It had been centuries since he had felt the touch of another.
Eighteen hundred years since he had known it in the waking world.
And Ava…
His little butterfly.
Little brass bird, all crass chirps and sharp edges,the crone had said. The oldest sister was only partially correct, he had to admit.
At first, he thought Ava was a butterfly made of the thinnest glass. Beautiful. As sharp as a razor, yes, capable of cutting those not careful in how they handled it.
But delicate. Easily shattered.
He had been wrong. She was not so easily broken. She was made of metal—easily bent. Easily malformed. Easily rendered into a shape that did not resemble herself any longer.
And life had done that to her. A life of loneliness had twisted her into a formation that left her sharpest edges facing out. A thing that lashed out at the world that had done nothing but harm her.
Now trapped within a world designed to do nothingbutcause harm.
That was why he had sacrificed his own memory in exchange for hers. There was so little happiness he could feel in the butterfly’s life. So little joy she had to hold onto. To give up what tiny sparks she had? To rob more of that from her felt as though he would be committing the same cruel acts over which he loathed his half-kin.
Never mind the fact keeping her aligned to his viewpoint simply made things easier. An act of sacrifice on his part clearly aided such things. Mathematically, it made logical sense.
But those were not the only reasons why.
No, there was something more dangerous beginning to lurk within his heart. More dangerous and more problematic.
Desire.
Hewantedher. He had felt it when she was beginning to learn to wield magic. He had dismissed it as simply an errant moment. A stray thought that grew out of control.
Now, he was not so certain.
He watched her as she wandered the Web with those two idiots. Watched her as she contended with the Eyes and with the sisters. She was terrified. But still, she marched on. Kept her head held high. And met a world of monsters she could not hope to understand with an air of flippant defiance he knew was little more than a paper shield.
But a shield she wielded as though it were made of solid steel. As if nothing in this world or any other could make her yield.
It made him want to prove her very, very wrong.
He wanted to make her beg.
It made him want tobreak her.
The images played through his mind again, rushing forward unbidden. Sinking his fangs into her throat, flooding her blood with the venom that would leave her supple and begging for him. Pleading for his touch.
He would bind her in his golden threads. Spread her wide. And he would take her—not as a man, but as histrueself. In this fantasy of his, in this impossible dream that he would never allow to come to fruition, he pinned her down and claimed her.
Mated her.
Bred her.
His little butterfly.
Caught in his web.
Begging for his grotesque, terrible body.
For the disgusting monster in the darkness to come forward. For all the horrors he would wreak upon her tender flesh. To fill her to straining, to ensure no man could ever have her like he could, ever again.
