Wild Side (Dark Side Series: Book 2)

Sixteen

 Words did not exist to properly describe the feeling of a demon's forced entrance inside your body. It was both violent and violating, and yet intimate in a way that went beyond the wildest sexual imaginings. This wasn't the first time Zakar had used me in this way, as his puppet, his doll, his plaything, and yet deep within my convulsing nerves, I was overcome by a sick feeling of invasion as if it was the first time. He slid inside me like an unwanted parasite; his presence oozed along my spine until my senses tingled and burned, caught on the verge of ecstasy and agony. With each passing shiver everything about me was changing to become him. 

It started mostly in the extremities and small places: fingers, toes, teeth. You can fight; I always did, but your body will rebel against your resolve, willing itself to become what he wanted, to embrace dark desires, to submit fully to his control.  And he always won, and I would sink  into quiet black of a dreamless sleep and forget all the terrible feelings of a transformation until the next time he took me off the shelf to play. It was a small blessing in an endless curse, and tonight's nightmare had only just begun.

Rowtag groaned beside me. Still in a daze, or perhaps in a surge of natural instincts to draw near the blood strewn across the floor, he grabbed my shoulder.

"Get away!" I shrieked in frenzied panic, shoving him so hard he fell on his back. The color in my hands drained to sickly, translucent white. My fingers grew into their new claws, lengthened and cracked as bone broke and sinew pulled itself across a leaner, more wiry build.

Rowtag propped himself on his elbows, touching the back of his skull. "What happened?" he murmured, getting onto his knees as if winded and dazed.

"I thought you knew what he was!" I yelled, clutching my stomach, which had taken to rejecting everything I'd eaten today in favor of a new craving. My tongue rolled against my teeth- new teeth, sharper teeth, teeth that wanted nothing more than to grip the vampire by his throat.

"I was wrong!" Rowtag staggered toward the door, more hurt than I'd realized. But I couldn't stay focused on him, could barely keep my eyes open against the splitting pain along my spine.

Give in, said the monster sharing space inside my skull. It hurts less if you relax.

Caelan, I wasn't sure where he'd come from. One minute I was alone in my throes beside the solitary candle and in the next he was there. His amber gold eyes were fast losing their humanity. With one hand he wrenched my wrist across his lap.

"What are you—?"My voice was a hoarse gurgle, and then in an instant, lost to retching.  One half of a set of handcuffs clicked tight around my bloody wrist. Before I knew what was happening he'd grabbed the other one. The metal burned against my skin. I tried to pull away, but Caelan got his arms around my chest and dragged me kicking and screaming into the hall, out the front door, and down the steps.Seams stretched across my clothing as my body's design changed to suit the demon's needs. Cold air rushed through the tears in my attire, and then my back hit the snow.

Caelan flipped me face down. My arms were pinned against my chest, trapped beneath an increasingly rapid heartbeat. Every time I tried to get on my knees his foot was there, pressing me deeper into the cold.

 Then, for a moment, the pressure lifted.

His hand landed between my shoulders, gentle, almost apologetic. I heard a soft click, felt the barrel of a gun pressed against my hair. The hunger in my heart, the anger, the fury, Zakar's demands that I surrender to him, all grew. I squirmed against the ground, breathing curses from a tongue no longer my own.

And then, as my fast-fading hold on sanity loosened, the gun dropped beside my ear. Caelan turned my chin. The rough pads of his fingers stroked my cheek, and then he stood.