Taken Over (The Ravening #2)(45)
Author: Erica Stevens

“It’s you.”

The words were a soft hiss that caused my skin to crawl. I took another step back, jumping slightly as I bumped into the wall. I hadn’t realized that I had stepped away from the doorway until that moment. It was a foolhardy mistake that may have just cost me my life. And I knew, without knowing how, that this was going to turn into a battle for my life.

The man emerged from the shadows and I understood why I had briefly mistaken him for Cade. They had the same slender build, same dark hair and eyes. He was even staring at me with the same hunger and tension I had seen in Cade’s eyes a few times. However, in this man’s eyes that hunger caused a panicked, primitive reaction to flare hotly through me.

I wanted to flee, wanted to run from the room but I remained immobile and shaken. I was terrified that if I ran he would hunt me down and maul me to death. Somehow I knew that he would, and that he could. “Excuse me?” I managed to choke out.

Ian’s eyes raked me from head to toe. His lips were a strange shade of red, there appeared to be something on his mouth. His gaze smoldered with heat, burned with longing, but there was nothing sexual in his eyes as there was with Cade. He did not desire me the way that Cade did, he wanted something else, something more from me. I didn’t know exactly what, but I was convinced that he wanted to devour me completely. I was shaking slightly as I took a step to the right, trying to get back to the open doorway.

“It’s you,” he said again freezing me in place. I turned questioningly toward him. What was me? “You’re what he’s been hiding.”

His words caused turmoil and confusion to surge through me. “You’re all over this room. Your smell, your taste, it’s everywhere.” His hand fell onto the hematology analyzer on the table. It was then that I noticed the empty vials littering the table. My blood was gone. “You’re all inside of me.” My eyes flew back to his, my heart slammed rapidly against my ribs. I could barely breathe through the horror choking me. His lips were red, red as blood. My blood. “And you’re good.”

The purred word caused everything inside of me to go limp. He had drunk my blood. And he liked it. And he wanted more.

He was going to kill me. He wasn’t human. Holy crap he was one of them!

Thoughts raced through my head at a million miles per hour. I couldn’t focus on just one of them, couldn’t grasp just one. All I knew for certain was that he wasn’t human, that the aliens had infiltrated our group for some reason, and that he was going to kill me. “Sooooo good,” he continued. “No wonder he’s keeping you to himself. No wonder he’s hiding you. Greedy, greedy boys always lose their toys. He’s been bad though. Very very bad. He’s inside of you too. He knows better than that. It’s forbidden. But he is, he’s in you, and you survived it. Amazing. And now he’s made you even yummier than you would have been otherwise.”

Holy hell, not only was he going to kill me, but he was completely freaking insane on top of it!

I didn’t know what he was talking about. Didn’t know what he could possibly mean with his hissed words, and strange statements, but I was shaking from their effects. Shaking from the strange notion that I should understand his words, that a part of me did understand them, even though I didn’t want to, even though I refused to acknowledge the fear that twisted through me. And not all of that fear was because of this man standing across from me, but from something more, something else.

I was lost. I was terrified that I was going to die, but I wasn’t going down without a fight. I whipped the gun up, but before I could fire it he was on top of me, knocking it aside. He was so fast, so stunningly quick that it took my breath away. He hit my hand so hard that numbness instantly enveloped me, causing my fingers to involuntarily release their hold upon the weapon. Dismay filled me. I opened my mouth to scream but his other hand wrapped around my neck, choking off my scream as he swiftly crushed the air from my throat.

I grasped hold of his hand, struggling against the death grip strangling me. Stars of bright light burst over my eyes. My feet kicked against the wall as he lifted me off my feet with terrifying, inhuman, ease. There was something wrong with his eyes, my vision was swimming due to lack of oxygen but I could still tell that there was something wrong with his eyes.

And that was when I realized that his entire eyeball, not just his iris, was completely black. It seemed as if the color in his iris had seeped out to completely take over the eyeball. But it wasn’t only just encompassing the eye it also seemed to be seeping into his face. I watched in horror as the black spread throughout the veins in his face, causing them to stand out starkly against his dark complexion.

I choked, gagged, sputtered as ice began to pulse through my veins. Blackness, oozing blackness encompassed him. I could almost feel it creeping out, trying to wrap around me. Trying to get inside of me, just like that thing had tried to get inside of me. Against my throat, I felt the pinch of nails, or talons, on my skin. I felt the cool trickle of my blood as his suddenly clawed fingers pierced me.

Though he was not as ugly as those things that hunted us, and drained us dry, he was ugly, and he was horrifying. And he was what those things served. He was what they fed. And now he wanted to feed from me.

That blackness was in the air now; it seemed to be coming at me. Another long talon pierced my skin. Ian licked his lips eagerly, taking the last of my blood from them. A gurgled scream escaped me; bile surged up my throat as he bent his mouth to my neck. His tongue was hot against my chilled skin as he licked over me, tasting me. I nearly vomited with disgust. A low purr escaped him; his pleasure was nearly palpable as he continued to savor my blood. He drew back slightly, using a sharp nail to draw a line down my skin. I felt the sharp pain of the slice as my blood spilled forth.

“Delicious,” he murmured. “Eat you from the inside out.”

That blackness tore into me. It seemed to rip into my very soul, shredding through my flesh, bone, and marrow. I bucked against him. A silent scream of agony slammed through my skull, spread through my veins, and paralyzed my body. I felt as if I were being drained of more than just my blood, but also my soul, my very life essence. It was as bad as when that other thing had gotten a hold of me, only Ian was not physically inflicting a wound in order to do it.

“Inside,” he breathed.

I couldn’t move; I felt my eyes roll back in my head. I was going to faint. I was going to die. And I found myself welcoming it if it meant that I could escape this.