The Consumption

Mira tried to shove him away, but it was like pushing against a marble statue.

"Jaxen, stop," she whimpered, the fear finally overriding the adoration. "You're scaring me."

"Fear is good," Jaxen growled. His voice dropped an octave, distorting into something wet and guttural. "It makes the blood pump faster. It oxygenates the meat."

He pulled back to look at her.

Mira screamed.

His face was gone. The handsome, brooding features of the rock star had contorted into a nightmare. His jaw unhinged with a sickening *crack*, elongating into a muzzle. His nose flattened, retreating into a snout. Ridges of bone pushed through his forehead.

He wasn't shifting into a wolf. He was becoming a hybrid monstrosity—something halfway between man and beast, ancient and rotting.

"Please!" Mira shrieked, clawing at his chest. Her nails dragged uselessly against skin that had hardened into hide.

"Sing for me!" Jaxen roared, his breath smelling of old blood and grave dirt.

He slammed her back against the mirror. The glass cracked, a spiderweb of fractures framing her terror.

He didn't aim for her jugular. He aimed for the center of her throat. The larynx. The voice box.

Mira opened her mouth to scream again, but the sound was cut short as Jaxen lunged.

The pain was blinding white. It wasn't just physical; it was metaphysical. As his teeth sheared through skin and cartilage, Mira felt something being ripped out of her core. Her memories, her passion, the songs she had written in her notebook, the love she felt for him—it was all being siphoned out in a rush of hot crimson.

She couldn't breathe. She couldn't speak. She could only gurgle as she slid down the front of the vanity, her hands clutching at a throat that was no longer there.

Jaxen didn't stop. He was ruthless, efficient, and starving. He fed not with the frenzy of an animal, but with the entitlement of a king eating a meal that had been prepared specifically for him.

The room grew dark. The smell of expensive whiskey and musk faded, replaced by the copper tang of her own life.

Mira stared up at the ceiling, at the velvet padding. Her last thought wasn't of her family, or her friends. It was the realization of how stupid she had been. She had walked into the slaughterhouse and thanked the butcher for the invitation.

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