Page 40 of Primal Hunger

Taking her in the woods was different. She hadn’t exactly been willing but aroused enough to make it a pleasurable process for her. This time, she made the decision herself.

She’s soft, delicate, dainty. Everything I’m not, but it makes me want to be careful with her.

I’m not willing to break her.

Not until I get to the bottom of the feelings inside me.

“So you’d hold your partner like this,” she says, positioning my arms out in front of me. “You can be closer, or farther away, and you move in step together to the music. It can be kind of romantic depending on the dance style…” Her voice trails off and she tugs me until I move, swaying with her to the music. “There you go. You’re getting it.”

The size difference between us is astonishing.

She is like a tiny toy compared to my towering frame. Yet something between us works. Something in the way our forms move together where it seems as though we are of one mind.

It’s strange, and would be laughed at by anyone else of my kind. But for what it’s worth, for Erin to take the time to teach me about things I’ve never seen, even when I plan to devour her eventually…I enjoy it.

She looks up at me, her eyes boring into mine, and for the second time I’m taken aback by her beauty. Dark lashes fan out across pale cheeks when she blinks. She’s unlike anything I’ve ever seen before, foreign and gorgeous. Like a moon goddess with her pale hair and small, perfect features.

The perfect rose of her lips, lifted in a slight grin, entrances me.

And then a sliver of doubt enters my mind. Something I hadn’t considered before.

What if I…don’tkill her?

Is it even an option when I’m starving?

So far, I’ve managed to sustain myself through the time between solstices with several herbs and plants along my riverbank. They aren't much, and they don’t give me the energy of a fresh kill, but they’ve worked to get me this far.

What if I keep her forever as a pet?

Learning from her what I can, enjoying her how I want. I don’t know that it’s ever been done before, but surely another Grim at some point has kept their human prey for longer than a few days.

We are not a talkative bunch. There is no connection or contact between the Grims, each of us only doing our best to keep living. As such, I have no way of knowing what has or has not been done before.

It would be incredibly dangerous, and she could never venture far from the house. I’d prefer if she never went outside at all, but I know that’s impossible.

Eventually, she will want to wander and explore this world, as is natural.

The curiosity in her is not the sort to be banked.

Erin won’t take kindly to being kept inside for the rest of her life.

My home would be her own personal prison, but I don’t care. I’ll keep her here if that’s what it takes. And if things get too dangerous, if other Grims come snooping, I’ll kill her. I won’t let them take her away from me.

We dance together in time to the music on the radio and her touch is delicate.

A low growl rumbles in my chest as I consider the gravity of what keeping her would mean and the changes to my own existence. Can I really go against everything I’ve ever known and fight the hunger burning through me just to keep her alive? Ignore the yearning to eat her flesh and drain her body of everything it has to give?

I shake my head, annoyed that I’m even considering such things. This has to be her doing, because I would never willingly deny my hunger on my own.

Is she some kind of witch? Seductress?

I wasn’t aware that humans possessed such powers, but there’s no other explanation. The way we’re swaying is hypnotic, almost as though she’s swaying my thoughts without much input from me, and I don’t like it.

I can’t fight it, and the longer I stand here, the stronger the pull is.

I’m aroused by her in more ways than simply physical.

Abruptly, I pull away and step back, breaking whatever spell she’d had on me. Thoughts of keeping her here fade, replaced by my aching hunger, but there’s still so much I need to know. So much knowledge I can obtain before I kill her.

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