Page 33 of Can't Bite This Feeling
Silence.
“And?” another witch with a deeply-lined face and snowy-white hair prompts.
“I used to be a vampire. Now I’m… this. I’mgreed. And I need to know how to stop the hunger before I lose the last of what I am.”
She studies me. “We can’t save you, Rapha. But we can show you what’s left.” She gestures to a tall mirror framed in gnarled oak and woven roots. “Look.”
I step forward. My reflection stares back.
At first, it’s just me, my horns, eyes rimmed in red, a mouth that smiles too little. Then the aura bleeds in.
Black.
The color of a void. Of consumption.
But at the crown of my head between the horns, a sliver of sickly green pulses faintly.
“The last trace of your human soul,” the white-haired witch says quietly. “You are nearly gone.”
I swallow hard. “Can it be saved?”
“One way only. No more trades. No more reaping. The next soul you touch will finish the job.”
My stomach drops.
That rush. That surge of ecstasy, of invincibility, is a part of me now.
But Drusilla iseverything.
If I fall, I take her with me.
“Are you willing to lose her?” the witch asks.
I stare at my reflection. The demon stares back, already pulling at me to trade another soul. “I don’t know.”
Chapter 9
Drusilla
I wake up alone.
The space beside me is still warm, the white bed linens rumpled and tangled around my legs. But the room is quiet, too quiet. My fingertips graze the sheets where Rapha curled around me just hours ago, his mouth on my skin, his body claiming mine with a hunger that felt both desperate and reverent.
Now, there's only absence.
The echo of silence, and the ache of something half-promised but already fading.
I lie still for a long moment, remembering the way he kissed me, worshipped me. The way he held me afterward, like I was the only tether keeping him from unraveling.
And now he’s gone.
Again.
Shame and anger prickles under my skin, sharp and unwelcome. I roll out of bed, shower quickly, and dress without thinking,pulling on jeans and a soft sweater. I braid my hair to give my hands something to do. The dread in my stomach only thickens as I head into town.
The Spellbound Shelf is quiet when I push open the door. The air is thick with incense and old paper, and the enchanted chimes over the door tinkle a lazy welcome. Alice looks up from behind the counter, her sharp blue eyes narrowing as she sees my face.
“Drusilla,” she says carefully. “You look tired.”
