Total pages in book: 153
Estimated words: 146289 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 731(@200wpm)___ 585(@250wpm)___ 488(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 146289 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 731(@200wpm)___ 585(@250wpm)___ 488(@300wpm)
Suffice to say, when his eyes go that way, I try not to look, lest I fall into them and never crawl out again. And anyway, he’s still able to make me come countless times anyway, so I wouldn’t say it actually puts a damper on things. Who knew I was this freaky at heart?
It’s Sunday now, I realize. Sunday means six nights since he came in through my window. Sunday also means we’re no longer in August.
I open the front door to put out the recycling that gets collected by a rusted old truck twice a month, and the cold hits me in the face like a slap. It’s properly cold, like god (or perhaps that eldritch being in the cosmic void) snapped their fingers. The bracken on the slope has started to turn, copper at the tips of the fronds, the green giving up to bronze. The heather’s past peak, the deep pink fading toward a duller rose and I’m glad I collected and dried and pressed as much of it as I could in early August. The light through the clouds has gone thin and clear the way it does once the season’s shifted in the night, and I feel that sense of melancholy I always get when summer comes to an end.
I stand on the step with the bag in my hand and let myself feel it, the air and the loch and the smell of the moor winding down. Fall has arrived overnight.
I’m not ready for it. I haven’t bought a proper coat or made sure I have enough wood for the stove, and I’m unsure if the heater I bought for the studio will be enough after all.
I should call Maddie, I think.
But I know that it will only remain a thought. The truth is, I have only texted her reassurances this last week but I’ve kept a lot of distance between us. Because what the hell can I tell her that won’t have her on the next plane out here, either to call the police or have me committed? Not a damn thing.
I close the door, put the bag down, and take a breath. The cottage is warm. Alasdair is in the sitting room reading, having gone for a swim earlier. The wood stove’s going, the bay through the windows is slate grey, and the cool wind is making the rowan tree move against the walls.
Things are good for the moment, and I’m trying to concentrate on that.
But I do wonder how long things can stay good when you’re cohabitating with a monster.
That evening at the table, with the bread that Alasdair baked earlier, cheese from the village, and the wine open between us, I ask him a question I’ve been saving—and I’ve been saving a lot of them, choosing to parse them out over the days like nosy seasonings.
“Why only women?”
His blue eyes meet mine over the rim of his wine glass. “Iris,” he says in a warning tone.
The problem is, his warning tone doesn’t work on me much. “Well? Why the drowned wives? Not drowned husbands?”
“They weren’t all wives, that’s just the name the villagers gave them.”
“Why women?” I repeat. “Is it some…sexual thing?”
“God, no. The monster does not have that appetite.”
Thank god. I can deal with him eating people, but I draw the line at him being a rapist.
“So then why do you only eat women?”
He has a long sip of wine and sets the glass down. His gaze fixes on me with utter frankness.
“They taste better.”
I set my own glass down. “Excuse me?”
“I said, they taste better.” His expression is utterly serious.
“That’s…that’s the reason you kill women?”
“That’s the reason I eat women.” A small smile curls the corner of his mouth. “It’s why I eat you. Though I suppose that’s a little different.”
I blink at him. “You’re not joking?”
“I’m not joking. Men taste tough and bitter. Women are softer and sweeter. I’ll kill a man if I have to, but I’m not swallowing a single piece.”
I have to press my lips together to keep myself from either screaming, crying, or throwing up.
I stare at him and he looks back, but his face doesn’t change. He isn’t embarrassed—he was more embarrassed to admit I was the first lass he slept with in a hundred years—and he isn’t contrite. He’s been asked a factual question and given me the factual answer, and now he’s turning the stem of the wine glass and waiting to see what I do with the truth once again.
I let out a weak laugh, then pick up my wine and drink the rest in one go. Think I’m going to need the whole bottle now.
“If it makes you feel any better,” he begins, and I shoot him a look that says I don’t think that’s fucking possible, “it’s not my choice. Not here as the man sitting before you, the man you share your bed with. I prefer fish. Wine. Tea. The occasional venison.”