Blacken by Alandra Rankin (i love reading books txt) 📕

at what she saw. She had a feeling that this thing might track her down, despite her best efforts to avoid it.

Her brain almost couldn’t process the situation, she didn’t know what to do in the circumstances that she was trapped in. Reacting without thinking, she started to smile nervously in her odd tick and breathlessly let out a laugh, speaking to the creature.

“You must be quite upset with me…”

She spoke while backing up, trying to put more distance between them as it matched her step, bridging the gap, snarl wearing on its face. Avie got to take in the creature’s appearance for the first time: it looked male, towering over her with chestnut feathers covering up and down his body, those wings that blacked out the sky last night were instead curled around him as he was confined in a small space. Longer feathers even caressed around his head, coiffed around his cranium and nape, practically giving the appearance of hair swooped back. Small quills drew around, surrounding and outlining his long and angular face and even covering down the bridge of a nose—skin pale over the rest of his face. The eyes that she saw burning red, cooled into an amber with dark vertical slits for pupils.

One of the massive wings unraveled itself and crashed into the light overhead, causing sparks to fly, and bathed the room once again in darkness; keeping secret from any prying eyes while he blocked any escape.

Avie hit a wall, still gazing into those amber eyes, pulse drumming in her head and hands shaking. He leaned down and she clenched her eyes, certain he would attack at any moment.

“Understatement.”

CHAPTER 6

To her surprise, he talked. And hell, he even understood her. His voice was low and seeped with irritation but held a softness in the lilt of his pronunciation.

Avie’s eyelids snapped open in astonishment, looking up to meet his gaze once more at hearing him speak. Why would he bother coming to communicate if he was just going to kill her? She couldn’t take her eyes off of him now that she was locked in his vision, danger emanating from her every nerve.

Finally, the words stumbled out, matching her shaking body.

“Are you here to silence me?”

“It is not in my best interest to kill for the sake of killing, nor be discovered. You had the opportunity to speak of my existence yet have not. Why?”

He stood upright, using his full height to loom over her in an intimidating fashion. His eyelids lowered, the light casting small shadows onto his face as he leaned away, studying her and awaiting a response.

The creature had followed her out of the woods. He saw her at Owen’s and overheard their conversation. Avie’s blood turned cold. This being now knew whom she was closest with. She mentally kicked herself for even going out to that manor in the first place.

The woman was sure that he was the cause of the vibrations. He was the thing that led people into town… To do what exactly? Use them as a food source? If he wasn’t here to kill her, then he must have already fed on that man before her at the manor…

“I d-don’t know. I was s-s-scared.” She never stuttered in her life, but this being brought out true terror.

A smirk lit up on his face, the action frightening in the darkness, “Scared? Are you scared now?”

He was having fun at her expense.

Avie’s breath was drawing heavy through her nose, every part of her screaming to leave the situation. The wall pressed cold on her back, and the dark figure stood before her, she was akin to a mouse before a lion.

“ARE YOU?” his voice boomed, wings cast off of his body and opening to expand his size. She startled, seeing claws curling at his sides before squeezing her eyes shut.

“Y-yes!” she squeaked out.

The creature laughed in an undertone, amused.

“What even brought a lowly human like you to snoop around my domain? I have never had two show up at the same time before.” She watched as he regained his posture, the enormous wings wrapping around his body once more. It reminded her of a cloak, draping over his torso and the majority of his legs.

Avie’s eyes flicked back up to his, quiet with her answer, “I-I thought you were the one that called me there.”

An eye ridge lifted at her comment. She didn’t sound as afraid as she had been, clearly upsetting the cryptid.

“And how was I to do that?” he drew out the words, unimpressed.

“The… The blood, the bodies. You’re the one that causes them to vibrate, right?”

He chuckled again, “I do not control blood, I just drain it. Bodies come to me. You are lucky I have already fed; I am not liking your tone.”

That comment made Avie wince, head spinning with mental visuals of how this supernatural being fed on its victims, the ginger man seen at the manor center of said scenario.

Her eyes fell from his, darting as she thought the obvious; what was he here for? If he already ate and he wasn’t going to kill her, then what was his angle?

“What do you want?” she could only whisper, unable to raise her head.

A hand reached out through the mass of feathers, the appendage dark and featherless, only having three attached fingers and thumb with equally dark talons protruding. Avie watched as it connected with the bottom of her chin, drawing her face up. “I am just ensuring my safety. You have not outed my being and I expect you to continue to do so. You made it so easy to find you when you left something trying to escape, remember I can easily find you again, and I know those close to you.”

She flinched and then cringed… Her jacket… She left it in the woods. That’s how he found her. That’s how he had followed her to Owen’s.

Fuck… Owen, he’s wrapped into this now. She had to switch the conversation, keep him