(This chapter contain r18 scenes. If you want you can skip it.)

  We hover silently above the trees.

  Velora points downward. "Look closely, Harry."

  I follow her gaze. And there I saw at what or at whom she is pointing.

  Down on the forest floor, a woman is colpsed on her knees. Her shoulders are shaking with violent, racking sobs. She's touching the blood-stained grass; her head bowed in grief.

  My heart stops...Rose.

  It's Rose Evans. My college teacher. The wife of the monster who almost killed me.

  I stare down at Rose, and my world tilts. Back in the lecture halls of the university, I had always found her beautiful in a distant, respectful way.

  But now, through my amethyst eyes, she is iridescent. She is wearing a simple white crop top and a skirt that flows around her like a cloud, her natural greyish-white hair shimmering under the silver moonlight. Despite being in her thirties, she possesses a timelessness that makes her look no older than a grad student—vulnerable, broken, and utterly irresistible.

  The hunger in my gut isn't just a growl anymore; it's a roar. I can feel the "vitality" radiating off her in waves. It smells like rain on hot pavement, bittersweet and electric.

  Velora lowers us through the canopy, our descent silent as a falling feather. We stop a few dozen feet above, but Rose doesn't look up.

  She is huddled on the ground, her fingers digging into the dirt where my blood had stained the earth. She is weeping—great, racking sobs that shake her entire frame.

  "What are you waiting for?" Velora's arms wrap around me from behind, her body a furnace against my back. Her intoxicating scent floods my lungs, ratcheting the heat in my abdomen to a fever pitch.

  "I... I can't," I wheeze, my hands balling into fists. "This is wrong. She's mourning me. I can't just... use her."

  "You should not control your emotions, Harry." Velora's whispers are the devil's own music. "Remember, you are an incubus now. You don't just see her; you feel her. You feel how she feels about you. There is no need for restraint in the face of survival."

  With a final, sharp shove, she sends me stumbling out of the shadows.

  Thud.

  I nd on one knee, the impact from a ten-foot drop absorbed effortlessly by my new, dense bone structure. I don't even feel the jar in my joints. My eyes are locked on her.

  "Who is there?" Rose gasps, her voice trembling. She scrambles backward, her eyes wide as she stares into the darkness of the trees. From her perspective, I am just a silhouette in the shifting shadows.

  "Who are you?" she cries out, fear making her voice high and thin.

  "You already forgot me, Rose?"

  I step forward, leaving the shade of the oaks and entering the stark, blue-white gre of the moonlight. As I move, I feel the air around us grow heavy, thick with a psychic pressure I don't yet understand.

  "I don't know you," she stammers, taking another step back.

  I realize then that she isn't lying. I'm taller now. My shoulders are broader, my jawline sharper, and my eyes... my eyes are glowing like violet embers. I am a ghost wearing a god's body.

  "It's me, Rose," I say, my voice vibrating with a depth that seems to echo through the trees. "Harry."

  The name hits her like a physical blow. She halts, her breath hitching in her throat. She peers at my face, her eyes searching the refined, predatory features of the stranger before her for any trace of the shy student she once knew.

  "Is it... is it really you, Harry?" The tears start afresh, spilling down her flushed cheeks. "But Loris... he said... he said he killed you. He came home covered in blood and told me you were gone..."

  "Shh."

  In a blur of motion that I don't even consciously trigger, I am across the clearing.

  I wrap my arms around her waist, pulling her flush against me before she can even blink. Her scent hits me—different from Velora's ancient musk, Rose smells of vanil and fresh sorrow...It is addictive.

  She instinctively closes her eyes, her hands clutching at the fabric of my hoodie as if I might vanish if she lets go. "Are you really alive? Are you really here, Harry?"

  "I am alive, Rose. I'm right here."

  I pull her closer, the heat in my blood beginning to boil. My skin feels too tight for my body. "Do you like me, Rose?"

  The bluntness of the question startles her. She opens her dark grey eyes, staring directly into my amethyst crystals. Her pulse is thundering against my palms.

  "Wh-What are you asking?" she stammers, her ears turning a deep, vivid red.

  "Just answer me," I growl, my grip tightening. I don't want to force her, but the Incubus inside me is cwing at the walls of my mind, demanding a sacrifice.

  She hesitates for a moment, her gaze darting across my face, before she finally gives a small, shaky nod. "Yes... I like you. I've always... I've always seen you, Harry. Even when I shouldn't have –

  Hearing that "yes" is the final snap of my self-control. Before she can finish her sentence, I seal her lips with mine.

  It isn't a gentle kiss; it's a desperate, starving cim. I hold her tightly, feeling the soft press of her chest against my new, hard muscles.

  "Mnnhh," she moans into my mouth, her body going limp with shock.

  I'm clumsy for the first few seconds, my virgin memories trying to navigate the act, but then my instincts take the wheel.

  I bite her lower lip just hard enough to make her gasp, and the moment she opens her mouth, my tongue enters. I catch her tongue in mine, dancing with her in a way that feels practiced.

  Rose's eyes widen, but she doesn't pull away. Instead, she locks her arms around my neck, her fingers tangling in my new, thick hair.

  We stand there in the center of the clearing, eating each other's breath.

  When we finally break for air, a long, silver string of saliva connects our lips.

  HAAH HAAH

  We are both panting, our breath visible in the cool night air. Her face is flushed a deep crimson, and the tears in her eyes are no longer just from grief.