In The End Box Set | Books 1-3 Stevens, GJ (story books to read TXT) 📖

memory of how she would taste sat in the forefront of my mind. The scent to which all others fall short.

No, I couldn’t make her out. I couldn’t find her, my palette blank.

Then it came. Not the smell, but the noise. I heard the hum, the motion of the masses beyond the walls. They’d followed the sound and sought the cause of the loud noise, but they would stay to get at what created the glorious smell. I heard movement in the house too, controlled, not frantic; the scrape of heavy furniture.

At first I pictured Toni hauling heavy cabinets across the room, moving solid wood to block the door she’d just smashed open. But why wasn’t she racing to find me? Why couldn’t I taste her on my lips?

The hunger was great enough, the chasm in my belly bottomless, my need singing out for her. Maybe it wasn’t Toni after all and the nightmare was about to start over, but this time worse when they saw me bound and helpless on the bed.

With a smirk, I pitied whoever else would come into the room, picturing me tearing their face off as they came near.

I tested the bounds at my arms, pulling hard against the strain. I tried to judge if I let go, if I let the beast inside grow at its will, could I pull free? Would I be submitting myself to the creature I wouldn’t be able to turn off when I needed?

No, I told myself. I must fight on and concentrated back on the noise. I could hear definite footsteps coming from the hallway. The steps were so light compared to what had come before.

So calm.

I caught the first scent, the glorious smell so intoxicating. It was Toni standing there in the doorway; hers was the slender figure I could just make out in the last ebbs of the light through the windows. But why was she at the end of the bed not saying a word?

“Toni,” I said without question, but she didn’t respond. “Toni. Let me out please.”

The figure moved with a grace only confirming what I knew, but with an unhurried pace I couldn’t understand. Why wasn’t she rushing to free me?

Instead, as she grew near, I felt her fingers on my ankle, tracing with a light touch against my skin, the electricity stronger than the Taser’s punch. My nerves were on fire as her taste sparked the inside of my nose, energy coursing between my legs.

I raised my hips up and down as she travelled with her fingers as a guide, getting closer to where I was desperate for her touch.

She raised her hand as she was about to arrive, my body aching, hips bucking to find her touch again, but she'd gone and I couldn’t make out her form; only knowing she was there in the shadow, her smell almost solid in my mouth.

The light burst on and I squeezed my eyes closed. The lamp moved toward the ceiling and I opened my eyes to see Toni looking me up and down, a playful grin on her face.

“Let me out,” I said with a stranger’s low tone.

She shook her head, the smile gone in an instant.

“I think you better stay there for a while longer,” she said, but when she didn’t raise her eyebrows, didn’t give a childish giggle, my face screwed up and I shook my head.

I didn’t want her to take away my senses on fire, to take what I had. What I could feel.

I bucked and I pleaded as her fist came down to my thigh, the syringe of the red liquid curled in her fingers as I snapped my teeth towards her hand.

52

Surrounded by a sea of creatures of the night, the starless dark sky all around me, I stood on a stone column rising high above, in a white shimmering lace nightgown, watching as they clawed at the air. With their disfigured, rotten faces melting to the floor, I had no emotion, didn’t fear, didn’t want for anything; the hunger in my belly satisfied.

As I watched, my head turned down without my will and I saw my once-pristine white gown dripped with blood, congealing as it rolled down my front. My fingers came away from my face wet and sticky. The pads of each were red as I looked, the scarlet darkening, cracking as it dried before my eyes.

My focus fell to the floor far below. The creatures had parted, were spreading wide, each running away from the naked body lying at the base of the pillar. My vision zoomed and as it did, I saw the creatures had changed, screams raising from their voices. They were human now. Real. Alive, and running for fear of the body surrounded in a spot of light. I couldn’t look up to see its source.

Dumbfounded and unable to find breath, I could only stare down. I couldn’t look away as I saw a woman on her back, naked, her white pale skin perfect in every way; her mound of hair trimmed to a line, her breasts the perfect size. Not too big or too small. Her arms spread, hands upturned at her side.

I knew it was Toni, despite not being able to see her face; the skin missing, leaving just the sculpt of her bones and a ragged mass of flesh.

It was Toni, her scent undeniable. Thick, strong, shivers ran down my spine as I stood there on the pillar, now less than a foot high, the darkness empty of all but her slain body.

I wanted to stare on. I wanted to take her in, but something drove me forward, my hands stuck behind my back and I felt as if pushed from the plinth. I screamed with anger, with pain, tears rolling from my eyes as I opened my mouth. With