She would be angry at Orpheus, but he couldn’t help being a nightmare. He’d shown her more kindness in his Duskwalker actions than any of the humans she known in the last twenty years.

Perhaps this was always meant to be my fate, Reia thought with a dark laugh when she saw him emerge from the edge of the hill.

He was running on all fours across the flat ground, huffing snorts coming from him. His eyes were a bright, deep glow of red, easy to see over the small distance. They were only thing she could clearly make out with his unbelievable speed.

It was the eyes of her grim reaper. I hope I’m tasty!

She clenched her eyelids shut right before he crashed into her.

Falling into soft snow, heat emitted from his body as he pinned her down by nothing but her own determination to make this as painless as possible. Heat drifted over her from his breath as it brushed over the entirety of her face.

She probably shouldn’t have opened her eyes, but a drop of liquid splattering against her cheek startled her.

Open jaws were slowly circling around her face as he brought them down around her head, his neck twisted so his jaws could come down either side of it. She felt the sharpness of one of his top fangs as it slipped over her cheek, but it didn’t appear to cut it.

His mouth opened wider and wider to allow her in.

The back of his throat was pitch black while his purple tongue was curled and twitching. Her last thought would be her curiosity about the colour, wanting to know why it wasn’t pink.

His breath should have been more unpleasant as it invaded her nostrils, but it smelt of smoky mahogany and pine with a hint of sweetness. The only reason it wasn’t truly pleasant was because she could smell the metallic tang of cooper blood laced with it.

Another speck of drool dripped onto her cheek as the crunching of snow crackled in her ears from his snout and round pointed jaw pressing into it. His tongue was now resting firmly against her cheek.

Reia felt a cut of fear slash through her, and a laugh slipped past her quivering lips. An unhinged, panicked laugh. This is disturbing. Watching his open maw preparing to crush her entire skull, in what she was sure was a single chop, to kill her was unbelievably unsettling.

She laughed more when her giggle echoed back through the crevice of his mouth as though she was answering herself from beyond the grave.

He paused, and her hands reached up to grab at the long fur around his chest, knowing this was the moment and bracing herself for pain.

Waiting. Waiting.

She giggled a little more, and it sounded loopier by the second.

A deep huff sounded right before his head started to back away.

Reia’s brows drew tightly together when he brought his mouth away from her and shut it a few millimetres away from her nose. She could finally see his bony face properly.

His glowing eyes were still red, but they didn’t appear as strong as they had been when she’d seen him climb over the edge of the hill.

Blood was splashed across his skull and covered the tip of it completely.

His head shot forward, and the hard bone of his snout pressed against her cheek where she could still feel the wetness of his tongue from before. He sniffed her. Sniffed her! Quick sniffs that brushed waves over her.

“What are you doing?” The sensation was tickling, and her nerves were so fried she wasn’t sure what else to say or do as she continued to clutch his fur.

“You taste of elderberries and roses. You smell of it.”

Her fingers lost their grip when the fur began to disappear, forcing her fingers out as a black jacket began to push past the fibres. The dull glow of his red eyes faded out as deep yellow took over – a new colour.

“Is this what you smell like?”

He continued to sniff around her cheek, and a squeak left her when he dabbed his tongue at it.

“I–I thought you were going to eat me,” she whispered, her hands falling limply next to her into the snow.

Her heart was beating so erratically she could feel it deeply pulsing and hear it in her ears.

“Yes. I’m sorry, but I was.”

Now that things seemed to be calm, she could feel how much that confirmation caused her heart to jump a beat before it continued to race blood in her veins like a storm.

“Why didn’t you?”

“I do not know.” She could hear the frown of a confusion in his voice; an expression he’d never be able to make. “I have never had a human laugh as I’m about to eat them before.”

He buried the end his snout against her neck and drew his tongue over it, making her flinch when a shiver shot through her. “I was also curious about why I could taste elderberries and roses rather than blood. You are lucky I am not so hungry now after eating parts of those men, I may not have come to my senses before it was too late.”

“Aren’t you going to eat me anyway?”

He licked her neck again before sniffing against it.

“That depends solely upon you. Although I can make no promises, that is not actually my intention with you.”

“It’s not?”

Reia truly thought he was going to take her home for dinner!

A yelp squeezed from her when he licked across her chest and dipped into the low cleavage of her dress enough that his tongue only just missed her nipple!

“It is strongest here, just above your heart.” He licked again, creating another yelp that came out strangled with a gasp. “Yes. I can sense what you smell like clearly now.”

Reia clenched her eyes shut.

What the fuck is wrong with me?! Those two simple licks over her chest, feeling how rough, yet slippery his long tongue was, had sent a charge throughout her body.

As though it was betraying her, her nipple on that side had hardened swiftly while the other was slowly firming behind it. A pool of heat had swept through her belly, building just above her core that contracted.

It’s nerves. Simply nerves. I’m just excited because he doesn’t plan to go out of his way to eat me!

That was it, that had to be it. There was absolutely, positively, no way that Reia was actually being turned on by a monster right now.

“Can you please stop licking me?” She squirmed a little, unable to get away with him above her. “You said you weren’t going to eat me, but it’s a little disturbing, like you weren’t actually telling the truth.”

He grunted, while his orbs turned a reddish-pink. He suddenly shot to his feet, revealing to her that he had reverted completely into the Duskwalker shape from before

– the one with the human-shaped body and clothes.

He no longer appeared like the nightmare she’d seen but the creature who had stirred a moment of tenderness within her after she’d said his name.