9. Fangs for the Memories

Ash couldn’t believe she’d figured him out so fast. She’d seen through his jovial front like it was mere webbing and not a careful disguise he’d crafted to survive.

He couldn’t believe she’d left him alive.

He’d thought he wouldn’t wake up after seeing the hate in her eyes, when he forced her to come. Beautiful. As beautiful as the carnage she’d left behind, like cryptic clues for him to decipher.

Claw marks shredded her burgundy silk bed. He sighed, mouth twisting. They raked northeast to southwest. Left handed fury and lack of control. He shook his head, belly flipping, and muscles tightening.

She’d just missed his carotid.

On purpose or not, she couldn’t bring herself to kill him. He blew out a breath, gazing around the rest of the suite. No mirrors, yet again. She’d looked away from his eyes, too.

Was the demon insecure? Afraid of her own reflection? He bit the inside of his cheek, mind racing through hypotheses. It was a possibility. His attention snagged on the vanity by the covered windows.

The piece of old furniture bore deep grooves where she’d raked her claws through the wood grain. As though she’d tried to carve herself out of it, out of the world to escape him. He prowled toward it. His fingers traced the rivers of sawdust.

Splinters clung to his skin. Strands of her copper hair glinted like wire atop it. He methodically collected them, five strands curled and warmed between his fingers as he sighed. No mirror at the vanity either.

How peculiar for a succubus. He recalled the vision of her astride him, sure of her power and strength. Sure of her ability to make him break. It made little sense that she’d hide this way.

She shouldn’t have bothered. He had shaken like a pathetic child under her. His control had disintegrated as she rode him.

So hot and consuming, he almost begged her to swallow him whole. And he never begged. Heat trickled down his spine and unfurled in his chest, unnatural, but welcome.

He forced the erotic mental image away before it distracted him.

He hadn’t expected the destabilizing effect of her succubus venom as she took him inside her. Underestimated it. Thought he knew better.

King Arthur himself couldn’t have pulled his cock out of her last night. It had been the purest form of a stimulant drug, with a nasty sedative edge he still struggled to fight off.

His movements were precise, but slower than usual as the venom worked through his system. He glared at the bed. Next time, he vowed, he would prepare himself for it. None of her shadows existed in the room.

She was long gone. Her side of the bed was cold to the touch as he ran his hand over it. Her scent—the outrage and something greasy, old oil.

What did that mean? He inhaled deeper, brow furrowing, but couldn’t figure it out. Jasmine, crushed and wilted, stained the room. A shattered vial of perfume lay under her bed.

It had grown stale. He huffed, a sour taste blooming at the back of his mouth as the scene stumped him. He picked his pants up from the floor, dragging them up his heavy legs. He reached a hand to his throat once done.

Fingers tracing her bite, it thrummed and burned with cold. Nothing unusual there. He stilled as a curl of pale smoke only he could see unfurled from it.

The vapour formed into an unsettling shape. He stared at it, unblinking and unmoving, a marble carving pretending it was a man. It was a serpent, endless, opaque, eating its own tail. It shimmered in the dull light.

It twisted for a brief second, evaporating rapidly, like he’d imagined it. What the hell? His fingers mapping the fresh scar on his neck sent a flicker of nerves down his torso. Memories of her teeth buried there kept replaying across his minds eye.

The serpent’s hunger outlasted its body. The wounds had healed over, at least. Only scars remained. Joining the rest engraved into his body. He surveyed himself, cataloguing the new ones.

They were more akin to topography—a relentless map of her shadow-forged fangs, her talons. Silvered, embroidered deep in his chilled flesh. They glittered subtly as sunlight ribboned through a crack in the moth-eaten curtains.

He sidestepped the pool of blistering gold on the floor as he walked through the room. He chuckled, rocked back on his heels, and nodded.

The demon had fled, but her specter lingered. Dark fruit, static, and... bergamot?

That wasn’t hers. He froze, thoughts a howling cyclone, and a throaty laugh burst from him as he put it together.

The bergamot was his. Everything in him went silent. He held his wrist to his nose, inhaling until his lungs burned. The blend was wrong.

Too much of him and not enough of her. He blinked. He didn’t know what to make of it. No mortal’s blood ever left a signature. Neither did any other supernatural.

This was alchemy. As he stood there, a memory flickered in his mind. It was nothing he recalled from his past. He nearly collapsed as the realisation struck.

It must be hers. The vision was blurry, sounds muted, and everything was cloaked in shadow, as an icy blade pressed into her (his?) throat.

Then a man’s voice, guttural and speaking in Russian, infiltrated his head."

Unnatural... Cursed antlers.

" Suddenly, a piercing pain speared his skull. Madeira wine’s sickening stench rolled off the Russian’s breath. ”

You’ll kneel, demon whore."

It was gone as fast as it had come. If his heart still worked, it would have galloped, a wild stallion frothing in his chest.

As it was, he swayed and let out an unhinged sound. A cross between a cackle and gagging. No fucking way.

He doubted she’d meant this. He didn’t know it was possible. What did it mean? He had to find the source, the ratio that would crack her open. Crack his survival wide open. He smiled slowly.

This was a gift. A hellish one, but a gift all the same.

It was a back door into her veins. Into her. It was a recipe for ruination. His gums ached with the phantom weight of the fangs she hadn’t feared. Oh, she didn’t know.

He doubted she or anyone who wrote the laws for their kind knew this could happen. She was in him. The smell of her skin and arousal left behind from the press of her feverish body could be washed away—her scent bleeding into his seemed permanent.

Pomegranate and burnt sugar grafted into his marrow.

And she carried his scent, too. How deep had it drilled into her? What changes might she go under? What would happen to him? His cells hummed. It was as if they’d endured an upgrade.

Her predator’s software installed without consent. Or maybe he had, the alley. She’d healed him there. And again after that.

Jesus Christ. Healed? He scoffed, arms crossed, and mouth dry as incense ash.

She hadn’t healed shit. She’d debugged him. Rewritten his source code somehow and he hadn’t noticed. Liora had made him... he didn’t know what it made him. He laughed, humorless, full of teeth, and snow-bitten. How funny.

He hadn’t pegged her as a programmer. Hmm. No, Liora was ransomware. She was a black widow in the code, silk rewriting his firmware bite by bite.

He’d never taken her for a craven though, and yet she’d vanished. His lip curled, hands itching to do something, anything.

He followed her ghost into the open closet and chased her to an empty spot. Leather, gun oil, her scent, and dead men.

Dead hunters had soaked the fabric of what she’d donned to escape him. He smirked as he spied the slight charring on the carpet where she’d stood before he woke. She’d been frantic, or perhaps furious fit her better.

She’d been angry enough to scorch the floor. Angry enough to leave him alive, fed, and twitching in her own bed. The demon had gone to hunt. He recalled her warning the night before.

When he’d lunged. When he’d given into the need to taste her. To see how she felt under his mouth and hands."

Do it. Give me a reason to carve ‘regret’ into your spine."

Yet here he was, alive. Well, alive in the way vampires could be, but he wouldn’t split hairs. And he was changed. Again. But this time, it was different, it was a code.

One he’d use and rapidly learn to weaponise. The impulse hit him hard enough to bruise. He almost swore his pulse flared to life, and a fine tremor shivered through his limbs. He had to find her.

Find her and test it, see how far it went. He had to go get his laptops and follow her down the rabbit hole. A drumbeat hammered in his head.

He had the strangest feeling it was her pulse. She was still alive, running. He grinned, hands flexing, and eyes shining like polished knives.

Prey always left a trail. He ran out of the closet, forgetting the sunlight and hissing and flinching as it scalded him.

He leaped out of the way, bare feet prickling and stinging as the sunburned skin healed over. He swore at the ceiling, teeth grinding, and jaw clenched. Rookie mistake.

Stop the nonsense. Focus on finding her.

The hotel groaned like a melancholic sigh filtered through the aged floorboards. Even the walls ached for her. A thrill trilled through him, the promise of a good hunt making him fidget.

His feet burned to chase, hands cramping with the need to snatch. He scowled at the covered windows, keeping him from her. Whether it ended in fangs and blood, fight and fuck, or death and desecration, he had to track her.

He just had to wait for sundown. Cliche really sucked for a vampire. At least the fictional stories about no reflections in mirrors and needing invitations to go places weren’t true.

Mortals had fantastic imaginations, but they’d never come close to the truth. He didn’t sparkle, either. He could enter anything and anywhere he wanted.

He’d never thought he’d willingly enter a demon’s body. But he’d also never thought he’d become a blood sucking monster, so it evened out. And at least he could still eat food and get drunk.

He still didn’t understand that part. It just took a lot more alcohol to get there. He cocked his head, a brow arching, and his mouth was still bone dry. Alcohol would help. He stalked to the mini bar near the bed.

He pulled a bottle of bourbon out, head tilting as he appraised it. Expensive, premium, and aged for decades. Her fingerprints had smudged the glass.

His thumb smoothed over the clearest one. Red had grand tastes in all things, it seemed. He grabbed a short crystal tumbler off the shelf next to the liquor and poured the amber liquid to the brim.

He downed it in one go, sighing as he clutched the glass to his chest. The burn easing the chill in him as it slid down his throat. A groan of pleasure and relief left him as it soaked his tongue.

Smooth, smoky—he had to admit she knew her drinks. He left the empty glass on the nightstand and took the bottle with him as he left the room to explore the rest of the suite. As he swigged it, the cool liquid tasted of her. Her vivid blood...

He eyed it, a smudge of scarlet lipstick and black demonic blood mottled the rim. He chuckled aloud, brows lifting, and a bolt of heat streaked his chest. Oh, she was clever.

She’d laced it with her venom. Had she used it on a mark before him?

The liquor burned and twisted in his dead gut at the thought, face sullen, and movements too quick and sharp. Hand almost shattering the bottle, a rolling growl escaping his teeth.

No, stop it. Calm down.

She hadn’t used it on anyone else here. His scent was the only one apart from hers in this entire suite.

But maybe it was her original intention. Or she just liked her own medicine’s aftertaste. Another laugh broke loose as the slow, subtle warmth of the bourbon bled out of him.

“Well played, Red. But I’m building a tolerance thanks to you.”

Wasn’t this just great? Talking to himself was a fantastic sign. He strode through the rooms, barely seeing anything except her ghost and the memories she’d left him with.

Memories that deepened the hunger stirring inside him. His veins itched, remembering how her venom scoured through them. He shouldn’t be hungry.

He’d indulged in a feast last night. But it roiled anyway. Sharp as razors as it sliced at his spine. Whispering to him as he shoved it down, knuckles creaking as he gripped the bottle tight to his chest.

Get a grip, Ash.

He leaned against the wall in the shadowed hallway, slumping to the floor as he gulped it down. Seven hours.

Seven fucking hours to replay the way her claws had shuddered mid-strike. Like she’d tasted his blood and wanted to spit it out, or savor it.

Seven hours to relive in 4K vision how she felt and looked bound so tightly around his cock. Her flickering molten heat branding him, her venom making everything feel even more intense.

So intense, he thought he was having a seizure when he came. Then it was lights out. Instant sleep.

Cool trick, demon. But you should’ve drained me dry.

Her eyes had blown black when she came for him, her claws buried deep in his shoulders like she needed an anchor as her orgasm tore through her.

All because of him. Did all her marks make her tremble like that? He didn’t think so.

He didn’t think she’d ever had anyone that bit back.

Enough, he spat at his own mind as lust built up. His phone dug into his thigh.

Still stuffed in his pocket after he swiped it from a dead hunter. He’d asked nicely first. Alright, fine. Maybe Ash had demanded it in a snarky manner before snapping the brutes neck.

But violence was the only language those pricks understood. He’d almost forgotten he even owned it. Funny how fast life flipped the script.

He took it out, sipped at his bourbon as it turned on, and the blue light made his eyes blur. Or maybe the alcohol was finally working its magic. He still tasted her.

Her absence was a physical thing. As though she’d scooped out what answered for his soul, and left a freezer burn in its place.

His thumbs hovered over his screen after he typed the number she’d tossed at him in the alley. He’d memorized it instantly. He saved her as a contact. Liora.

Was that her real name? Or a pretty lie like her? He’d have to check his databases for information. If any existed.

If it did, he’d trawl through them until he found her. He tapped a message out after setting the almost empty bottle down. The dull thud as it hit the carpet sounded more like a slap in the hall’s silence. His slanted smile remained.

False and contorted as he read what he typed.

Found your goodbye note. Venom in the bourbon? Nice, but try harder next time. A.

He debated sending it. Sighing as he deleted it. Better to let her think he hadn’t noticed. The catch would be all sweeter if he let her think she’d won.

She hadn’t. Winners don’t run. The hunters’ bullets could wait. They could stitch his name into their kill lists all they liked. She’d already etched hers into his marrow.

Five hours left. The passage of time was a casket lid, lowering grain by grain. He’d claw his way out with her screams as leverage. As fuel. She could bolt, but she couldn’t hide.

Game on, Demon.

Deep in the bowels of the city, the demon laid a trail, and a clock struck thirteen.