Read Online The Worm in Every Heart by Gemma Files - Free Book Online

loving, deluded man. A born victim, if ever there was one.
    â€œAh,” I said, gently. “But we are the same, he and I. So I cannot promise you what he would never give.”
    A flash of moon, bisected, fell over us through the trees; the blood caught its light, sparking a hot copper flare of lust that made my own lips abruptly wet. To compensate, I licked his clean.
    Our tongues touched.
    This distracted him enough, hopefully, to make what followed only a brief (if, no doubt, rather unpleasant) surprise—as I suddenly forced the rest of my head through his mouth until his head cracked like a wishbone, rupturing his throat, making his face my collar, spraying teeth. Hugging him to me,
into
me, as I rooted for brains in the blind, red ruin of his skull.
    I suppose I had foreseen—somewhat faintly, considering the Lieutenant’s continuing capacity for unpredictable behavior—that the sound of this process would draw Grammar back to the clearing. Not that it mattered much either way, at this point, though forgoing a prolonged chase (wearing Romesh Singh’s now-uninhabited skin, perhaps?) would certainly have saved me a little time. But just as the consumption of a long-desired object tends to erase whatever wait one may have had to put oneself through in order to attain it, so strategy must inevitably dim in appetite’s shadow. Blood filled my eyes; I drank deep, and gave myself up to ecstasy.
    Presently, however, I felt Grammar’s blade graze the back of my neck—wing-sharp, a dragonfly’s delicate needle—and knew my plans had not been laid in vain.
    Popping Romesh Singh’s remaining eye between my teeth (just in case, should intelligible conversation yet prove necessary), I turned—grinning—to show him his own face: Red from browline to Adam’s apple, chin slicked with fresh overflow. And a jolt passed between us, starburst-quick—not one of shock, so much, as of recognition. The Lieutenant’s prim British mouth crumpling like an insulted cat’s, ludicrous with embarrassed amazement, to find his unsought namesake’s pleasures were so very like his own.
    The sword, however, did not waver.
    I smiled at the sight—and swung Romesh Singh’s carcass like a dancing partner, dipping it towards him, as if offering him a bite.
    â€œYou must be hungry,” I said. “Please: Do not hesitate to indulge yourself.”
    Grammar snarled again (his sole response in such circumstances, it seems) and stabbed me through the throat; I flexed, and sucked him further in, immersing him up to his armpit. For one endless moment, too paralytic even for struggle, he felt my internal organs stroke him seductively, and gagged. At which point I interrupted his train of nausea in mid-heave, just as gorge met gullet, and assured myself of his complete attention by thrusting my own arm (up to the elbow) inside his armpit—cracking ribs, perforating lung, expelling a warm rush of half-digested food from the lower esophagus, all in quest of that wildly-fluttering knot of muscle he called a heart.
    Grammar coughed, and went rigid. His eyes turned up. But it was not my intention to let him die quite so quickly, now that we had finally met.
    My fingers closed fast around left and right ventricles, pumping him awake. Saying, solicitously:
    â€œOh, no. Be so good as to not leave me just yet, Lieutenant.”
    With an effort, Grammar forced his eyes to focus on me. A rictus pulled at his cheek. Words formed, along with a bright new bubble of blood.
    â€œDo . . . your . . . worst,” he replied, carefully. “I . . . don’t care.”
    I gave him a wide, blank smile—and chanted, singsong:
    â€œDon’t-care didn’t care. Don’t-care was wild. Don’t-care stole plum and pear, like any beggar’s child.”
    Sucking him closer—the maw that had been me (and him as well, come to think of it) now covering