Page 123 of Claimed In Darkness

Not gentle.

Not careful.

Just desperate. A man who is too afraid to lose everything he never thought he needed.

Her body tenses beneath my grip.

But she does not pull away.

She wants me to see it.

Wants me to feel it.

Wants me to understand.

Her skin is cold.

Not dead.

Not lifeless.

But wrong.

Like the warmth has been drained from her bones, like the blood in her veins is moving too slow, too thick, too fucking unnatural.

Like she is no longer meant to exist in the way she once did.

The pulse beneath my fingers.

Not absent.

Not gone.

But changing.

A slow, shifting rhythm, no longer steady, no longer human.

Something else.

Something worse.

And she is not fighting it.

It dawns to me that she is choosing this.

My grip tightens.

"You don’t have to do this."

She tilts her head slightly, gaze flicking up to mine.

Cool.

Measured.

Distant.

"Do what?"

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