Chapter Text
There’s a chill in the air tonight, the young man considers, pulling a strip of leather from his wrist to tie thick, black hair into a knot at the base of his skull. He tugs the sleeves of his shirt back into place and fists the lapels of his coat to shield his neck from the wind as he steps beyond the doors of the precinct.
Winter hit Hawkins, Indiana hard this year, but the sleeper town has had a lot more on its plate than just the recent blistering weather. The population has been dropping like black flies since early January, and it’s suspected the cold is only partially to blame. No blizzard in recorded history has ever left a man missing his jugular.
The Sheriff suggests it’s murder—good old-fashioned, a time-honored crime—but Michael Wheeler, a local reporter for The Post, knows it’s not that straightforward. For a long time, six years to be exact, he has known just what, or rather who would be to blame should the death toll ever mount.
At twenty-nine years of age, Michael Wheeler is a mystery to most. He’s the son of a mining empire, the expected heir to a fortune, and yet he spends his days walking back and forth between the precinct, his office, and the woods as if aimlessly searching for something.
Described to a stranger, Michael might sound rather conventional-looking: He is a tall young man with pitch-black hair, midnight eyes, and high cheekbones. But his limbs are gangly and branch-like, his nose too long, and his spine has a slight curve from adolescent poor posture. Freckles embellish his cheeks like faraway constellations, and his lips are as rose as fresh flowers in bloom. He is imperfectly perfect.
Perhaps that is the trick. He is untraditionally handsome but employed with a small fortune at his feet. The only thing he could be in want of is a bride. Mindless wandering is merely a means to pass the time—a hobby of sorts—until he finds fulfillment.
The truth is, no one has ever questioned what happens once he crosses the threshold of greenery because no one dares step foot beyond the treeline themself. Several children went missing almost a decade back, and ever since only the authorities have had the gall to venture into the wooded area – Hawkins has no curiosity. Nobody questions the unfamiliar or uncomfortable.
Michael had stumbled upon the strange and particular by chance, by accident. On the eve of his twenty-third birthday, he’d been run into the woods by a group of local troublemakers, loud, callous young men who sent girls home in fits of tears and never hold jobs for lack of trying. The ringleader had longtime held a grudge against the Wheelers, probably due to his family’s shift in status when Michael’s sister backed out of marriage. On his way home from the library one night, he had come across the young man, arms full of books and a heavy briefcase at his side. The sprinting started shortly after, and Michael was left with no choice but to make for the birches.
Spine pressed to the rough, cutting trunk of a tree, Michael had held his breath and counted to ten, over and over again, a calming mechanism picked up over the years. He’d taken a fall in the chase, tripping over untied laces and snagging the fragile hem of his shirt on an upturned root, the slit running up to his navel below his charcoal vest. Returning home with tears in his clothes would not have gone over well — his mother plucked stray hairs from his head if he didn’t look pristine, refined.
A cackle had sounded off the birch trees just as Michael started wondering how he’d explain his disheveled appearance, crass threats filling the quiet, ambient space. But almost as soon as Michael felt a thick hand cup his shoulder, no doubt belonging to the man who would have him beat, there’d been a blur; movement too quick for him to catch, a dizzying, swift flash of light he couldn’t quite make out. Within the blink of an eye, three bodies lay at his feet, minute puncture holes to their necks, blood pouring from every wound, and he'd forgotten how to breathe.
Until he saw her.
She’d pinned Michael to the tree as if to not let him get any closer to the bodies, fingers curling over his collarbones, nails digging into the exposed skin where his shirt slipped, and merely shaking her head. Don’t look. Don’t tell.
Blood stained her face, red and deep and bold against her ivory skin. She had licked her lips, savoring the taste on her tongue, and held his gaze. Michael could only stare. Her eyes were brown, maybe hazel in daylight, but specks of red floated there too, and for a fleeting moment he’d imagined blood rain falling from the sky, crimson water pooling at their feet to wash away remnants of a murder. He’d pictured covering up whatever crime she had just committed.
One hand let up, and he’d felt her cool palm slowly make its way up the column of his throat, and his heart beat fast, so fast, in his chest then. Michael hadn’t dared move an inch, but it wasn’t fear that ate at him. It was confusion more than anything else, that feeling rumbling in the pit of his stomach—unease and a wild sense of intrigue that he’d never felt before.
“Who are you?” he’d asked, quietly, hoping the question wouldn’t result in a gash to the neck.
To his surprise, and maybe fortune, the girl had simply brushed the hair from out of his eyes, pushing black curls behind his ears far gentler than he’d expected, and whispered, “nobody.”
“That can’t be true,” he’d retorted, boldly grabbing her by the elbow to halt her movements. Her eyes had lowered to the hand on her arm, and for a second Michael wondered if maybe he’d overstepped. You aren’t to touch ladies without their consent, Michael. But then, he’d thought, this isn’t a lady. She was something else.
He tightened his grip, digging his fingers through layers of silk to see what sort of reaction it might elicit—Would it feel like penetration, perforative and sharp? Was this what it had felt like when she’d dug her teeth into their necks?
Michael figured he’d find out if she clawed back, the hand she’d had wound in his hair falling to his carotid to tear. “Why did you do that?” he barked, brazen.
“They would hurt you,” she’d croaked back, the words sounding foreign as they fell from her lips. Her voice was small, barely above a whisper, but there was a softness in every syllable and Michael thought it peculiar. It was as if she hadn’t ever spoken before.
“I promise whatever pain I might have been subjected to it wouldn’t have been death.” Michael frowned, shapely eyebrows pulling into a set line. “How- how did you even-”
She withdrew, taking a step away to drag the back of her hand along her chin with a quiet, “no.”
Inexplicably, he’d felt the loss ricochet through his entire body—the shorter hair at the nape of his neck standing to attention, the shiver up his spine when tacky fingertips brushed his cheek. “No?” he’d repeated, following her every footstep as she ventured further out—or back. “No, you don’t want to tell me what just happened, what you did, or… or no, you can’t?”
“Both.”
He’d known, at that moment, what it was. What she was.
“Do you… live here?” Michael had pried, and without thinking, he’d reached for her hand. She didn’t flinch. “Alone?”
“Yes.”
He allowed himself a moment to take her in. Even with the darkened sky overhead, he could still make out honey-brown locks framing her face. They were matted, drying blood crusting the ends. Her dress was black brocade with three-quarter-length sleeves, the corset noticeably large for her petite frame. It ran to her feet; naked, soil and tree bark up to her scrawny ankles. She looked cold but never shivered, and he wondered if she even felt the clammy, wet-hot humidity of late August.
Her lips were plump and pinker than the rest of her, and even with a lick of red, he could tell they were the prettiest thing about her. The lips or the eyes, he couldn’t quite make up his mind, but Michael stopped himself short of a decision before the thought could nag at him. She’d killed three men to spare him from a beating — What did it matter if she was the most unearthly, fascinating thing he’d ever seen?
“Where?” Michael had asked, measuring his steps as he approached her. If he overstepped- “Show me.”
She scowled indignantly. “No.”
The blood spatter hadn’t been noticeable on her black clothes, but charting a glance downward he’d noticed specks of red littered across his shirt; a dusting of crimson against white, eye-catching. He couldn’t return home in this state.
“You owe me that much.”
She hadn't said a word after that, but she’d shaken out of his grasp and made for the woods— further out, far deeper into the unknown than Michael had even been. He’d followed, mindful of his footsteps, but kept a safe distance nonetheless. Whether or not she had saved his life didn’t matter. He planned to stay alive.
Before long, Michael had found himself stopped in front of a lone cabin in the middle of a dark clearing; evergreen all around him, a narrow dirt path under his feet to the entrance. It was old and dilapidated, and he’d wondered just how long she’d called this place home. But he didn’t pry — He would have time for that later, he hoped.
The mysterious woman had flung the door with a simple flick of her wrist and Michael followed, waiting with bated breath for her to allow him inside. This isn’t how the story goes, he’d mused then, a half-smile working its way across his features.
If she understood what amused him so, she never let on. She’d simply nodded, twice, in invitation and closed the door after him.
This is, by far, the most idiotic thing you’ve ever done, he’d scolded himself, watching as she crossed the small space to retrieve a lamp. She blew on the wick and it lit, and Michael was sure his eyes had almost burst out of their sockets.
“How did you… do that?” He hadn’t ever heard of them possessing magical abilities. Maybe she was a witch, he’d considered—It would explain the lack of bloodsucking, for one.
“Side-effect,” is all she’d replied and Michael hadn’t thought more of it. A side-effect of a condition, of a disease, perhaps. Okay.
He’d taken a moment after that to drink it all in.
Every piece of furniture, how little of it there was, was rosewood or velvet. But the chaise by the fireplace wasn’t plush and the cabinet by the window hadn’t seen a cloth in months, coated in several layers of dust. The living quarters were rather compact, and he spotted one room off to the side with a washbasin and another with a bed. If she was who—what—he thought, Michael doubted she ever made use of it.
Beside the entrance, there was a stack of firewood neatly piled up, and the coatrack from which only two items hung stood between the logs and the washroom; a top hat and a frock coat not dissimilar to his favorite back home. He questioned whether she lived alone after all.
Propriety fled his body the moment he saw her. Curiosity had taken over, and any morals or decency he’d upheld for the first twenty-three years of his life had left him faster than she could move. She was a mystery, and Michael had been determined to get to the bottom of her.
There’d been an immediate pull, an almost all-consuming need to touch her hand and follow her here—to let her lead him home.
Now six years later, he knows for certain that it hadn’t been a mistake to give in, to scratch the novel itch she’d imprinted on him.
It hadn’t been easy at first. She barely spoke a word, and no matter how many times he promised to never tell a soul about what she’d done, what he’d witnessed, she never quite seemed to trust him. But she let him live, and over time he would come and go as he pleased, bringing her small tokens of goodwill—quilts and teacups and old books. Michael considered that faith enough that she believed him.
She had handed him an old shirt that first night, a size too small for his much taller frame, but he’d changed into it in the privacy of the bedroom and not put up much of a fuss when she politely kicked him out with a delicate, “you have to go home.”
But the following night he’d returned, spotting dug-up dirt by the scene of the crime on his way, and she’d practically dragged him inside by the scruff of his neck.
When she’d asked what he was doing, Michael tossed his hat on the rack and plopped into the seat by the fire with a casual, “calling on a friend.”
Every night, for six years, he would stop by the cabin. He’d bring gifts she had no use for, but she’d accept them with an ever-so-slight smile and Michael considered his nightly trek worth it. He never questioned what she ate or if she only ever kept him around because she was goosing him up.
She cooked, to his surprise, but never so much as sampled the food herself. Michael had had better, but he appreciated that she even tried at all so he never voiced his distaste or lack of appetite.
That first week, he’d learned her name was Eleanor. At least it had been once; before she’d forced herself into isolation to temper her urges and the need for a name had withered away. Why should she need a name when there would be nobody to call for her?
Michael promptly introduced himself—rather awkwardly. He felt as if he knew her too well already for them to only just be making each other’s acquainting—and offered the shortened ‘El’ as her moniker. After a moment of hesitation, she’d nodded in approval and repeated it, trying it on for size.
El never spoke much, but over time he came to realize it was a response to whatever trauma she had been through, whatever made her this way. Eventually, she started to give him tidbits, little pieces here and there about her story and just how she ended up in this cabin in the dark, haunting woods of Hawkins, Indiana. Michael considered it a turning point in their relationship; opening up meant she trusted him. He’d earned the truth…or at least some part of it.
She’d been preyed upon by an older man, white-haired with imposing stature and a voice she said rose from her nightmares. He’d cornered her down an alley on her way home from the dentist and bit her. When she came to several hours later, El was glad he hadn’t taken anything else from her—only her life. He’d drained her of blood then fed her his, and she’d realized soon after that when he scurried away into the night, just what had happened and what it meant. She couldn’t return home for fear of hurting her family members and causing embarrassment. What would her father say? Her brothers? They’d blame her for the assault and banish her from the family home for being a danger. But El had a surprising handle on her newfound impulses—she’d learned after her first kill, some vagrant behind the apothecary that she didn’t like the taste of human blood. The craving never went away, but she refused to give in.
So she exiled herself, fleeing to the woods with a handful of items stolen in the middle of the night, and she hoped that her family wouldn’t come looking for her. El decided she would spend the rest of eternity alone if it meant keeping her loved-ones safe from hurt.
How long it’d been since then she never let on, but Michael figured it couldn’t have been too long ago. He called it a gut feeling, but it was hope—that she wasn’t millennia older than him, that there was a chance. For what, he could never quite make up his mind. Michael only saw her as the twenty-five-year-old with whom he was infatuated from the start. The sharp teeth that tore into rabbits to feed on and the blood flakes in her eyes whenever the sun started to set…none of those things mattered to him.
She was pretty, and bright in an odd way, and Michael would be damned if anybody told him it was wrong to fall for her. Not that anyone ever could — that would denote a certain inquisitiveness they just did not possess.
His father had been at his throat for years, urging him to finally find a wife and plan a family of his own. In truth, he wanted Michael ready to take over the business when he passed, regardless of whether it was something his son even wanted for himself in the first place; all of that responsibility and duty. Legacy.
Michael rather enjoyed working for The Post, reporting on the strange and quirky goings-on of their quaint town. His mother, on her end, sought grandchildren. She’d arranged for him to meet with several young women over the years but, much to her chagrin, they never took. How could they when Michael had no interest in courting anyone—at least no one with a beating pulse and an expiration date?
It took three years for him to realize that he’d fallen in love with El.
El, who reads by the fire and sips squirrel blood from fine china, who envelops herself in layers upon layers of cotton and handstitched throws. El, who is perpetually cold but never distant. El, who saw herself as a monster but never gave him a reason to see her as anything but beautiful. El, who welcomes him home with a small nod and the natural scent of musk and sandalwood.
The door is open before he’s reached the steps sometimes and Michael wonders if it’s out of habit or because she senses him somehow. The latter, he hopes.
More often than not, Michael stays the night. He puts the cot to use, and ever since the first time she curled up beside him out of what he believed to be morbid curiosity — What would happen if she flirted with sleep, daring to touch his arm and let her eyes drift to a close in the nighttime? — he has wondered if she felt it, too. The longing for more, the tightening of heartstrings when the other steps close.
He’s been grieving a love that was never his, Michael realizes then, approaching the cabin with long strides. As the door swings open ahead of him, he vows to not let another day go by without telling her—everything.
Inside, El is seated by the fire, logs burning sandstone in the dimly lit room. A blanket pulled from the back closet is thrown over her shoulders, El’s fingers clutching at the frayed edges, fashioning chenille gloves. Her legs are drawn up to her neck, her soft chin resting atop one kneecap, nightdress clothing her body.
There’s a smell of cooked meat and smoke in the air, the charcoal aftertaste of burnt pork hitting Michael’s tongue before he’s even spotted the meal laid out for him on the table. Beneath the dripping faucet, El’s dish is balancing atop a stack of pans; remnants of red decorating the porcelain, two-inch bones sitting in the bottom, waiting to be thrown to the wolves.
Over the crackle of the fire, he hears her bite, “you’re late.”
“Yes,” he says briskly, kicking the door to a close behind him with the heel of his boot. The hinges screech where rust has taken shape. “Were you waiting long?”
“Only forever.” She spares him a glance, over-the-shoulder, bright eyes brimming with what he knows to be impatience. The crimson stain on her lips doesn’t go unnoticed. “But I am always restless.”
“Not always,” he challenges, shrugging off his coat to fold it over the back of the book chair.
There’s a distinct lack of separation between where one sleeps and one shits; something they are both still adjusting to, despite the now many years of what is, in essence, cohabitation.
Privacy was foreign to them, not that it had ever mattered. It had been a foregone conclusion upon meeting her that Michael would share, would give, everything he had if she offered so much as a look in return. In six years, he has never once minded the forced intimacy that came from sharing such a tight space, nor the danger of being alone with someone who could steal his last breath in a heartbeat.
Truthfully, he would not mind if she did; if she stopped her lips within an inch of his to inhale, inhale, inhale until his heart stopped. Michael would welcome it, considering it a sweet reprieve from temptation and the pain of yearning for the impossible.
“Sometimes you drift. You know, while the sun’s out.”
He jokes as if he finds the situation amusing, she thinks. The brunette scowls, letting the dark throw slip from one shoulder as she reaches for the chamberstick at her side. The flame flickers unsteadily as she moves, bare feet padding across creaky floorboards until they’re close enough to share a shadow.
El drags her fingers across her chin when she catches his stare. “Squirrel,” she tells him, simply, as if to alleviate fear, wiping away the goop. “The fussy one who causes trouble.” She holds his gaze. “I promise.”
“It doesn’t matter,” the young man rasps. “I’ve told you before, I- I would-”
I would kill for you.
“No,” she says, and Michael is reminded of how much she adores the word and the power it holds—over him especially. “It only takes one.” One swing of a knife and you become something dark. One kill and you become like me.
“It would make this more bearable for me. Easier, too.”
El squints, “am I such a burden to you?”
“I might not know everything, El, but I know it would make seeing you in this state not quite so painful. That much I’m certain of. You can’t live off vermin.”
“I live off nothing,” she reminds him. “I will never not.”
“You don’t think I know that?” Michael gapes. “I force myself every morning to remember how different you are and how I can’t help you the way I should.”
“You shouldn’t.”
“What, help you?”
“Anything—you shouldn’t want.” El holds up the small plate to blow out the candle. The flame dies, blanketing the room in near darkness. “Not from me.”
He follows her when she makes for the back room, pulling open a tattered curtain to reveal the rickety bed with crumpled sheets. There’s a pillar candle on the dresser in the corner, the wick short and ashy. She lights it with pursed lips. Witch, too.
El yanks the curtain closed just as he reaches her, fingertips barely grazing her waist. “I should never have let you stay. You’re too attached. You want to do things you think I am owed.”
Michael sighs but doesn’t invade her privacy, remaining on the other side of the net. “You’re right - I do want. But has it ever crossed your mind that I come back here not because I feel indebted to you, or that I owe you a favor for sparing me, but simply because I cannot imagine doing anything else? That six years of lying beside you have been the only thing keeping me alive, even when I know you only allow me to do so out of pity.”
“It’s not…pity,” she whispers, gnawing at her bottom lip in frustration — He is infuriating. “You would have died, and instead of fighting… you accepted it. You didn’t scare. I didn’t scare you, not even after what I had done. I let you live because you deserved to.”
After a moment, he asks, “and what of your life?”
“I exist.” El mutters, “I am stuck with this body, this face, this hunger. It’s… endless. I am going to be here for always, but you…” she closes her eyes, throwing her head back. “You should live but you curl up with death like you believe it is in me and by being here you can take my place somehow. You do not owe me your life. You say I keep you alive but you’re more than willing to let yourself die here—that is what will happen. There is no life to be had here. One day you will realize that.”
“Would you,” he starts, gently, tentatively pinching the curtain between two fingers to draw it back. He doesn’t. “If you could, would you live with me?”
“If I could, I would fall asleep in your arms and hope never to wake. Or to wake up in a world where I no longer have to hide or kill… animals. Little ones. I would be… regular, same as everybody else, again, the same as you, and I could press my lips to yours… with no fear of hurting you. Not afraid of drawing blood or- or losing control.”
“You cannot lose something I promise to keep safe, nor could you ever break something that once belonged to me because I have trust that you will care for it. Don’t you understand that? I am eagerly yours — I surrendered all of my strength to whatever force you seem to possess so long ago that it almost feels like it was never mine at all. It would be impossible to crave anyone else, to want something different, because you are in control of my heart — it is yours to do with as you please.”
On the side of the veil, El plucks a nightgown from the top drawer of her dresser with a huff. She pulls at the neck of the one she’s wearing. “I believe you’re in need of a lock and key then, sir. You shouldn’t pass your belongings around so freely, especially not something as fragile as the human heart. I’m not capable of handling such things.”
“You’re capable of anything, El. I believe that.” He lets go of the mesh and takes a step back once he notices her shadow move; the swell of her hips as she shimmies out of silk, the toss of long hair over her shoulder. “I have no doubts about your ability to lead a normal life, whatever that might look like, should you choose to let yourself—should you choose to let me help you. It can work.”
“It couldn’t,” she dully says, pulling the cotton chemise over her head. It falls to the floor, much too big, but she doesn’t mind—it’s comfortable. It was once his. “You told me there have been…deaths? Murders? One wrong move and I become the killer, too. I would ruin your life.”
“And yet it would feel like freedom. Freedom from whatever expectations people have of me. I would never be in want of a wife or children because I would be fulfilled enough to have had you. It wouldn’t matter what people thought — I would know what you tasted like, and how you felt, and I would no longer have to wonder if you ever thought about me, too.”
The curtain is drawn back then, and he’s treated to the sight of her. She’s clad in a cotton white dress, pure, with the candlestick once again in hand. The laces around the neck are undone, hanging loosely in front of her breasts.
El is mindful of the way he seems to drink her in, his throat bobbing and hands clenching at his sides. She scrunches her button-nose, a frown pulling at her brows. It doesn’t vex her—the dark look in his eyes or the twitch of his fingers when she comes closer.
The young woman peers up at him for a moment then makes for the cushion before the fireplace, kneeling down. “I lie beside you every night to help you sleep because you say you need it.”
Michael follows her, yanking at the top buttons of his vest, undoing two, as he drops to his knees beside her. Feeling bold, he reaches for her hand to pull it into his lap, knuckles scraping the thigh of his breeches.
“I do. And you breathe, and for a moment I allow myself to imagine, to drift. I imagine holding you, properly, just once. For six years, I have wondered how you taste, and for the life of me, I cannot imagine your kiss being anything but saccharine—tooth-rotting and honey-sweet. Even if it were, I don’t believe it could ever stop me from wanting you. From wanting to be with you forever.”
El keeps her gaze firmly locked on the pile of ash at their feet. “Forever is a long time.”
“Then we should start with the things we’ve never tried to see if they’re to our liking. What do you think?”
“You want to… kiss me?”
“I want to kiss you and then some if you’d permit me, but seeing as neither one of us seems to be all that familiar with the act I do wonder if maybe we shouldn’t start small.” A faint, pale tint flushes her cheeks. If he’d known he could color her like this with nothing but the suggestion of touch, he would have fought cowardice years ago. “I would like to touch your lips with mine to see what happens. If I die, as you think I might.”
In a fit of bravery, Michael cups one side of her face in his palm and turns her head to face him, El’s eyes immediately rising to meet his, wide and wild and interested. He swipes his thumb over her cupid’s bow where blood had smudged and rubs it against the carpet before resting his forehead against hers. His hair, black and long and damp from the humidity of a dank cabin in cool air, falls in her face as they lock eyes, closer than they've ever been—than would be appropriate even if she weren’t half-witch, half-bloodsucker.
El brushes her nose along his, lips parting as short, uneven breaths slip. It’s nice—the closeness. It feels different than when she curls up against his body for warmth and companionship. This is more. The ache in her chest has increased tenfold, and something in her gut seems to flutter when he hooks his thumb between her lips to pull.
He smells of smoke and his breath is peppermint, and El wonders, for the five seconds it takes him to trace the curves of her mouth if maybe she isn’t repulsed by the scent because it belongs to him. If maybe he is an exception and she can be granted this one wish. The and then some wouldn’t matter if it meant she was allowed to press her lips to something, even if only once, without inflicting pain.
“What if I bite?”
He frowns. “You won’t,” Michael tells her, voice hushed as if admitting a secret, “I trust you. But you have to believe in me, too.”
“You’re not- There is no control for you to lose. You’re not a monster.”
“You don’t know that,” he croaks, “I might find I favor the taste of squirrel or- or I take a fancy to it, in which case—”
“Kiss me,” she interrupts him, and Michael dips his head to capture her lips then, firm but soft, the fingers he’d had resting along her cheek moving to push free curls behind her ear.
It’s strange, at first, Michael thinks, the sensation of skin on skin—not his own, soft where he is rough. Plump lips move in tandem with his, the awkward angle and crease of her nose against his when she pushes closer, deepening the embrace, winding her arms around his neck as if she were a python, venomous and deadly. After a moment—one…two…seven seconds—her tongue graces his bottom lip and he grants her entry to the slick, wet cavern of his mouth, but when he copies the move he feels teeth, sharp and cutting and dangerous, and he springs back, regrettably.
“Blazes,” Michael breathes, fisting a handful of her hair to pull her closer, dragging her into the space he occupies, knees bumping.
El hadn’t bitten him, but the look on her face is proof enough that the fear she might is still strong. Out of concern, he asks, “are you okay?” and starts peppering kisses down her throat, tight-lipped and fleeting, and she almost forgets how to breathe.
She can’t possibly speak of the overwhelming urge she feels to do it again, this time harder, this time grasping his face so tightly between her hands she can feel his nerves twitch. She can’t tell him that she would like to be so close they become one, sharing more than just breath and spit and air. She can’t tell him all of these things because they are improper and new, and he would, after all of this time, finally find her monstrous.
El settles for a nod, wrists falling slack over his shoulders when the tips of his hair tickle her exposed collarbone, his teeth dragging along the base of her throat. It’s chaste and sweet and she would find it amusing, encouraging him to go on, if she weren’t desperate to taste the salty peppermint of his lips again.
But before she can get the words out—the plea for him to trail his mouth up, up, up until he meets hers once more—he mumbles, “come live with me,” into her skin and she has no choice but to comply. It’s the only way she can keep him for good.
Almost as soon as the word ‘yes’ has fallen from her tongue, he grabs her by the back of the head to pry her lips apart with his and begs a labored, “marry me, for forever” between pecks and caresses and El wonders if maybe it isn’t she who is the fiend after all.
Maybe he is the corrupted one.