Page 35 of Claimed By the Mothman
He could still feel her. Nothing as clean and simple as the feel of her wet, slick body as he thrust into her, no. This was a low, aching pain that resonated from the marrow of his bones.
She had fled from him like he was a monster.
No—hewasa monster, a monster crazed with lust and need andwanting, and he’d reacted without thinking, just instinct. Yes, she had begged him and wrapped her legs around him and wailed in ecstasy, but that didn’t mean it wasn’tstill wrong.
Among his kind, who hadn’t been chosen to carry prophecy, mating was a mixture of need and want, when pheromones were in balance and desire required satiation. Or it was an expression of power, demonstrating finesse and an exchange of favors. It was a practical ritual, negotiated and performed and just as quickly forgotten.
But he was Harbinger. And although he had heard the warnings, the whispers from the Elders, he had never truly believed that the urge to claim would come to him, would rise up and overwhelm all his senses until he was nothing but instinct and urge and desire.
Now it had. And now, he was undone.
Sig shuddered, drawing his wings tight to his back, as if the pressure could clear his mind and make him feel stable again.
A knock shattered the silence. Three measured raps.
He didn’t answer. He didn’t have to. The door opened of its own volition.
Mr. Lyle stepped inside with a motion as sharp as a guillotine blade. His polished shoes made no sound on the wooden floor. He shut the door behind him with delicate precision. Turned. Folded his hands. And looked directly at Sig. His eyes were twin marbles of obsidian threaded through with pinpricks of silver.
“Would you like to explain,” Mr. Lyle said, voice calm as ever,“what the fuck that was?”
For a long, horrible second, Sig considered lying. Then he simply bowed his head. Clicked. Waited.
“Do you understand what you’ve done?”
“I do,” Sig said tightly.
“No, I don’t believe you do, Samora!”Mr. Lyle slammed his hands against the wall of the apartment. The walls rippled, the lights dimmed, and a low wail began to weep through the room like a requiem.
The apartment manager straightened. The clean lines of his suit stretched as his spine elongated. The marbled silver in his eyes spread, swallowing his pupils entirely. The air around him bent slightly, as if reality itself had stepped back to give him space.
“You broke the pattern,” Lyle hissed, his voice deepening and echoing with the sound of dying stars. “You let the Lustrum taste her and begin opening her shape, and then you ripped her out half-absorbed. The ritual is now incomplete, thanks to yourpheromone-rotted brain,and now the Lustrum is hungrier than ever.”
“I did what I had to do,” Sig said, quietly but without apology.
“And that is the issue.” The sharp edges of the apartment manager’s presence softened, as if something vast and ancient had briefly withdrawn its focus. “It desires her now, Samora. She rang through it like a struck bell, and now it wants to ring her again until she sings its song.”
Sig let out a low, rasping breath. “My claim still stands. She has not yet refused it.”
The air around Lyle wavered faintly, and for a moment, his shadow moved in the wrong direction.
“The Lustrum is now inside her, and she inside it. If—when—it calls again, she will go to it.”
He had broken the pattern, pulled her from the spiral, claimed her as his…and that was not enough?
The floor between them bowed slightly, like something massive had momentarily leaned its weight onto Greymarket.
“If she accepts your bond, she will possibly be safe,” Lyle said with a restrained voice. “Possibly.”
Sig chittered and bared his teeth. “Then I will win her. I will make her understand.”
“You cannot make her do anything. That is one thing you still don’t understand about human women.”
“She ismine!”Sig roared, leaping to his feet. His jaw split wide and his throat emitted a clicking snarl like splintering glass.
Mr. Lyle snarled. It wasn’t a sound a man could make—it was a warning from something that had eaten worlds.
The two of them flared—wings and suit, mandibles and gold-laced eyes, power thickening the air like syrup. A raw, vibrating collision of forces older than time andbarelycontained by flesh. The walls went still. The lights dimmed to pinpricks. Even the air froze in place.
