| CHAPTER SEVEN |

Your claws are out and they tear at my flesh and bones. They dig into me as though attempting to prove we are the same. That beneath all the surface lie black wings ready to spring forward, to reach out and embrace your own. I stare at the slope of your neck, the way it bows as you cower into the safety of the bed and wonder what it would be like to press my hands against it. To grasp and never let go as I watch your lips part a final time. Stealing your breath forever. I grab your thigh instead, trace corded muscle and soft skin, all ready to be taken apart.

"You like that?" It's not even a question that needs answering. I know what you like. I've always known, it's just so rare that you let me prove it. The way you look at me though, as though no one else had ever dared to ask you such a thing, sets me ablaze. Your mouth is hot against mine, needing, wanting, teeth clashing in your desire to taste more than just insincerity and self-hatred. I thrust harder just to hear your breath stutter, to see the light in your eyes dim before coming back twice as bright. There's something there. Not entirely love, but something you don't want me to see.

You grow desperate, hard against my stomach and I tense as you grind up against me. The molten heat of your skin sets my own ablaze and I crumble against you, hold you tighter as you sigh out, pleased. You want more but for once I'm afraid to give it you.

More would end this moment. A moment that is already too finite as it is.

I kiss you again, softer, slower and try not to groan when you fight back. Your bite is sharp, fingers like daggers, and the flame behind your eyes darkens as you stake your claim over me. My back hits the sheets before I can fight back, cold against the clutch of your body.

Shadows twist and lay themselves across your shoulders, cutting away the few strips of light allowed to enter the room. The rays streak through my hair, scattering across my chest and heart then die the instant they reach you. When you lean forward, dragging your mouth along my jaw with lust, the darkness consumes me too.

There is nothing pleasant about what comes next. It's the way every night we spend together draws to a close. We fuck.

No other word can match the level of carnage savagery that comes when you wreck my body and take it for your own. We fuck until the bed clatters a hole into your bedroom wall and my fingers all but tear the sheets to shreds. We fuck until your breath becomes my own and I shatter within your arms, a cage which has never felt so liberating. There is nothing but you, your body, and the crushing weight of my crooked halo is gone in the ruthless embrace of your gluttony. We fuck until you tell me it's time to go and I let you push me out of bed, heat leeching out onto the cold wood floors as I search for my clothes and dignity.

"I'll be in Folk River in a month," you say. You haven't moved from the bed, free and naked in your recline against the sheets. I grab my shirt from the floor, wrestle it over my head and ignore the ache in my back. The muscles twitch, flutter back into place and you let out a serpentine hum. There's hesitation in your next words. "Don't contact me until then."

"I never do." I tell you and we both know I'm lying. Some point the longing will become too much, the ache in my ribs suffocating and I'll need to at least just look at you again.

Thirty days is too long. I won't even last a day.

"Heaven's only something that can be enjoyed in small doses," you say, each word carefully weighted. You flick your tongue, forked at the tip as the next words spill from your lips like venom. "The way you're craving more makes it sound like hell's more up your alley."

I stare over at you, at the curve of your body in the darkness. The need to consume you the same way each black stroke of nothingness does is back with a vengeance, but I push it back down. I meet your eyes, colder than I remember and far too calculated for the relaxed nature of your face.

"If hell is where you are, then I guess I'll see you there."

You smile. But it's not warm, it's celebratory. You sit up right, wave a finger my way, as though beckoning a sheep for the slaughter and it's cold. I wish I hadn't left my jacket downstairs.

"Come and give the devil a kiss then before you go."