“You…” She found she could say nothing else. Or, rather, she spoke, but no sound came out. With his red magic, he’d taken her voice.
Clay stood, stepping away from her, eyes becoming their usual brown once more, so dark they were practically black. “Let me show you how us death priests work.” He slipped off his gloves, revealing skeletal hands. “You saw a bit last time, but that was old blood. And in your dreams, well, I couldn’t help but be a little dramatic. Now, you’ll have a front row view of it all.” His gloves turned to red mist as he dropped them, disappearing before they had the chance to hit the floor.
Addie wanted to turn away, to not watch, but she found she couldn’t. Her eyes remained on him, practically unblinking, as he shed his clothes, piece by piece, each garment evaporating with maroon magic. His suit jacket, his button up shirt, his pants. He took everything off until he stood before her, naked, save for the mask on his face.
And then…even that slipped off.
Her stomach turned to stone. What stood before her was not a man. From his hands to his elbows, and from his feet to his thighs, he was nothing but bone. His shoulders, his hips—it was like layers were added, piece by piece. The veins, the muscle tissue, the ligaments, but no flesh. His entire stomach was revealed to her, his intestines and other organs a mishmash of pinks and reds above the pelvic bones that peeked out from beneath the muscle tissue on his upper thighs. An ivory rib cage was visible, encircling his lungs, which continued to expand and compress as he breathed in and out. Every organ was slick and wet, and Addie felt like being sick.
He wasn’t a man. He was…he was death walking. Was this what all death priests did? Was this what the price to their magic was?
Addie rose her stare to his face, her arms trembling around her.
He was missing his nose, which the mask had so easily mimicked, along with most of his lower face. His teeth were visible, a thin film of ligament stretching from his cheekbone to his bare jaw on both sides. No lips; she was right about that. Her mind could almost not comprehend what she was seeing, because half of his face was normal, while the other half looked like it was taken straight out of a horror movie, as if someone had cut off pieces of him.
Clay, in that moment, was the most frightening thing she’d ever seen. He was the very definition of undying, a person whom death could never touch. Her heart beat too fast, she felt like she was going to have a panic attack. She couldn’t even call out to him, try to stop him, as he turned to face the human man on the floor.
The man’s eyes widened, shock quickly turning into outright fear as he shook his head, sweat pooling on his bushy brows. He tried to crawl away, but the chains held him in place. A dark stain appeared on his pant legs, the smell of urine filling the air as Clay stood over him.
“It is harder than you think, keeping twenty-four skeletons alive and holding a barrier around an entire town,” Clay mused, grabbing the man by his neck, his skeletal grip tight. “It drained me faster than I thought—good thing I have you to refuel me, huh?” The black flesh around his eyes gathered as if he were smiling. He probably would be, if he had a mouth and not just teeth. Magic had to help him speak, because it looked like his tongue was only half-formed in his mouth, a grotesque display of an unnatural spell.
Addie was a captive audience. Clay’s eyes turned red, and she could not look away as the human’s flesh began to seep off his squirming form, like tiny sand particles in the air, traveling from the man to Clay. The skin was tan-colored, but after the layer was gone and the man’s red and tan muscle tissue was visible, the fragments turned to red. The human was an anatomy doll, living and breathing even as Clay sucked him dry.
Clay started to regenerate the moment the transfer began. His body started to fill in, the skeletal parts first, slowly forming the body of a man, his skin the final part to form, already painted black.
When the human man was nothing but a dried-up mummy of bones and dirty clothes, long since dead, Clay released his hold on the man’s neck, grinning as he crawled to Addie. He was now fully formed, wearing a madman’s grin, a smirk that told her she was in for a world of hurt, an expression that let her know just how big of a mistake she’d made.
She was going to die here.
Though he was completely naked, she could not move her stare away. His eyes, still glowing a bright red, bore into her. She could not talk, could not move. Once he reached her, his hands went to her knees, which were drawn up to her chest, pushing them down with force.
“Now,” Clay spoke, his teeth a blinding white against the black of his face, almost the same white as the single line traveling down his body, “let’s get further acquainted, shall we?” The grin he wore only grew as a hand snapped to her throat, angling her face to his, blocking her breathing as well as her voice. “Why don’t you start by showing me everything you’ve been up to in the last few days?”
Addie had no choice but to show him through her thoughts. Even if she fought him, he’d just worm his way inside like a leech. She showed him her mother, learning the truth about her father, every single moment she’d spent with the guys, with Jack. Her regrettable encounter with Forest. Each kiss, each embrace, each spoken word; Clay saw it all.
It was when his red eyes returned to brown and he muttered a single word she knew she really fucked up by choosing to come.
“Interesting,” he whispered, and then her world went black. His came to her in her mind: We’re going to have so much fun together.
This is it.
This was the end.
Undying: A Reverse Harem Shifter Romance (Crystal Lake Pack Book 2) Page 20