Devoured: A Dark Monster Romance Novella (Pythonissam Filia)

by Ava Thorne

Beautiful, in the way that broken things sometimes were.

Beauty was irrelevant. I was hunger incarnate, desire stripped of sentiment. I did not pause to admire my prey any more than a wolf contemplated the elegance of a deer before the kill.

But I was careful not to hope. Hope, after all, was a luxury that monsters like myself could rarely afford.

“Know this, my bride, if you stay, you are mine. This pretty little body of yours is mine and I intend to use it. Every whimper you make, every time your legs shake and you seize with more pleasure than you think you can handle, it will only prove exactly how much you belong to me.”

“I will devour you until the delicious nectar of your ecstasy fills this endless void of hunger within me. But you must choose to stay. There can only be pleasure if it’s shared.”

“You are mine, including all those pretty sounds you make. Don’t you dare hold them back, they belong to me now.”

“You cry my name, but I am not sure if it is a curse or an invocation. A prayer or damnation. But I will devour you, either way.”

“Or perhaps you like the thought that I could tear you apart without a second thought, but instead choose to worship you until you’re falling apart?”

“The forest may have called to the wildness in your blood, but I chose to answer when you bargained with me. I chose to keep you when I could have simply taken what I needed and left the rest for the insects.” My thumb traced along her bloodstained cheek. “I chose to keep you.”

“My perfect neidr. In all the dark corners of this world, in all the forgotten places where old magic sleeps, there is nothing more beautiful than you, here in my arms.”

“Even if you never chose me... I would always choose you. I would always protect you. That’s what it means... to truly claim someone. To love someone. I had forgotten that.”