Page 93 of The Demons in the Deep: Extended Edition
When he swiped a hand across his mouth, it came away with sloppy bits of pink flesh on it.
Rake ran to the side of the ship and vomited into the sea. Then he washed his face, arms, and chest in a rain barrel.
That could never happen again. Never.
He would tell no one about it. Not even Mai.
Mai.
He must find her.
He drew a deep breath and crossed the deck, back to the cabins. Around the corner from the captain’s door was another door with a porthole window beside it.
Looking in, he saw her.
Mai lay on a bunk in the glow of a lantern, her dark lashes settled against her cheeks. There was a pinkness to her nose that made him suspect she’d been crying. Good. She should cry, after what she’d done.
Delicately his claws closed around the handle of the door, and he pushed. Bless the Mother Ocean—it opened, and he rushed inside, closing it behind him.
His heart thundered loud enough to rival the storm as he stalked toward her.
Mai’s brows pinched together, a restless little frown, and her eyes blinked open.
Bolt upright she sat, scooting back on the bed, away from him.
“Rake,” she gasped. “You—you found me.”
“I knew Feral would not give you up so easily.”
“He didn’t steal me.” Her chin lifted stubbornly. “I chose to go with him.”
Rake’s lip hitched up over his teeth, a snarl he couldn’t suppress. “I know.”
Mai slid off the bed, rising to face him. “I saw a way to get what I need, and I took it. My choice.”
“You chosehim,” Rake said, shaking with the force of his rage. “You chose him, when you know what he does. He takes people, breaks their will, and sells them into slavery. Did you forget where I came from? I was a slave. My body was not my own. I endured—”
He broke off, his claws twitching and trembling. He could feel the savage frenzy coming on again—the change that would transform him from calm, steady Rake, the almost-human, into a slavering, fanged monster.
His head whipped aside, sharp and quick. He felt his lower jaw unhinging, more rows of teeth sliding from his gums, his throat expanding to accept chunks of flesh, the sustenance of a monster.
Heavy breaths broke from him, a harsh panting rhythm.
“Rake,” Mai said warningly. “Rake, calm down.”
She backed away.
Bad move. The predator in him sprang up, delighted for a chase.
He leaped for her, and she squealed, backing against the closed door and scrabbling for the handle. Before she could get it open he was there, his claws scoring the wood on either side of her head, his body slamming into hers. He opened his mouth even wider and roared.
Mai screamed—not the frail cringing scream of prey, but a raging shriek to answer his. Right in his face, her dark eyes blazing, she screamed at him.
For a violent second, he fought the urge to lunge forward and trap her small skull in his stretched-out jaws. He could rip her head from her body easily, and then she would collapse, soft and malleable, and he could consume her flesh at his leisure. Every succulent morsel would slide down his throat, and she would be part of him forever. She could never run away again.
But then she could never speak to him. Never inspect his body with that mix of studious interest and barely suppressed lust. She couldn’t chatter to him and make him smile with her earnest conversation. He’d never see that dark head bobbing along just below his shoulder as they walked together. She’d never touch him like she had in Stragnoag, or in the dead city of his people.
A paroxysm of anguish rolled through his whole body, and he pressed more firmly against her. He turned his gaping maw aside, away from those delicate features—features he loved all the more for their asymmetry.
