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The other Children had gone to mingle with the flowing bodies of prey, staking out their meals in advance. There is never any shame in playing with your potential kill.
I noticed Skullscap writhing with a tanned, thin human female, dressed as some bizarre witch. I felt a pang of jealousy despite myself. It’s never good to envy prey… but with my uncanny night vision, I could see a lovely plump bulge in Skull’s bulky “trip” pants. I bit my lip. I knew, of course, that the little mouse would not see daylight, let alone the thick staff he was sporting for her… but it still made me want to tear the little bitch’s throat out early. I turned my attention to the milling few coming in from the dining hall with snacks in hand. I was not surprised to see puffy white smoke drifting through the lasers from one or two hand-rolled cigarettes of the herbal variety.
I had drained my goblet yet again, and discovered a new bottle was nowhere in evidence. I sighed with aggravation, pushing my way through the crowd to the rear exit. There was a small passage to the wine cellar thence.
I began to feel… lightheaded… I stumbled in my stiletto heels, and bumped into…

Chapter 4

… him… oh, Goddess, him…
I had always been in control. I felt the exhilaration with the first thousand or so kills, yes… but one becomes accustomed to their habits. And I never lost control. Never, until him…
His proximity brought forth the perfect blending of hunger and lust. My mouth ached with the swelling of impatient salivary glands… his scent made me physically weak. My head swam as if I were walking in a bright sunbeam… my stomach was replaced with a swarm of moths. I found it hard to breathe correctly, or to form speech. My body called voicelessly to his… and his answered. Never has my natural draw so strongly fixed upon a mortal. He could resist no more than I, and it was quite possibly because of my own lack of control that he lost his own… Control that he never knew he possessed over an inner demon he could never have expected. We began to move together, slowly.

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My goblet fell forgotten to the marble floor. Arms at our sides, we stepped in perfect synch, necks craned. The distance between us closed, and we exhaled into each others’ mouths. The taste of him... of his living breath… it was more than I could bear. I seized him… he seized me. The music bled from one song seamlessly into another.
I could feel his pulse. I could feel it through my frame just as I felt the reverberating bass of the music. I felt it in my most secret, sensitive regions… It brought me nigh orgasm. I kissed his neck softly, feeling his pulse tingle my lips.
It happened slowly. First one fang, then the other... They met soft, sweet resistance for a moment, and then broke through. Pop… pop.
The taste of him, oh... the maddening taste of him. Full-bodied and intoxicating. The best way I can describe it… is that it was like spiced marsala wine blended into an immaculate sauce so perfectly as to cause one to weep at the taste. That description pales drastically in comparison with reality. His blood truly defies description.
I ached from the agonizing ecstasy of it. My hands kneaded at his bicep, his chest. I gulped it greedily at first, and my reaction was too overwhelming. My lungs hitched, and my legs nearly buckled. I clutched weakly at his shirt, and was reduced to feeble sipping, whimpering into his perfect clavicle… For once, my strength left me as my prey’s was found.
That was when he began to change.

I tasted his need. I had drunk deep, and his mind was in mine. This… this was no mouse.
The moon winked through the skylight above us. I felt him tense. He gripped me tightly… I could feel the solid mass betwixt his thighs press against his battered jeans, against my stomach… I felt as his muscles multiplied and shifted… I felt as his skin rippled and pushed forth fur…
I pulled away, perhaps just in the nick of time. He looked at me, helpless and suddenly appalled. This was my first good view of him… a young man with sandy orange hair and hazel eyes. His gaze changed, the pupils stretching to slits, his eyes brightening to a vibrant sunset color… His fingernails were sucked into puffing fingers… and long claws grew from the clefts that remained.