Page 92 of How (Not) To Raise The Dead

Her nails rake down my chest, tearing through the skin, leaving burning trails in their wake. I welcome the sting. I crave it. The burn sears through my blood, a sharp, physical tether in a world that is dissolving around us. I force her faster, harder, trying to outrun the inevitable morning.

It isn’t enough. I need more. I need to consume her.

If her mind’s going to be scrubbed clean, if I’m to be reduced to nothing more than a fever dream or a chemical imbalance, then I need her body to remember. I want to leave a ghost in her nervous system. I want her cells to ache with the phantom weight of me long after the memories are gone. I want to ruin her for anyone else who tries to touch her in that mundane, beige life she’s returning to.

“I’m going to bite you,” I warn, my voice a feral rasp against the shell of her ear.

“Do it,” she breathes, her heading falls back, exposing the slender, vulnerable architecture of her throat.

Her scream is wet and breathless, a sound of pure shock and arousal that vibrates straight into my jaw as I sink my fangs into the soft, tender curve of the junction where neck meets shoulder. Her skin breaks with a satisfying pop, and her beautiful, hot blood washes over my tongue.

Saints-be-fucking-low.

It tastes of iron and dirt and mortality. It is a vulgar, biological fluid. But with her, it’s ambrosia.

I groan against her skin and lap at the wound, soothing the sting with my tongue, swirling over the puncture marks, but below, I offer no mercy. My hips continue their brutal, snapping assault, driving the head of my cock relentlessly against her g-spot. And my hand moves faster between us, slick with sweat and sex, rolling her overstimulated clit until she’s thrashing against me, hips bucking wildly.

“Take it,” I snarl against her bloody neck. “Feel that? Feel how that metal tears you up inside?”

She cries out, her inner muscles clamping down on me in a vice-like grip, milking the shaft, rippling over the barbell in a way that nearly blinds me.

“That's it,” I growl, fucking into her harder, faster, chasing the friction. “Be a good girl and squeeze. Break it off inside you.”

She throws her head back, her body bowing as the tension snaps.

“I can't—!” she sobs, her voice fracturing.

“You can. Come for me,” I command.

Her hips stutter, and then she breaks. A hot, violent gush releases from her, soaking my hand, coating my thighs, splashing against our joined bodies.

The sensation of her come hitting me—the heat, the mess, the way she unravels completely—is the final straw.

My control shatters. Her name rolls from my tongue again and again as I drive deep one last, devastating time, burying myself to the hilt, pouring every drop of myself into her.

We stay tangled together for a long moment, my forehead resting against hers, our breath mingling in the silent air of the cell. I pull back just enough to look at the room.

It’s a disaster. The room designed to strip a soul of its dignity through sheer, blinding whiteness—now looks like the aftermath of a localized riot. A mess of blood, sweat, and tangled clothes strewn across the floor that’s nothing more than a middle finger to the architects of the Ninth.

And by this time tomorrow, she won’t remember a damn thing about it.

“Well,” I rasp, exhausted. “I believe we’ve definitely just ruined someone’s day with this mess.”

Eden slumps and lets out a tiny sound that I think is another sob. But then her shoulders shake, and a fragile laugh bubbles out of her, puffing against my collarbone.

“Good,” she whispers shakily, her skin still fever-hot against mine. “I hope it takes them an eternity to scrub the smell of us out of the grout. I hope the tiles never recover.”

I huff out a dry laugh, tracing the edge of the bite mark on her neck.

“Perhaps they’ll be so pissed that for punishment, I’ll be demoted to a brand-new department dedicated to overseeing minor inconveniences and despair,” I mutter.

“So… a permanent transfer back to Earth, then?” she whispers.

I chuckle, but it feels like swallowing glass. I pull her closer, wrapping my arms around her plush, sweat-slicked frame, hiding her face against my chest so she doesn't have to see the predatory whiteness of the walls anymore.

“What’s going to happen to you, Malachi?” she asks, the lightness of her voice failing. “When I’m gone… Where do you go?”

“Ah, you know. Back to the grind,” I say, trying to force a casual shrug. “Back to the usual—the paperwork, the screaming, the occasional bit of creative torture. It’s a living. Or, well, an existing.”