Chapter 2: The Hungry Goddess
The word “wished” hung in the air between them, a verdict. It stripped Lewis of any pretense of being a random victim. This was hers, and she knew it. He had conjured her, somehow, with his quiet, thirsty desperation.
He tried to speak, to deny it, but his throat had sealed shut. His back was against the scratchy fabric of the sofa, his legs refusing to obey any command to run.
She moved.
It wasn’t the clumsy lunge of a monster. It was a smooth, predatory advance, each step a deliberate claiming of space. The floor trembled. She loomed over him, a geography of muscle and intent, blocking out the light from the lamp. The ozone-and-green scent of her filled his nostrils, overwhelming the stale apartment air.
“Cat got your tongue, neighbor?” she murmured, her head tilting. A strand of dark hair fell across her brow. The casual, almost conversational tone was more terrifying than a roar.
Before he could form a syllable, her hand—large enough to cradle his entire head—shot out. It wasn’t a fist. It was an open-palmed shove against his chest. The force was absolute, dismissive. The air left his lungs in a pained whoosh as he was thrown back into the couch cushions, sinking deep into the worn springs.
He gasped, blinking up at the water-stained ceiling, then at her. She placed one knee on the cushion beside his hip, then the other, straddling him. Her weight settled, not crushing, but inescapable. It was a warm, immense pressure that pinned him utterly. He felt the hard muscle of her thighs bracket his ribs, the heat of her through the tattered remnants of her clothing. He was held fast, a specimen under a green, gleaming lens.
“This is the part,” she said, leaning down so her face was inches from his, “where you tell me to stop.” Her breath was hot, sweet like crushed juniper berries. “Go on. Say it.”
Lewis’s mind screamed the words. Stop. Get off. Please. But his lips only trembled. A traitorous part of him, the hidden, feverish part that had fantasized about this very surrender, was awake and thrumming with electric life. The conflict was a nauseating whirlpool inside him.
His silence was all the answer she needed. A slow, terrifying smile touched her lips, revealing the sharp points of her canines.
“Didn’t think so.”
Her fingers, tipped with short, dark claws, hooked into the collar of his cheap cotton t-shirt. With a sound like ripping paper, she tore it straight down the middle. The fabric fell away from his pale, narrow chest. The cool air hit his skin, raising goosebumps. He felt absurdly vulnerable, exposed under her burning gaze.
She hummed, a low, appreciative sound that vibrated through his bones. One claw-tipped finger traced a line from the hollow of his throat down his sternum. It was a feather-light touch, until it wasn’t. A sharp, stinging pain followed its path. He hissed, looking down to see a thin, perfect red line beading with tiny droplets of blood.
She brought her finger to her mouth. Her tongue, which was longer than it should have been and faintly forked at the tip, flicked out and lapped the blood away. Her green eyes rolled back for a second in pure pleasure.
“Salty,” she whispered, her voice gone thick. “Fear has a taste. But so does… anticipation.” Her hips shifted, rolling forward in a slow, grinding circle against him. The friction, even through the layers of denim, was shocking, incendiary. A choked sound, half-protest, half-moan, escaped him.
“There he is,” she crooned, her hands moving to his belt. The buckle gave way with a metallic screech of protest. The button of his jeans popped off and pinged against the lamp base. “All those lonely little thoughts, Lewis. All those quiet, hungry nights. I felt them. They were… delicious.”
The zipper tore. The denim strained. Her hands were so big, yet her movements were not clumsy. They were frighteningly precise. This wasn’t a frenzied attack. It was a claiming. A methodical unraveling.
He was drowning in sensation—the overwhelming weight of her, the sharp scent of her skin, the terrifying gentleness of her claws as they skimmed his hip bones, the molten heat pooling in his own gut. Fear and desire were no longer separate currents; they had fused into a single, terrifying wire, live and sparking in his core.
She leaned close again, her lips brushing the shell of his ear. Her whisper was a physical thing, scraping down his spine.
“You wished for a god,” she breathed, the words hot and damp. “Now you get to pray.”
Down the hall, in another apartment, a television blared a laugh track. A toilet flushed. The mundane world continued, oblivious. Inside apartment 4D, the air was charged, thick, and silent except for the ragged sound of Lewis’s breathing and the soft, deliberate rustle of green skin against fabric.
He stared up at the ceiling, at the familiar crack shaped like a river delta he’d traced a thousand times with his eyes. It was his anchor, the last shred of his old, small life. As he felt the last barrier of his clothing give way under her immense, careful hands, the crack in the ceiling seemed to widen, a black fissure splitting open the known world.