by Liz Meldon
Maybe it was time to use that to her advantage.
When she was sure he had followed her onto the main pathway of the Hills, the wide-set unpaved one that branched off in every direction, Moira picked up the pace and power-walked along one of the offshoots, leading him into a more heavily treed area. Another quick glance over her shoulder, and, yup, there he was—prowling. Given the crowd had thinned and most people were sitting on the grass, he was obvious as sin behind her. Couldn’t he see that?
Moira put him to the test, taking less traveled paths, darting across the lawn and around trees. At one point she thought she’d lost him, but then he’d turned up in her peripherals again. Finally, she slowed to a near stop, then whirled around. About fifteen feet stood between the pair, and Russ turned sharply under the guise of tying his shoe, foot propped up on a bench.
Right. No one was buying that. Biting the insides of her cheeks, Moira grabbed her phone again.
“Ella!” she cried. “Oh my god, girl, how is your day going?”
She pretended to listen, nothing but dead air greeting her, and then laughed as she started a slow march down the path away from him. This time, Russ followed almost right away, as if giving up on the whole lurking-at-a-distance thing. Her heartbeat quickened the nearer he drew, his pace unrelenting, his footsteps growing louder. When she peeked over her shoulder, smiling but not talking, phone pressed to her ear, he looked like he meant to brush by her and keep going, his dark gaze lifted to something in the distance.
No. This ends now.
Moira waited, her entire body tense, until he was in the exact right position…
Her fist slammed into his gut as soon as he was right beside her, their bodies too close for comfort, and she leapt back when he exhaled noisily and collapsed to his knees.
“Stop following me!” she shrieked, her voice carrying through the trees around them, and then shoved his shoulders as hard as she could. He went down fast, catching himself in the nick of time so he didn’t faceplant. Instead, he rolled himself onto his back, baseball cap tilted and face exposed. Russ Tanner. In the flesh. Staring up at her with that dusky, unflinching stare, his brow furrowed.
Moira stared right back, refusing to be bullied by that look, her hands clenched to tight fists. A hurricane of feeling roiled about inside her. Revulsion, her suspicions now confirmed. Betrayal, that this man who had appeared so professional had decided to stalk her. Humiliation, blended with desire, at the memory of what had happened that night.
And curiosity. That was the one that surprised her the most. Intrigue. A strange, unwelcome sense of attraction. Interest in him, in what went on behind his onyx stare.
She could feel that familiar, unwelcome blush charging across her skin, and she tugged at her wool cap—fern-green today, to match her leggings—like that would hide it.
Moira knew her strength had been growing—changing, intensifying. She’d broken more things lately than just her bike wheel, but Russ appeared unfazed by the attack. Surprised, yes. Startled, maybe a little. But as he stared up at her, she saw the same curiosity she felt deep within herself, the same unsettling sense of intrigue that made her stay fixed where she was—rather than running like she should have.
“What are you?” he asked. Murmured so low, so softly, it seemed more a question for him than Moira. When he sat up on his elbows, his eyebrows lifted slightly, those sensual lips quirked. “You’re not human. Not entirely, anyway.”
She blinked, a flash of cold unease taking root. “W-what did you just say?”
Moira had wondered it herself sometimes, usually as she stared in the mirror after a shower, hating what she had become. Hating the changes. Hating that she didn’t see herself staring back anymore. Was she dying—or was this just a new stage of living?
Her mom had warned her before she’d died that twenty-two would be a banner year in her life, that nothing would be the same. At the time, Moira had chalked the premonitions and warnings up to the insane dosage of painkillers the hospital had her on. People say the craziest things when they’re high as a kite.
Yet her words rang true. Moira wasn’t the same, not even close, and it had all started after her twenty-second birthday. Glaring at her reflection, she thought herself reptilian, artificial, corpse-like—inhuman.
And now someone else had said it, aloud, for all the world to hear.
Russ drew a breath, as if to speak again, but the booming footsteps of a newcomer had his lips pressed right back together, his intense curiosity shifting to exasperation.
“Hey, are you okay?” Moira looked the new arrival over: tall, blond, athletic build, already wearing shorts despite the fact it was still sweater weather. Behind him, a group of wide-eyed undergrads looked on. His words, however, were muffled by the combination of a high-pitched whining and what felt like thick, unyielding cotton between her ears. The hand he placed on her shoulder—Moira hardly felt it, his touch nothing more than a ghostly caress. Just like all physical contact in her life lately—all except for Russ.
“I—”
“Is this guy bothering you?” he asked again, jabbing a finger at Russ as he stood. “Do I need to call campus security?”
“What?” She shook her head, forcing herself to tuck the shock, the fear, over what Russ had just said away for later. The brain fog dissipated, the world suddenly too loud. She fidgeted with her cap. “Him? No, no. I’m fine.”
“Are you sure?”
“She said she was fine,” Russ growled, his voice sharpening from the velvety purr she had become accustomed to, his glare positively withering. Her white knight rounded on the spot to face at him, but suddenly the color drained from his cheeks, and he shuffled back to his friends without another word.
“Thanks anyway,” Moira called after him, but he didn’t look back. Odd. Russ, meanwhile, looked as though the interruption hadn’t even happened, dusting himself off as his gaze swept up and down her body. She crossed her arms, scowling. Hadn’t he gotten a good enough look spying on her from across the courtyard all week?
Or, you know, when he’d fucked her, almost fully clothed while she wore nothing at all?
Moira bit her lower lip, cheeks colouring at the thought—and darkening further when he grinned somewhat smugly down at her.
“What did you mean when you said I wasn’t…human?” she demanded, lowering her voice and stepping closer—mostly to show he didn’t affect her, that his roguish good looks and penetrating stare did nothing to rattle her. However, just as she’d felt that first night, Moira found herself inexplicably eager to be close to him, too. It had frightened her then, and it should have frightened her now.
“I think you know exactly what I meant,” Russ told her. He waited for a moment, lips still twisted in that sinful smirk, until the silence dragged on long enough to make her shift about uncomfortably. With a soft clearing of his throat, he slid his hands into his pockets, then leaned closer. “Don’t you?”
“Obviously not,” she hissed back, her stomach looping and her head thick with fog again. “I don’t understand any of this, but clearly you seem to have some inkling of—”
“Can we speak somewhere less public?” he asked, scanning the area and once again towering over her. “Somewhere with fewer idiots watching.”
While there weren’t many lunching students around, the few that were, seated under shady trees or on top of picnic tables, feet on the benches, openly stared like she and Russ were performing an impromptu skit. Flustered, Moira readjusted her cap again, tugging it down as far as it would go, and shook her head.
“I don’t—”
“I know you know I’ve been following you,” he stated, far too frank for her liking, “and you’ve no reason to trust me. But I know you aren’t…all that you appear. After the other night, I’d like to talk.”
The last thing Moira knew she should do was take him somewhere private to “talk,” but for the first time in a long time, alarm bells weren’t shrieking inside her head. Sure, her st
omach continued to loop over and over itself, and her sweaty palms had to mean something, and the head fog, and the way little tendrils of pleasure licked up her body the longer they held eye contact…
She ought to run.
But she didn’t.
“Fine, we can talk somewhere,” she agreed, then cleared her throat and hardened her tone. “But if you touch me, I will literally put you through a wall.”
“Oh, little Moira…” Russ smiled his most dangerous smile yet. “I bet you will.”
Chapter Five
Severus hadn’t been in a college girl’s room since the seventies. Back then, everything had stunk of drugs and sex, and no one locked their doors. As he stood in the middle of Moira’s bedroom, surrounded by purple and photos, he realized the times had changed.
Or, at the very least, Moira wasn’t as much fun as the college girls he used to know.
In the old Victorian home, he could hear just about every step she made. Her long but quick strides echoed as she checked each of her roommates’ doors downstairs, just to ensure no one was home—no one could overhear. They wouldn’t be home, of course. Severus knew most of their schedules by now, all five of them. He had been a keen observer of the house for over a week now. He knew where the paint chipped, which boards on the porch squeaked, and that the drain pipe needed a good cleaning.
While he didn’t know all the female inhabitants, he’d been able to match names to Ella and Simone. The other roommates eluded him—frequent partiers, if their drunken antics five of the last seven nights suggested anything. Moira, meanwhile, had been home and sequestered in her room by 10 PM most evenings, unless she was watching television with Ella—which he had been able to see perfectly from his shadowy hiding spot between their house and the noisy bungalow beside it. Four men lived there who seemed to think every day was garbage day, given the mountain of bags at the end of their driveway, the grass overgrown and one window covered with a wooden board, lines of empty liquor bottles on the ledges of the others.
Ahh, college.
Hands in his pockets, Severus took these few moments of solitude to study her room. They hadn’t said more than five words to each other on the walk back to Moira’s house from campus. It had surprised him, at first, that she would bring him here. However, her threat about putting him through a wall, literally, sprang to mind as they climbed the porch steps together and Moira jammed her key into a fussy lock. She had confidence in her strength—something he hadn’t suspected, given her reaction to damaging her bike wheel the other night. Still, she had let her guard down and invited the monster inside, thinking her physicality could overpower his.
Unlikely, but should the conversation be civil enough, Severus hoped he wouldn’t need to show her the error of her ways. After all, he had meant what he said: he wanted to talk. He had let her catch him following her these last three days, making himself more and more obvious until she finally snapped. Moira, with her unearthly blue eyes and svelte little figure, thought she had the upper hand. She thought she had initiated contact. Yet if he looked hard enough, he’d find strings on her wrists and ankles, ever his little puppet.
Severus smirked at the thought, his gaze drifting along her haphazardly made bed. She could think her strength intimidated him. If it opened her up, if it beguiled her into divulging her secrets, let her think whatever she wanted.
Purple pillowcases. Purple sheets. Purple bedspread. All varying shades, but a sickening amount. The blinds over the one window overlooking the two-storey colonial next door were in serious need of a dusting. Her desk was cluttered, her garbage can full of empty printer ink cartridges and hair dye boxes. While she appeared quite social in all the photos pinned to the tackboard over her desk, a few patterned around her bedside table, she looked different. Not so different that he couldn’t tell it was her; the basic building blocks remained, but much of the rest had changed. Slimmer, gaunter, leaner, her high cheekbones apparent now. Her eyes. Her hair. The hue of her skin—all different.
Severus squinted, plucking one photo of her and Ella off the wall. Ella looked nearly the same, so it must have been recent. Arms locked around each other, lips peeled back in laughter, they looked ordinary enough—human ordinary at that. Half-finished pints of beer sat in front of them. Only Moira’s hair was brown—a deep, lush chestnut. Nothing like her hair the other night, clearly the product of one of the many dye boxes in her trash can. And certainly not like the whites of her eyebrows now, a shade he assumed carried up to the rest of her head.
Strange. He tossed the picture onto her messy desk, then busied himself with a bit of snooping at the sound of her still marching about downstairs. Closet only half full of clothing, a handful of dresses hanging neatly while boxes filled the rest of the space. The four-drawer dresser caught his attention next. On a whim, he opened the second drawer—and found a treasure trove of panties. All kinds, too. Silk. Cotton. Thongs. Bikini-cut. Every colour of the rainbow…
His eyebrows shot up when he plucked a lacey red one from the pile. “Crotchless? Moira, Moira, Moira—”
“What are you doing?”
He whirled around, the undergarment still hanging off his index finger, and grinned at her scandalized expression, her hands clutching the door and frame so tight her knuckles had gone white.
Well. Whiter.
“Where were these the other night?” he drawled, holding them out to her when she stomped into the room. Red-faced, jaw noticeably clenched, Moira snatched them off his finger, a whiff of her floral scent wafting over him as she shouldered her way to the dresser and shoved the bit of cloth back in its drawer. After she slammed it shut, she glared up at him.
“We’re not here to talk about my underwear.”
“I’m game if you are,” he mused. Elbow propped up on the dresser, his grin widened at her bristly exhale. “My afternoon is wide open.”
“No thank you,” she muttered, stalking across the small rectangular room and closing the door. She stood there for a moment, clutching the doorknob, the silence thickening around them, until the leering sort of smile Severus had produced fell away too.
Then, with practiced caution, her hand edged up, up, up to her wool cap—a garment far too warm for the time of year—and gripped it. Lower lip caught between her teeth, she finally tugged it off. White, staticky hair fell free, tumbling down her back, stick-straight as he remembered and nothing like her photos. Shyly, Moira smoothed her hand over it, catching the flyaways, and then gripped the cap tight in front of her.
His gaze swept over her quickly, astutely, and while Severus found her shyness oddly endearing and the white hair strangely suited to her pallor, it was the inner demon that roared to life at the sight. A tremor rippled through his right hand, and his heart thundered against its constraints. Even his cock stirred, and in that moment, all he, the demon within, wanted to do was march across the room, slam her up against that flimsy door, and mark her with his teeth as she screamed—in agony, in pleasure, it didn’t matter.
And that pissed him off. Royally.
Who’s the puppet now?
He strode toward her, only to force himself to stop and ignore the need pounding through his veins. Instead, he grabbed the picture he’d tossed aside earlier and held it between them.
“What happened to you?”
“I don’t know,” she told him, all the earlier fight and indignation gone. Her cheek twitched as she reached for the photo, and Severus closed the distance between them with an additional step. Carefully, she took it, studying it with a furrowed brow, then pressed it to her chest. “Something no one can explain. No doctors, no specialists.”
He snorted. Of course the medical community had no say in the matter; the change was likely supernatural in nature. Her face blanched, seeming startled by his reaction.
“Before my mom died, she told me that once I turned twenty-two, everything would change,” Moira offered, both arms dropping to her side. “I thought maybe she meant…personally. Emotionally. Profe
ssionally. I don’t know. She didn’t elaborate, but she was also on a lot of painkillers. She kept talking about onions too. Like. All the time. I chalked all the twenty-two stuff up mostly to, uh, her being high.”
“But you now suspect she meant,” Severus gestured to her body, his gaze fixed on her stark white hair, “this.”
“Maybe.” Closing her eyes, she took a deep breath, then slowly let it out. When she was through, Moira tossed the cap and the photo on her desk, then skirted around him to the closet. He watched, curious, as her reaching fingers went for the box on the top shelf, highest of the lot. Curiosity sparked to desire when her shirt lifted to reveal a patch of creamy white skin along her lower back. No blemishes. No marks. His eyes dropped lower to her firm little ass, cupped in thick green leggings that matched her cap.
Annoyed, Severus rolled his shoulders back and bit the insides of his cheeks. This was getting ridiculous. He was a fucking sex demon. A flash of skin and a cute figure shouldn’t be so distracting.
When she finally had the box she needed, grappling with it a bit as she brought it down, Moira shuffled over to her bed and perched on the end of it.
“After I turned twenty-two, things started to happen. Freckles disappearing. The weight loss. Last summer all my hair fell out.” She looked up at him, cheeks pink. “All of it. Everywhere. And then it grew back like this.”
All of her hair, eh? His eyes dropped down to her thighs, trying to recall if the hair down there matched that on her head. Hmm. If he remembered correctly, there hadn’t been any hair down there, but much of their physical encounter seemed fuzzy in his memory—like he’d been drunk off her, off the scent of her skin and the sound of her cries.
“My eyes changed—”
“They are rather startling,” he said, hands clasped behind his back as he frowned. “How did you explain it?”
