“No,” I choke. “No, this is a trick. This is a trick!”
Her body doesn’t vanish. It stays. Heavy and still.
“Don’t go where I can’t follow,” I beg, repeating the words as I remember Mama, remember her blood sticking to my skin just as Cadia’s slicks mine now. I cradle her chest. I rock her. I scream her name.
“Cadia!”
I am breaking…
I am broken…
I am undone…
Magic surges through me, and I welcome the burn in my throat.
“Take me with you. Please, take me with you.”
Red is everywhere. It coats my skin, hers, the floor—
Red. Red is everywhere. Rain isn’t red, but red covers me. No. This isn’t right.
Then everything goes black.
The red ends.
And the darkness that made me—comes to claim me.
Chapter 43
The Hungering One
FINALLY, SHE IS WORN DOWN.
My teeth chitter. A wet, bubbling laugh escapes me as I peer from behind a boulder. Her slumped form on the floor. Still alive…barely viable yet brimming with power.
Our favorite.
She is perfect, the most perfect.I giggle, her voice merging with mine until they’re one.
Delicious little sleep, delicious to eat, delicious for thee! Oh, a sweet treat!
I crawl from my corner, moving fast. The hunger gnaws inside me. I can feel the insatiable drive to feed.
First, we eats its flesh, then sucks on its bones. Then, then, then! We takes it! We takes…takes it all!
“Yes! Yes! Very nutritious.” My teeth loosen and spill from my gums, pushed out by the long fangs that erupt in their place. I pounce—
Only for her to whip around and seize my throat.
I snarl, shifting my body, bones snapping as I attempt to change, to become something capable of ripping her apart.
“Someone’s hungry,” she says. That voice. No, that voice is not hers. No, no, this one’s far too deep. Her eyes are no longer blue. They’re infinite voids that pierce into me.
Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.I hiss, clawing at her, and recoil at her insulting presence.
“I am starving,” she groans.
No. She is mine. This one is MINE!The voice inside me shrieks, withdrawing from her, desperate to escape. Wings burst from my back as the thing within tries to remake me.
