MicroHorror

She felt the sharp points of his teeth graze her neck, jerking her back into the present. She reached for her stake, searched among the folds of her wine-red dress for the limb of hawthorn she’d spent a week sharpening.

His hand clamped around her wrist, hard as an iron vise.

“So you thought you would assassinate me, Katharine?” Malkom pressed his cold lips against her neck, his tongue tracing the edge of her jaw line. She writhed against the pleasure he incited in her; growling low in her throat, she latched onto her anger at being found.

“It’s what you deserve, monster.”

He made an approving noise as he kissed his way up the side of her face. “I like your stubbornness,” he murmured in her ear.

“Don’t change the subject,” she demanded, though his approval loosened her grip on the stake.

“Why?” he said, pulling her close enough to feel him. His other hand worked at the lacing of her dress. “Aren’t monsters allowed to have feelings? Needs?” Malkom’s lips brushed hers, a light touch of cold, and then he was kissing her, parting her lips to explore the regions of her mouth. Ice and fire roiled in her core; a small moan escaped her lips, and she clutched at his chest.

“No.” She struggled to get the words out; her lungs threatened to burst with the speed of her breathing. “They said you kill, bleed people dry like sacrificial sheep.” She clung to the facts as he threatened to drown her in seduction.

“I know what you’ve been told.” Malkom ran his hand across her back. His head dipped lower, his mouth working across her bared shoulder. “But did they tell you I kill out of hunger?” His fingers traced chilly lines down her arm. “A simple need to eat. Isn’t that worth something?”

She weakened, lost herself in the sensation though she knew she shouldn’t have. He kissed and caressed all the right places, mouth traveling expertly across her skin. Her stake clattered to the floor at her side. Hand twining around his neck, her fingers curled into his cropped hair. He murmured more approval against her flesh as she folded into him. Raising her hand, he began to kiss and lick at her wrist. Her pulse quickened, throbbed into her fingertips.

His teeth dug into her skin, and she felt him lapping at the wound. She stiffened in shock, then melted against him, comforted, as he rubbed the small of her back.

“Just a simple need to eat, that’s all,” he whispered as he drank her dry.