. Her happiness was not for him.

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