Page 45 of These Eternal Bones
My tendrils snap out, jerking me from the bathroom, urging me toward her wardrobe. My claws dig into the heavy oak, just as I feel my mind…snap.
22
How I Have Missed You
Engravings - Ethan Bortnick
Molly
I swallow against the bile and my disappointment, my forehead pressed against the cool toilet as Elric doesn’t come back in. My emotions are as turbulent as the waves below the cliff, the heavy onslaught making a burst of tears fill my eyes. For a moment, I’d thought I was going to die, that I was trapped, truly trapped. He’d gotten there so quickly, but still the sudden darkness, the swell of the storm, the pure static energy I felt, was so strong it’d woken me from my sleep seconds before the building had come down around me.
My body trembles and I’m terrified…and cold.
It takes a fair amount of wincing before I manage to get to my feet. I’m sore, no doubt bruised up, but I’m…okay. I’m okay. I brace myself on the dark countertops, unable to shake the chill from my bones. It’s then that I take stock of where I am, of the heavy, intoxicating smell of the Vampire of Port Clyde.
His rooms.
My eyes widen with that thought, my shaky hand upsetting a wooden pin on the counter, one of the ones he always uses to tie up his hair. A hair stick, he’d called it once. I had always thought such things were only for women, but the sight of him twisting his inky, straight hair high on his head…the smooth grace in his movements as he slid the stick into place had made me flush. Something, of course, he’d taken notice of immediately. He’d smirked, leaning close...
But that is not now.
That is not the version of the man I have come to know these past few days.
I still, for the life of me, do not know what changed.
My own shaken green eyes meet me in the mirror. I can’t remember the last time I truly stared at myself. I don’t know what I’m meant to feel when looking at the sight of my red-rimmed eyes and wild, heavy hair. Something crashes outside, making me flinch. That seems to do it. I quickly clean my mouth, taking the precious few seconds that are awarded to me to steel myself.
Like that day we went into town, the quiet things in my chest decide to no longer stay quiet. I glare at myself before shoving away from the counter, jerking the door open with little to no payoff in the form of dramatics. The door itself is impossibly heavy.
I’d wanted it to slam, creak loudly,something.
It only annoys me more.
I scour the room looking for the stupid man, the stupid old vamp–
My lips part, my heart jolting in my chest when I find him. His chest is bare, his muscles rippling and lean…toned, as if they were made from marble. I can see fully for the first time where the black veins originate. It’s like a hole in his chest, only it’s not concave, simply an endlessly deep black spot the size of a salad plate over his heart. Elric’s eyes are wild, bleeding that same abyssal thing that runs in his veins. The sight excites me more than it frightens, as his tendrils…tighten…binding him further.
Because Elric is very much so…bound.
His chest heaves with the weight of his pants, his arms restrained behind him by his own tendrils. Others snaking around his parted mouth like a muzzle, but his fangs are…dripping a clear, sweet-smelling liquid. My heart thunders as a deep, eerie growl leaves him. “Mine.”
The word sets a deep pulse off deep in my core, such an intense longing that I nearly take a step forward.
It feels…right.
He inhales deeply, a groan leaving him. “I can smell your need, syringa.”
My need?
“Do you know what that means?” His growl is rough, and my lower belly tightens at the sound as I shake my head.
“Your cunt is wet.”
I suck in a quick breath at his crassness. I hadn’t imagined anything so…harsh could sound so alluring. Again, I get the feeling we’re at the precipice of something…altering. Emotions well inside me, sharp and suffocating when I realize how badly I want that, how badly I want him. How terribly I wish to tip the scales for good or bad. I want his soft smiles back, his adoring touches.
I want to feel…needed again by him. Like I’m the only one capable of helping him pass the years. Only my company is tantalizing enough.
His dark eyes track me as I walk away from the bathroom, my eyes dipping to the tendril running up the length of his muscularlegs. It binds around his thighs, joined by another, only adding to the monstrous length tented in his pants.
