Page 18 of Zombies, Satyrs and Vampires, Oh My!

chapter

nine

Atticus

By the time we’re ready for our date, I think the feeling battering against my insides is nerves. Butterflies. I think that’s what we used to call them. Just the memory of that makes me smile. Sort of. I still haven’t quite got the hang of that yet. At least without Vivian’s help.

I have memories of feeling nervous before the transition, but never like this. Never about a woman.

Even when I was fully human, no one else made me feel the way she does.

She comes out wearing jeans and a black sweater with a neckline that really highlights her tits. I try not to stare because I considered myself a gentleman, back when I was an actual man. But I remember what those beauties look like and feel like and taste like. I remember the feel of them surrounding my cock. How they looked covered in my cum.

I groan.

“You keep looking at me like that and maybe we should just stay in for the night,” she says.

I take a step towards her, ready to drag her back to bed, but then she laughs and I realize she’s teasing me.

I blink in astonishment. It’s been so long since anyone teased me.

Smiling up at me, she pats my chest. “You look very handsome in this.”

I glance down because with her standing in front of me looking so fucking gorgeous, I completely forget what I put on earlier. A blue sweater, oh right. “I’d forgotten I had this,” I say. “But the minute I saw it, I put it on because it reminded me of your eyes.”

I hold my hand out to her and she takes it and we walk outside. I look around for the horrible mothman, but he seems to have vanished.

Cautiously, I lead Vivian away from the house, walking the familiar path towards town.

We walk through the woods. I’m mostly silent, but Vivian chats about the books she writes. As much as I enjoy hearing her talk, nerves prickle at the back of my neck.

Not the warm butterflies of anticipation I felt earlier, but something else. A feeling of dread. Of being watched.

As soon as I put my mental finger on the feeling, the mothman flies down from a tree and lands in front of us. He chatters at us, flapping his wings and clicking his pincers.

“Go away,” Vivian yells. “I’m not your mate.” She puts a possessive hand on my chest. “I’m his mate.”

My mate. Just like that my dick is rock hard again.

He screeches at her and takes an awkward step towards us, then his whole body starts shaking. He staggers closer, one trembling step and then another. His exoskeleton no longer looks glossy but has taken on a pasty gray tone.

With each step, he seems to be collapsing in on himself. Then he screams, a low-pitched keening. He rocks forward, crumbling to the ground.

Vivian hides behind me and fuck if that doesn’t make me happy—happy and proud—that she trusts me enough to protect her.

“What the hell?” she asks, peering out from behind my back. “Is he dead?”

“Maybe.” I hesitate, because this is Screaming Woods and nothing here is ever quite as it seems.

She creeps out from behind me and takes a single step towards him. “Did he … die of loneliness?” She glances back at me. “That’s almost sad.”

Without taking my gaze from her, I agree. “It’s the worst.”

This woman, my mate, has saved me so completely. Perhaps my own demise wouldn’t have been this dramatic, but now that she’s here, I can see it more clearly. This is what was happening to me. I was slowly dying. Of loneliness. Day by day. Step by step. I was less and less a part of the world of the living. Until she came.

“Vivian,” I begin, compelled to explain. To make her understand what I can barely comprehend myself.

But before I can get out another word, movement from the creature’s corpse catches my eye.