her. I jump down from the rocks and pace, breathing in the night air. When my body is finally under control, I find Anna waiting patiently atop the rock. My stomach stirs with a strange feeling at the sight of her, and I want to stab myself for being so weak.
I reach up to help her down, saying, “Come on.” She takes my hand without hesitation, and we walk silently to the hotel.
I’m relieved she’s learned to hide her emotions. We’re one step closer to having her trained. Now all I have to do is bang the innocence out of her, deliver her to her demon father, and find out what that nun lady wants with her. Then I can deliver her back to the world in good conscience, and never have to see her again.
I’m halfway through my shower when it becomes glaringly obvious that I cannot go an entire day without being sated by another willing person. There is no way around it. I was careful tonight not to lose myself to the beast, but it’s always there, under the surface, starving for another fix no matter how well I tamp it down. I’ve always simply accepted it, and for the first time ever, I’m resenting this urge.
What I really want to do is go into that room and claim my place directly between Anna’s lovely legs. But I know she’s not having any of it. Yet. And I don’t have time for a long seduction. I cannot focus. The painful ache is returning to my abdomen, a dense tugging, and I need sex now.
I come out of the restroom in cargo shorts, and Anna’s eyes flicker over my bare chest. I look for her aura before remembering she can hide it now. But her eyes say enough. She likes what she sees. If only she’d act on it.
I pull a shirt from my bag and finish dressing. It’s time to go. I clear my throat, suddenly nervous, which is shite. I cannot possibly care what she thinks. I’m being an idiot.
“Right, then,” I say. “I’ll just, um, be out for a bit.”
Her entire being slumps with disappointment, and I feel as if she’s kicked my chest.
“Don’t go,” she says. Another kick. Where is this coming from?
This is who I am, and I refuse to let her make me feel guilty. Anger rises instead, and I grasp it, feeling more at home in its prickly embrace. Where I really want to be is here, tangled with her, but I know that’s not going to happen, which pisses me off.
“I have to work, Anna. Either out there or in here.”
Tell me to stay, little Ann. Crook your finger and beckon me over.
“It wouldn’t kill you to take a night off,” she says, jutting out her tiny chin.
It’s kick number three, and anger is giving over to a strong flood of fury.
“Is that so?” I tell myself to relax, but her self-control and judgment and lack of understanding make me want to shake her. Words drip from my mouth like venom. “Says the little doll who’s never had to work a day in her life?” She is not being what she’s supposed to be. I am. She doesn’t know that once you give in to the beast there’s no going back. You must feed it.
But she keeps pushing me—keeps talking about shite she can’t comprehend—keeps trying to make me feel bad for what I am.
“It’s not like demons are monitoring your behavior,” Anna says.
She cannot see the demons, the whisperers. She does not know how they network, how quickly I can be spotted “not working,” how they’d rush to turn me in. She doesn’t know what it means to live in fear of them showing up at any given minute. But I’m too enraged to communicate any of this.
“Don’t push me, Anna,” I warn, grasping for control. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Nobody has ever made me feel this way. I can see she’s worked up, too, her face pink and her eyes intense. I have to leave. As I turn to go, she shouts, “You can make it one night without sex!”
Rage blinds me like a white flash, and my body reacts. Her next words are drowned out as a need to destroy something bears down on me, and I swing at the nearest lamp, sending it flying. It smashes against the wall with a satisfying crash, leaving my ears ringing. I point hard at Anna, who needs