Page 64 of How to Seduce a Slender

She looked at Agatha who turned invisible, and to Kevin who looked down to Carl sat at his side. Hot, angry tears welled in Melody’s eyes as she returned her attention to Dahlia.

“What’s done is done.” Dahlia folded her hands in front of her.

Her teeth clicked hard in her jaw as she gritted them. Melody had no words. Not as her heart skipped a beat and her stomach dropped into her feet. Snatching up the front of her dress, Melody burst out of the room. Tears flew past her like the whipping tendrils of her hair as she booked it for Smith’s office. She couldn’t think of anywhere else to go where the haunted book wouldn’t find her or that her shaking legs could make it to…

And as she sank to the floor in the center of his office, her trembling claws reached behind her. The pads of her fingertips tenderly touched the hot flesh along the back of her shoulders.The skin there always felt wrong…and now she knew why…because she was missing a part of her.

Melody couldn’t stop the tears as she angrily howled into her skirts. Her fingers tracing the edges of the tear in her flesh like it were a seam on fabric.

That’s why the wolf was so mad with me.Melody croaked, “I’m so sorry…I’m so, so sorry.”

Please forgive me for leaving you there.But there was no answer. No angry whispers. No feeling of a presence. Just the hint of a lonely howl to the moon in the back of her mind…and the knowledge that she would never get either ofthemback.

And she was stupid for thinking she could.

Chapter Twenty-Two:

Smith

Content warning: Light physical torture, psychological/eldritch horror, and misogynistic comments (not said by the MMC)

CrouchedbehindTheIronGullet, Bellivenue Winters was pushing something deep into the rain gutter. Whatever it was, he scooped it out of a black jar wearing enchanted gloves. It flashed a neon green before turning to dark brown as the slimy man shoved it deep into the opening. Smith sat back, watching him pollute the building with dragon knows what. Then, as the man climbed to his feet, he twisted toward Smith’s direction and squawked. Smith sat coolly only a foot from him, leaning against the stone. Long arms crossed over his chest and one leg kicked over the other one, Smith curled his shark tooth smile. Bellivenue Winters stumbled back a step. The jar in his hand clattered to the ground.

Toxic sludge…how unoriginal.“Now, Mr. Winters, you wouldn’t happen be—”

Whoever Smith thought Mr. Winters would be, he was dead wrong. The rat working for Councilor Dawn was a coward…and a bad runner. Bellivenue Winters was a short, squat man with a bald spot taking over the top of his shiny head. A human, plain as they came, with wiry whiskers over his upper lip. And when he ran, he did so like he was trying to shake off a squirrel that was running loose in his underwear. Smith waited a long moment, just studying him.

Well, if it’s chase you want…

It wouldn’t be much of a hunt. His preferred prey was at home.Hopefully obeying his command.

Smith raised his hands above him, watching the color of the world around him slowly fade to a hazy grey. Bellivenue skidded to a stop. Wicked glee filled the Slender from his staticky toes to his blurry head, watching as the reality of it all seeping into Bellivenue’s blood. The human spun on his heels, facing his hunter with wide eyes. Trees as tall as mountains with no branches or leaves took over the horizon. It was an endless wood.

“Mr. Winters,” Smith growled, taking one step forward. Bellivenue bolted from the spot. Little did he know he was stuck in the same spot, caught in the midst of his run. A singular, bare hand latched onto the front of his face, sinking smokey tendrils into his flesh. No, Mr. Winters saw a dizzying forest before him. He raced the Slender, weaving in and out of trees. The man in a melted chocolate colored suit clipped his shoulder on a tree.Crack.He screamed out in the wood.

Only in reality, his mouth was unhinged, swinging and open soundlessly. Mr. Winters’ right shoulder drooped, immediately snapping as if he’d rammed a tree with it. Smith lifted the rat off the ground by his skull. Smokey tendrils shot out of Smith’s body. One by one they pierced into his prey’s body.

Crack.His prey hit another tree with his other hip. Smith glanced down, finding his left hip going slack and his leg dangling strangely. In the woods, his prey clawed with one hand to get away from the Slender.But he’d already won.

“Mr. Winters, we need to have a chat.” Smith stalked forward inside his prey’s mind, looming over him. “About a necromancer you had lunch with not too long ago at a diner near the council building. You know the one.”

In the foggy oblivion, Mr. Winters shook his head, lips quivering. “I-I-I-I got no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Yes, you do,Mr. Winters,do notlie to me.” Smith bent over the whimpering man as a heavy cloud of gray rolled over the grass.

“I don’t talk to necromancers!” Winters cried out, throwing his good arm over his face.

“You were pressuring them for Councilor Dawn.” Smith grabbed the pathetic man by his bad arm and yanked him from the ground. Screams bounced off the trees around them. Ravens made of shadow burst from the tree bark, filling the air with obsidian feathers. Smith rattled the man again. “What were you doing having lunch that day with them?”

“Please,” Winters pleaded.

“Confess!” Smith dug his fingers into the soft flesh beneath the ugly fabric. Even in the muted world he’d created for the hunt, the brown suit was definitely a bad call. Agatha would be offended.

“She wasn’t supposed to be making a fuss! Dawn was upset that she was getting sloppy. The Enforcers caught an undead feasting on a librarian of the arcane. The lady was letting her creations just wander wherever they wanted while she was in town. Dawn was tired of Blightwood and Fowler raising the alarm. Her poisons, potions, and creatures were nice, but they were causing a stink. Dawn couldn’t have that linked back to her in any way. So, she told me to make her stop or get rid of her. That witch didn’t like what I had to say.”

Smith tossed Mr. Winters to the ground. “Who is the necromancer.”

“You really fucking think I know names? Absolutely not! I don’t deal in names. I deal in results!”

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