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  The tears spilled out on a loud sob. She was stupid and lonely. So desperate to be touched and loved with a good love. God, help me. Am I going crazy? Am I having a really bad episode to the trauma?

  Please don’t let it take me. Please. I need you, don’t leave me. You’re all I have. Don’t let it make me into a monster.

  ****

  Ruin paced, feeling the need to run hard, do something hard but every time he moved away from Isadore’s home the fire and ice inside him grew unbearable. And yet, going near her made him tremble with a strange emotion he loathed. It was weak.

  How did he suddenly become so unstable?

  It was her. Somehow, it was her. And the words he’d learned, they triggered something in him.

  But was it the words or the learning? All he knew was the need to do things was infinitely stronger.

  An unusual sound reached him and hurried him to her door. Strained sobs hit his brain like a bomb, shooting a deadly amount of electricity into his body. He had to make her stop. Bursting into the room, he found her on the floor in a fetal position and scooped her up.

  She latched her arms around his neck, holding on tight, like he was there to help her and not save himself. That added to his pain and torment, drove him to need to do things as he hurried into the bathroom with her. It occurred to him that she was killing him without even trying. How was she doing that? How could she?

  He managed to get the shower on and stepped in with her. “I’m sorry,” she mumbled. “Let me down, I’m fine.”

  “I’m not fine. I’m not fine.” The words rasped out as he clutched her to his body, muscles locked with the power raging inside, hungry to do things. Things that would hurt. Really bad. She gradually relaxed in his arms and he leaned against the back wall, feeling the spikes of power lessening with her slowing pulse. “It’s you,” he whispered. “Your… feelings are affecting me, and I can’t seem to control it.

  You have to help me understand. You have to.”

  Chapter Six

  Ruin watched Isadore from the foot of her bed. The past four hours had evolved him into a new being as his body caught up to his mind, then passed it. Took it over. Before, he was able to control certain bodily functions and instincts, but this dynamic with Isadore had morphed into its own living force, its power rivaling the fire and ice inside him. Just as volatile, yet with calculating abilities. A power with inherent intentions he was oblivious to.

  He wouldn't be oblivious. He would obtain those answers and do so while she slept. He needed to study her while processing this new power in an environment that was non-provocative. But this new

  ‘thing’ was an energy that grew more powerful as it watched her. The more he stared at her sleeping form, the hungrier it got. The more it wanted.

  Ruin carefully draped the sheet over her exposed foot only to watch her kick it off immediately—

  as she had done the previous ten times. Ruin found the puzzling act something he needed to ponder so he kept repeating it. Why would she not want her foot covered while cocooning the rest of her body, minus her arms, in the barrier this hunger now despised?

  He paced around her bed again, contemplating his body’s responses to her. He was sure there wasn’t one thing about her that didn’t affect him in some way. And all of those ways he didn’t like since they went beyond his control.

  She’d slept with no clothes from the first day he’d watched her. As his gaze struggled to see beneath the sheet, he realized his mind had not once understood what it was beholding. Her nakedness.

  That’s the word for what he paced in hunger for. His body craved for it, even more than his mind seemed to.

  He again replayed the way she'd stroked her small finger along the length of his manhood. And again, it responded but with an even harder pulse. The hunger was growing the more he dwelt on it. And, he had no desire or intention of denying it. He had only a desire to explore it. Follow it. Find its end.

  What did it want him to do? Whatever it was, it required him to touch and explore her nakedness that he knew.

  Despite the pleasure that heated his blood, the disdain of having another part of himself out of control and disconnected from his understanding drew a low growl of frustration deep in his gut. There were things about himself he knew but couldn't remember. He could feel them.

  His phallus pulsated with its own life force, a being with a mind of its own. And Isadore was all over its mind. Ruin remembered some of the words he'd learned, certain his body was mimicking sexual, biological reflexes. But none of the words explained what those reflexes were doing to the fire and ice inside him. It seemed to be controlling them. It wanted something from him where she was concerned, and he had to know what.

  He focused his gaze on that sheet. There was a point during the night that she kicked it off entirely. Visions, from that first night, of her touching herself as he’d watched her, brought fire to his lungs. The curve of her spine when she arched into her touch and the way she’d held her knees back. Her breasts rose up, the peaks tight and hard. They’d bowed beneath her fingers when she glided them over the tips. At the time, he had no idea what she was doing. And now that he did, now that he felt her desire for him, he was on the verge of doing something... that felt wicked.

  Ruin blew softly, filling the room with hot air, careful to do it slowly and not wake her. But not because he feared getting caught, he feared not seeing her. His appetite had him trembling with hunger.

  She suddenly kicked the sheet off and the sight of her nakedness brought a burning itch in his muscles. He angled his head, etching her silky curves into his mind, feeling like every answer in the world could be found in those details.

  He stood next to the bed where he had a direct view of her breasts. It occurred to him, and struck him with awe as he stared, that out of all the wretched things he’d observed thus far in his limited time, he’d found something perfect. He focused on the ice in his body and pulled a cool breath into his lungs before blowing gently over her. His phallus hardened more as her nipples tightened to yet another perfection. He swept his tongue over his lip, realizing his mouth had watered. He wanted… to taste her.

  The unthinkable idea burned him even more. Why should he want such a thing? Somewhere inside him, he knew it wasn’t normal to hunger for her. For a human. But he did. And with a brutal intensity.

  Ruin looked down at his manhood, pushing harder against the thin black material of the shorts she’d given him to wear. He eyed the tattoos on his stomach, sliding his finger over the familiar mystery, now wet and smoldering.

  She turned on her side and his breath caught with the new view she gave him. Ruin leaned his head, looking to see what she’d touched between her legs. He hadn’t gotten a look at that and was now ready to kill for that data. The place she guarded so vehemently from his mind and eyes.

  She suddenly jerked up in bed and he spun away. “What are you doing?!”

  “I…” He found himself unable to say ‘was checking on you’, as his heart hammered in his manhood with maddening blows. He gave his tongue over to the truth, “I was watching you sleep.”

  She gasped. “Oh my God! What did you… oh my God! What did you see?”

  “I…” Again, there was nothing but the truth on his tongue. “Saw your breasts.”

  She sucked in a sharp breath.

  “I’m…” He fought with his own exasperation over his inability to say what seemed appropriate.

  “I want to say I’m sorry but can’t seem to.”

  “Because you’re not sorry!”

  “That is absolutely correct,” he realized.

  He listened to the angry snapping of sheets, then the soft, rapid steps of her feet as she made her way to stand just before him. “And why wouldn’t you be sorry? What is wrong with you?” she demanded, holding the white material around her tightly.

  “I don’t know. My body is changing.” And if he looked at her at this close proximity, he’d act on that change. He turne
d his head away.

  “You…you come watch me, you’re not sorry, and ohhhh, now you can’t look at me.” She choked on an incensed gasp. “And I’m just supposed to tolerate all of this?” she shrilled. “I’m supposed to be the all accommodating swamp slut host to the maleficent, hominid voyeur with the ever-hard penis but not from ever touching it? Are you seeing the freaky in this yet?” Her voice had gradually gotten higher and higher. “And you know what? You know what?”

  He finally looked at her when it was clear she intended on being seen. “What?” he genuinely asked, wanting to know what great thing had just entered her mind.

  Her revelation preceded with a finger aimed up at him. “You. Have not. Even told me your name!”

  No, he hadn't told her even though she'd asked him. That had been the one thing he always knew about himself. But when he learned its meaning in the book of words, he didn't want to tell her. He needed her for too many things to scare her off and his name very well might have. Still might.

  As he stared at her, his breaths came faster with every second. It was her anger. It was feeding that hunger. And… he could smell her. Smell her womanhood. Right there, just beyond that sheet, a road map in his brain that would guide him, show him exactly what he needed to do. And the way she eyed his chest every three seconds told him the truth she could never hide from him. She wanted every single bit of what he wanted to do to her. “Back up, Isadore.”

  “Back up?” She stepped closer instead. “Well guess what, Mister. While you were watching my tits, I was having a dream about a man who was in dire need of help and God told me to help him!” She said it with quick nods and accusing eyes.

  It was the God word that hit him in the strangest way. It was something important, somehow.

  Important enough to distract his need to pull the sheet off her and force her to confess the truth of her sexual desires for him.

  “That’s right,” she went on. “Here I was, ready to get rid of you, and I go out of my way, go the extra mile and pray for your sorry ass, only to wake up to you watching my tits!” she spat.

  Ruin closed his eyes, sifting truth from lies. “You…don’t want to get rid of me,” he corrected, while puzzling over the other thing she said. “Why would you pray?”

  “What?” she gasped, like she’d not heard him.

  “Why would you pray?” he articulated clearly.

  “I heard you!”

  "You asked what.”

  “Because I don’t understand why you’d ask such a stupid thing!”

  Ruin didn’t like the stupid word, but her intoxicating anger far outweighed his own. “Because that’s what you do when you don’t understand, you ask questions,” he explained. He realized the calmer and more logical he was, the more irate she became. He always preferred her ire because it didn’t provoke the fire or ice, but what it did to this other power in him was superior. It fed it. Which, in turn, had him wanting to make her...angrier. And judging by her body language, he was succeeding with an excellence.

  “I’m a Christian,” she said, like that was a universal term every person would understand. “That’s what we do, we pray!”

  “Christian,” he repeated.

  “Yes!”

  “This means you believe in Jesus Christ and his teachings.” He knew his memory of the definition was correct but needed to see if she went by the same definition.

  “Yes!” Like he’d just proven her point.

  “This is your faith,” he went on.

  “That’s right. Now you’re getting it.”

  But he wasn’t getting it. Quite the contrary. “You’re a scientist.”

  “Yes? And?” She tightened the sheet while her eyes flitted over his chest before locking back on his.

  “How can a person who ascertains truth through facts put firm belief in something that cannot be proven?”

  Her eyebrows shot up with her gasp, making his phallus harden. “Oh, I can prove it.” Before he could be interested, she added. “To the only person I need to. Me.”

  Ruin pondered that while his body borrowed part of his brain to do other things, like figure out how to get her sheet off. “It’s logical,” he concluded. “That you would only need to prove what you believe for yourself, to yourself. But...I would like to know how you proved it.”

  She lifted her chin. “I’m sure you would.”

  “Tell me,” he said, before adding “please.” Tact, it was called. The thing one did to maintain good relations and avoid offense. He’d have to forego the arousal of her anger if he was to get her complacent. He was close, judging by the change he smelled in her body chemistry. It turned his blood to cement it seemed, making him feel inhuman.

  “Why do you want to know?”

  Several new emotions entered her blood stream and Ruin waited for the fire and ice to respond negatively. But that other thing was in full control, leading him to that place she kept quarantined. And Ruin's brain waited in rapt hunger, not wanting to miss the route there.

  Why did he want to know she'd asked...? “Because…” he began, only to be distracted by the sweep of her tongue over her lips. The shine that remained on the soft flesh slammed his body with needs.

  “I’m… hungry. Not for food,” he clarified at seeing her confusion.

  The lines on her forehead slowly faded with understanding. “What… what for?”

  Ruin wasn’t sure what the question meant but the lock of their stares, neither of them would escape. “I want to…” He contemplated the exact words while the magnetic pull between them grew stronger. "Touch you," he confessed. "With my tongue.” He parted his lips as desire escaped in thick, hot breaths. “I want to do it right where you touch yourself at night.”

  She stared, hypnotized by desire while her pulse fluttered hard at her neck. He could command her, and she’d do what he ordered.

  “I’m going to remove your sheet and do things to you," he warned. "I’m not sure what I will do. I only know I will take all the time I need to execute every, wicked, pleasure on your body. Entirely and perfectly.”

  A gasped whimper escaped her as her eyes slowly shut. The torment on her brow begged him silently to hurry and do it.

  Ruin jerked his head at hearing a distant sound, his senses immediately amplified. He hurried to the window and placed his hand on it.

  “What? What’s wrong?” Isadore called, sounding bewildered.

  “Shh,” Ruin whispered as the air beyond the glass transferred into his fingers, carrying the sound he’d heard. He glanced over his shoulder at her, the ice inside him becoming unbearably cold.

  She hurried to him, eyes wide as they lowered over his body. “Your skin,” she whispered.

  He looked down, finding it snowy white. “Something’s coming.”

  In the absence of his desire, her fear hit him like a boulder and he grabbed her arm. The heat of her skin caused him to jerk back. “Don’t fear. Please,” he strained. He needed her to be calm, so he could have control. Something said he’d need it. He focused on her worried face. “Get dressed. Now.”

  Turning her toward the dresser, he pushed her a little. The thought to cover his tattoos sent him following after her. “I need a shirt,” he ordered at the dresser.

  “What’s happening,” she whispered, her voice shaking.

  He growled from the power surges her fear brought.

  “I’m sorry." she hissed. "I mean I’m not sorry. Shit! I hate this, I get so confused.”

  “Dress, Isadore!” He yanked the t-shirt from her hand.

  “Don’t fuss at me!”

  Her anger immediately calmed the fire in his blood. "Meet me downstairs,” he ordered, hurrying ahead of her to ensure everything was locked down tight. But the feeling in his body said that whatever was coming didn’t care about locks. It was coming. And it was coming for him.

  Chapter Seven

  Whatever approached called to the cold inside him. His heart raced in eager anticipation of the danger. Why would he
thirst for such a thing? Every pore within the symbols on his body salivated for it.

  He paced up and down the kitchen, listening with his heightened senses, measuring the distance of what was coming. It came at a slow speed, walking. Perfectly, calculated steps. Judging by the sound of the gravel in his ears, it was a tall man with a size twelve foot, bearing the weight of two-hundred twenty-seven pounds. Solid muscle. Ruin discerned a discrepancy in the weight ratio and paused in his pacing. He carried something.

  Isadore hurried down the stairs in his peripheral vision and Ruin stopped his steps. “He’s here.”

  Slowly, he brought his finger to his lips and pointed to the door.

  He watched her creep to the mantle next to the wood stove and even in this duress, that hunger took note of the denim covering her bottom. He eyed her breasts pushing beneath the red t-shirt as she slowly retrieved her shot gun off of the rack and faced him with worried brows drawn.

  Three heavy, measured knocks sounded at the door. The fire and ice, and now this new desire for Isadore churned into something unstable and volatile. After the third knock, something unlocked in Ruin and ordered him to come. Isadore shook her head as his muscles obeyed, unable to resist the command from the one beyond the door.

  The thonk of the deadbolt's release, echoed in the silence. Ruin stood, waiting as the fire and ice whirred at inconceivable speeds. The door creaked open, revealing the tall man's shadow in the dense swamp night. “I’m looking for a man,” he said. The rough grate of his voice matched his size, and Ruin couldn’t resist the compelling words that seemed foolish.

  “Come in.”

  The man stepped forward, ducking slightly as he entered the doorway. Two steps into the living room's light revealed a black wool coat that brushed the floor. Matching knee-high boots stomped ominously against the wood planks as he continued in, stopping in the center of the room.

  “I’ll put on coffee,” Isadore whispered as she hurried to the kitchen, taking a wide arc around the man to get there.