10/05/2026 16:47

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It was the flash pictures in my head of the girl who'd begged for her life, and Jonah Cooper, and the silent crowd watching me at the church. I'd been surprised the first time I was here, it was as if light could be dark, so that though there was no actual shadowed area, the whole room seemed like it was in a shadow. He leaned his mouth in close to my ear, before he'd finished the long, slow slide of his hands that would have pressed our bodies together. He didn't look at me as he said it.

I pressed my mouth over that quivering heat, kissed the blood just under his skin. But I knew just how to fix it. It was lust, as if sex were food. I told your Nathaniel to go and feed his new and surprising form.