He froze, warm breath hitting my neck. I repeated myself, only causing him to pull away. “Not like eat eat me.” My face felt redder than his looked as I continued to dig what I thought was my grave. “I…um…mastur—well, when you bit off part of my neck, and—” He put his hand over my mouth.

Malachai took his glasses off, pushed his hair back, strands catching behind his ears before falling forward. He looked so much more composed than before. “August, there’s something I have to tell you.” He pulled my bottom lip down, pressing his thumb into the bleeding gap of my gums. I kept myself from moving, letting the dull pain disperse into pulsing pleasure. “What it is you’ve asked me to do is going to expose a piece of me I’ve tried very, very hard to hide.” I swallowed, tongue against his finger as he pushed me further into the mattress. “I’ve wanted to eat you since I tasted your blood, August.” His voice was low coming right into my ear. “I’ve wanted you to trust me completely, to let me make you mine since I first spoke with you.” He moved his thumb to my tongue. “But I’ve got a problem, August, dragă,” the foreign word made me shiver more than his body against mine, “I want to torture you for my own sexual gratification.” I didn’t think a human voice could go so low, his growling seemingly reverberated in my skull. “Will you let me? I think you can handle it.” He slid his hand from my mouth and down my body until I wasn’t sure if he was heading for the waist of my pants or his. “When he said you heal faster than other people…I could barely contain myself.” I felt his breath move back to my neck. “I wanted to cut you open and fuck your insides right then and there.”

Both sets of his fangs stabbed into my flesh, my rational fading the harder he sucked, the more heat that spread through my body. His hands roamed my body, inches from places I wanted them. I could hardly understand what his words meant, that maybe some of the vague fantasies I had had were things he had hoped to one day do to me. “Mala-Malachai?” I took a breath, blood dripping from my mouth, his mouth closing slightly. I couldn’t help myself from thinking about him tearing that piece of me off, couldn’t help myself grow a little hard at the thought. I was going to stay conscious to feel that if nothing else. “I’ll-I’ll trust you.”

He removed his teeth from their punctures, licking up the blood as it spilled out. Malachai soon took to lapping at the blood on my chin and around my mouth. He snuck his tongue between my lips, not to tease my gums, but for a proper kiss. A kiss that tasted so saccharine it made my head spin, and so dominating it told me who held the power. He pulled back, a look of lust on his face. “We can have so much fun, dragă, darling,” he licked his lips, pushing a bead of blood on his chin to his mouth, “but in time. There are things we need to discuss before I can fuck you to death.” He punctuated his sentence by driving his groin into mine. “You should get some sleep.”

I wrapped my arms around him, not going to let him go after tempting me so. He at least had to hear what it was he cut off. The courage I had to tell him before was gone, instead, almost inaudible, “Can…can you stay with me…just for a bit?” I felt him nod.

At the top of the papers Dr. Hristov had given me was a phone number and an email address. Included was a little note in uniform letters that if I had questions to contact him through either. I dove into the meat of the information, testing my knowledge of medieval Japanese. Most of it was unintelligible to me upon my first read through, only picking up a few words here and there I remembered from a high school literature class. The most I could understand from those papers were folklore I already knew. The English sources were particularly interesting to me. There were words I struggled with the meanings of, but the context was much clearer.

My mother used to tell me our family originated in the mountains, only coming to the coast when our homes had to be abandoned. The more I read, the more I realized how blurred between the lines of reality of folklore could become. My mother’s family could very well be a family of oni…it would explain sprouting horns and a tooth the width of my pointer finger growing in. I still didn’t want to believe it, everything I had been told growing up was that oni were demons. Punishers of the wicked, and the wickedest of the bunch turned into them. They were something to be feared, not want to be a part of their lineage. Then there was the question of how closely oni and tengu were tied in the English sources.

I’d have to ask my mother for an explanation, for something definitive. There was nothing I could do if she wouldn’t pick up the phone. My sister wouldn’t trick her into it, and my father had chosen to distance himself from the tensions between my mother and me. My only choice would be to go home, to confront her, and hike the trails to the abandoned mountain village of Kisankoku. I was always told it was a village of demons, the only ones who were brave enough to venture to it were the tourists. A sense of relief always washed over us when some didn’t come back, they acted as sacrifices to keep the monsters at bay. All I had now was a mountain of thesis work, a date with a dictionary, and whatever it was Malachai and I needed to discuss before we could let out desires lead us by the nose. Leaving the train station, it finally hit me I couldn’t continue to show up to any classes, nor even face my advisor or Dr. Chase. I could barely put myself together, I wasn’t sure when the last time I had put on anything other than sweatpants was. I’d probably have to take some sort of break until I figured out some way to hide all these supernatural changes, if there even was one.

I was about to ask Malachai if I could crash on his couch for a few more days when he pulled me back into the stairwell. He pushed me up against the wall, his voice a breathy whisper in my ear. “I need you to do something important,” he said. He spoke slowly, in short sentences, making sure I understood everything. “There’s a man outside my apartment. I’m going to give you my keys. Act like you own my apartment. Do not talk to him. Pretend he doesn’t even exist. If he touches you, tell him you’ll call the police. Otherwise, do not engage.” He handed me his key ring, pressing his apartment key into my hand. “I’ll explain later, I promise.” He stepped back, pulling his hood over his head and zipping up his jacket so his face was mostly obscured.

He held my hand while I led him down the hall, and I tried my best not to make eye contact with the man knocking on the door and jiggling the handle. I felt Malachai flinch as the man said his name, sandwiched between words only Malachai knew the meaning of. He moved aside for me, Malachai squeezing my hand as I fumbled to unlock the door. "Where’s Malachai?” He asked with a heavy accent. “Why do you have keys to his apartment?” I didn’t answer him, and the moment I got the door unlocked, Malachai pushed me through, closing it behind him. Frantically, he locked the door, deadbolted it, and put the chain on before finding the farthest corner from it and sitting down.

I saw his attack happen in slow motion. He curled himself into a ball, only folding further the closer I got to help him through it. His eyes were shut tight, hands over his ears, and he started to repeat some sort of mantra. The moment I crouched down beside him was the moment he took a deep breath, opened his eyes and uncovered his ears. “Sorry,” he said, looking at his knees. “I can…I’ll be good. I’ll be good and you…you can…” It was almost instant the way he broke down sobbing, pushing his glasses away to wipe his eyes. He clung to me like a child. “Mamă…Mamă I didn’t mean to b-but he…he…and I didn’t want to be in the-in the cellar anymore where he…” He couldn’t finish his sentence, another wave washing over him, and I wasn’t sure I wanted him to. I told him he was safe, to take deep breaths, and tried to help ground him quietly while he buried his head on my shoulder.

He calmed down after a while, my hand stroking his head. I helped him out of his jacket and onto his couch where he laid down, arms folded over his eyes. “Do you want anything?” He shook his head but grabbed my wrist before I could go too far.

“August, um…thank you.” He set his glasses back on his face. “I didn’t think I’d ever see him again…or that-that he still had…control over me.” Without thinking, I asked him who that man was. “It’s…hard for me to know where he stops and…others begin…but…I know he made me into this…sorry, I know I said I’d explain but—”

“You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to.” I gave him a soft smile before remembering he wouldn’t be able to see it through my mask. “I’m here, though, if you ever want to tell me. Whatever it may be.” I crouched, starting to feel uncomfortable in my winter jacket. “And-And I won’t tell Dr. Chase, unless I’m scared you’ll hurt yourself or-or someone else, or unless you want me to.” He moved his hand down my wrist, tangling his fingers with mine. I cleared my throat. “Can I, um…can I have my hand back?”

He let out a small laugh, sitting up and placing his glasses back on his nose. “What if I said ‘no’?” He tightened his grip. “What if I want to keep it forever?” He brought my arm up to his face, extending it as far as it would go before I’d end up falling forward. “What if I want to eat it?”

“Let’s-Let’s discuss those things,” I said before he could put a finger in his mouth.

He licked my middle finger. “Someone’s eager.” I felt my face flush, and I started to stammer with no end goal in sight. “I need to grab something really quickly.” He let go of my hand, getting up to acquire whatever it was he needed. I slipped my coat off, pulling my beanie down as far as it could go without tearing on my horns. I calmed myself enough to start a draft of an email about me needing to take time off from my studies for family reasons. He returned with a box, placing it beside him as he took his seat on the couch once more. “Two things,” he held up two fingers. “I very much like being in control, so I won’t be telling you or showing you what’s in the box until I want to.” He put down a finger, “you’ll need a safe word before we go any farther.”

I glanced from the box to him, fixing my beanie. He felt very much in charge, looking down at me. I looked back at the floor, covering my face with my hands. “What’s a, um…what’s a safe word?” I asked, feeling like I should know what it was, but embarrassed at having to ask anyway.

I sat on the floor as he explained it to me, still unable to look at him. “It’s a way for me to definitely know you want to stop our…plays,” he said. “If at any time you don’t want to continue, we’ll stop. I won’t be angry,” I felt his hand on my head, “I’ll make sure you feel safe.” I took a deep breath, trying to relax all my muscles. “It can be anything, but something easy to say, remember, and unexpected is best.”

Something easy to say and remember, while being unexpected…I started saying words in my head, narrowing my thoughts to words with small syllables. “Is…is ‘ramen’ fine?” I finally asked after what felt like hours of silence. He told me it was alright, and I removed my hands from my face. “What-What else do we need to talk about?” I stared at the box; I’d be lying to say if a part of me wasn’t curious what was inside it.