Page 10 of Delectable Soul

“I don’t trust you. You’re the only man that has made me feel anything since Daire’s death, but you tricked me. You trapped me like unsuspecting prey in the woods. Then you feasted upon me and left me bloody and more broken than before.”

I am not a human man, Wild One, let alone a good man. I’ll forever be a Sluagh, a monster doomed to roam the world and feast upon the souls of the broken-hearted and dying. A creature so depraved that Death steers clear of me and the Unseelie faeries won’t even claim me as their own.I grab her throat and pull her closer to me, so that I’m whispering into her ear.But I can promise you that if you let me, I’ll make sure you’re never in pain again.

“How? By tearing my soul from my body and killing me? I don’t want to die,” she pleads, grasping at my claw, trying to pry it off her neck. I run my nose up the column of her neck, still smelling the blood from the open cut my talon left behind.

I won’t kill you. I’m going to rebirth you, create you in a different image where you’ll never be bogged down by your pain and suffering again.She stops crying, pulling away to pierce me with a questioning stare.

“You’ll end this? Free me from this life I’ve thought about ending so many times before?”

Yes. As long as you accept that you’re mine.Whether she accepts it or not, she’ll always be mine. She can never run fast enough, or far enough from me. She’ll never be able to hide from me.

From the moment I smelled her tantalizing scent in the air, she belonged to me.

She’s silent, a contemplative look on her face. I tap into her soul, so I can know what she’s feeling. Images from the past six months swirl around in her mind, drowning her in a salty sadness I can taste in the air.

The police coming to her door to tell her the worst news she’ll ever hear.

Her husband’s closed casket funeral. A man she dislikes and her mother leaving directly after and barely giving her the time of day.

Her Granda holding her as she sobs at the wake, begging her to come stay with him.

Neighbors whispering behind her back.

Days and nights spent in bed, drowning in her tears and anxiety.

Bottles and bottles of pills and alcohol that never numb the pain.

Hallucinations and dreams. The police coming again. A stint in a mental health facility.

Empty hope that is never fulfilled.

She stares me in the eye, and nods, closing her eyes in acceptance of her fate.

Words. I need to hear you say the words and accept your fate aloud.

“Take away my pain,” she squeaks through tears. “I don’t want to live this way anymore.”

I don’t warn her that this will hurt. For her to be free she needs to experience a final pain as payment. Before I collect her soul, I kiss her warm, plump lips and run my talons down the swell of her hips. I need to have her one more time in this form, experience the heat of her body before it’s gone forever. Breaking our kiss, she gasps for air and tries to push me away.

I push her against a tree and weave my talons through her hair, pulling her head back and opening her neck up to me. I bite, sinking my fangs into her neck to leave my mark. My claim that she’ll carry forever, and only her. I’ve never given anyone such an honor before.

I move down her throat, leaving bites as I go until I reach her collarbone. She cries and gasps in pain with every bite. I retract my claws so I can massage her breasts. She’s the image of temptation when her body is covered in my marks. They’re the ultimate decoration for her impending transformation.

I slowly lick every drop of blood off her body. Its tangy taste mixed with a hint of sweat makes me salivate. I run my tongue over her nipple, grazing my teeth against it. She moans as she grinds her body against mine; it begs for a release only I can give her. I bite down on her nipple, then switch to the other one while I kick her legs apart to dip two fingers inside her. My languorous, deep strokes have her squirming and reaching down to grab my hand in an effort to make me hurry my pace. I tease her, bringing her to the edge of orgasm and back over and over again.

“Please,” she begs. “Stop torturing me.”

“Wild One, the torture has just begun,” I promise her.

Fear flashes through her crystal blue eyes and her velvety sex is dripping by the time I finally let her come. I grab her hips and hoist her higher, forcing her to wrap her legs around my waist right before I impale her with my cock. Her pained screams turn to moans as I piston my hips, thrusting deeper inside her with reckless abandon. The thoughts swirling through my head push me to fuck her even harder, to the point that the tree bark is cutting into her back.

I’m claiming my prey. I chased her through the forest, hunted her down, and will take her for myself. Left my marks all over her so everyone knows who she belongs to. And now, I’m going to take her soul and keep it for eternity.

She tightens around me, strangling my cock as she falls apart again.

She sags against the tree in her post-lust haze after I come inside her, completely blissed out with pleasure. Wasting no time, I flick my talons out and slash open her chest, tearing through muscle and bones to reveal her beating heart. A small cloud of pale, golden mist rises from the wound.Her soul is as beautiful as she is.Only the truly good have a golden soul, and they always taste the richest. Electric gratification vibrates throughout my entire body, and I consume every last morsel of her humanity.

Holding her prone, blood soaked body to my chest, I gently lay her on the ground so her pale, youthful face is bathed in moonlight. The air is rife with spirits and energies one can only find on Samhain. I summon the second darkest being to walk the Earth–Death. A tall, thin figure cloaked in an opaque black robe appears. Her entire face is covered by a hood, and only a bony hand is visible where her flared sleeves hang back. Death glows with an aura of atrocity one can only gain by plucking the dying from earth and carrying them across the veil. When she approaches me, she bows her head in fear and deference.

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