Page 46 of Bloody Bargain
Confusion caused me to falter. “What do you mean, who do I see? I see you and you aredefinitelynot whoever Peter used to be.”
The creature’s smirk faded at one side of its mouth. “Come now, lovely thing. Someone that haunts you? A past lover. Perhaps a victim? Someone you must have loved very much. Mmm, yes, we taste betrayal. What a fine cocktail.”
“Sorry but seven-eyed void demons aren’t really my type,” I blustered with a trembling tone as I backed through the sticky sludge of syrup and tinkling glass. Why was no one coming to check on us? My eyes darted towards the cash register at the front of the store, but I couldn’t take my eyes off Peter long enough to get a good look. “Hello?” I called. “Help! Please!”
The creature’s eyes widened. He stood up straight, the rings in his rope-like earlobes tinkling together.
“Not a god, indeed,” he purred.
“Yes, love, you called?” I gasped, snapping my attention towards a clerk with a large belly and greying beard. He looked hesitant, politely concerned. “Need some help with the grilling sets?”
“No, I–”
I shuffled on clean tiles no longer mired in syrup.
The floor was clean. The glass bottles were back on their display. The breads and pastas… Everything was in its rightful place on the shelves.
“Nevermind,” I panted, handing him the grilling fork in a shaking hand. “I-I thought I saw a spider.”
The clerk relaxed, hanging the utensil back up on its hook.
“Ah, don’t fret, love. I’ll be up front when you’re ready to check out.”
“Thank you.”
He walked away with a put-upon smile. The music overhead filtered back in, some British pop song I didn’t know. My eyes fixed on two spatters of bright marigold egg yolk on the floor…
The bell overhead chimed as I threw my bag over my shoulder and walked as fast as I could across the dark asphalt and back into the heathlands and the rain.
18
After the yellow suite, I’d run. As fast and far as I could manage without the pull of mine Tessa ripping my spirit to shreds. I’d clawed my way to the banks of Llyn Glaslyn at the height of the isle’s tallest mountains and sunk my claws and tail into her sediment until I was rooted in place.
Away frommyn chalis.From the temptation of devouring her so quickly as to lose her in a fit of euphoria.
But that didn’t stop me from visiting her.
My spirit was a maelstrom, feeding on the blue lake like a battery that spit lightning into the sky. The waters churned until they were a black whirlpool that comforted me in my anguish as I dug ravines into my scales and sent my blood out into the rain. The droplets lifted into the air and filled the clouds until their bellies were black. They slithered out into the slopes of Yr Wyddfa to join the run offs and rivers.
This is how I hunted mine Tessa. Writhing as the bloodlust ripped me apart.
And when I found her,ohhhh,the feasting was sweet. She fought while her body dragged me in. I made a home in her muscles and blood. Her words vibrated through each droplet in her throat and lungs.
Fuck me yourself, you fucking coward.
I was no longer shaped like a man, but my ters extended all the same. I spilled my seed into the waters of Llyn Glaslyn to the mewls and frustration of the woman that owned my soul. To the sweet promises she made me. A shackle around my wrist, a knife in my side, her channel strangling my ters…
I would give her the same. Eagerly. She had my utter devotion. My pain and pleasure. Every beat of my two hearts. I would forfeit every shred of control but demand the same in due time.
Tessa was mine. She had always been. And always would be.
A familiar scent visited my banks. An impossible one. Juniper and cloves and iron. My beloved had arrived, but she was still far from me. My nostrils slid open and I breathed in the scent until the air warbled and flexed, my mane’s silvery strands waving like the kelp seas as they floated up into the whipping wind.
I opened one massive eye, my pupil slitted from the light of a grey day. The smaller eyes on my temples pried themselves open, independently surveying the landscape.
I breathed in her scent again, reveling in her complexity, then spit it back out with a snarl.
Egg yolks and coal.
