pain that mixed with the cocktail flooded faster in turn. That was mine too. None of it belonged to him any longer, not now that I had him in my grip. I would ravage him until nothing remained but a black hole of emptiness and the vast well inside me overflowed.
His soul was dwindling. The impressions had a tang of recency to them now, a little clearer and more vivid. Standing in a room with several humans who awed him—a sense of elation as someone said, We’ll hollow them out. Hollow the danger out of those beasts and make them ours— the perfect sweetness of a summer plum, its juice dribbling down his throat—It’ll spread and claim them all. There’ll be no stopping it once we have it right—a looming mansion of gray brick with a turret rising from the righthand side, a place he was honored to protect—wind whipping past him as his legs pumped a bicycle—fading, fading, into a spiral of searing torment.
The torment I was causing. As the flow of sensations ebbed, more of my broader awareness crept back in. The physical stomach I’d nearly forgotten I had turned with a fit of nausea.
All the agony and horror reverberating through the final moments of this being’s existence—I’d brought that on him. I’d wrung it through his entire existence, from his very first memories onward, as I’d savaged my way through them.
Even then, I couldn’t will my jaws to open. I couldn’t let go of that delectable thread until it petered out completely, leaving my prey nothing but a husk.
My jaws unlocked. The man collapsed as if boneless. I contracted back into the human form that fit this world better and found myself staring at Sorsha… who was staring back at me.
She’d fallen to the ground when I’d pulled her attacker off her. Her hands had tensed where she’d braced them against the pavement, the knuckles white. There was so much white in her eyes too, gleaming starkly. Her throat worked with a thick swallow.
Any pleasure I’d gotten from the devouring shattered into a thousand icy shards. Oh, no. That wasn’t—I’d sworn I’d never again—
And yet underneath the chill, a tiny part of me wondered what it would be like to consume her existence too, every morsel that made her the fascinating woman I’d only barely scraped the surface of. The keening hunger pealed through me. I felt my tongue flick against my sharpened teeth before I could catch it. Yes.
My gut lurched, and the impulse vanished under a fresh wave of horror. A shout reached my ears alongside a blare of sirens—flashing lights at the other end of the courtyard.
The men in their poisonous armor were racing back to their truck and wherever else they’d come from. Thorn charged past me with a bellow to Omen. “Help me push!” He glanced at us. “Snap, Sorsha, get out of the way!”
I didn’t know what he meant, but I scrambled in the other direction. Sorsha heaved herself to her feet and followed, her gaze sliding away from me. But I could still see her expression in my mind’s eye: the shimmer of the whites of her eyes, the stiffness of her features.
She’d been looking at me as if I were a monster.
With a creaking and a thud, the RV righted itself. Or rather, Thorn must have pushed it upright with Omen’s help. Ruse appeared at the window by the driver’s seat. The engine growled, and he flashed a grin, but it faltered when he glanced outside.
Thorn and Omen had dashed back around the RV. As they rushed across the cobblestones, ignoring the hollers of the uniformed workers streaming out of the flashing vehicles beyond the blazing statue, Sorsha sprinted over to join them.
Bow was swaying toward us, smoke streaming from his injuries—but even more billowing from the crumpled form he held in his broad arms. Gisele lay limp, her shadowkind essence draining away into the night air in great gusts that showed no sign of slowing.
I leapt forward and then hesitated, torn about which direction it’d help more for me to go in. Omen solved that problem an instant later by waving me toward the RV. “Get on. We’ve got to take off, now.”
I darted through the shadows to the living area, which had become a jumble of shattered window glass, leaves from the cupboards, and takeout cartons. Pickle huddled in one corner, shivering. When Sorsha dashed on board, she spotted him immediately and scooped him up. As she