Here’s an excerpt from Sin Eater Series Book #2, Soul Stealer. Now available for sale on Amazon.com!
It was always biting. The jaw tingled with the need to sink its teeth into meat and tear at it. Chew it. Swallow from necessity then repeat.
Blood would fill his mouth, tangy and coppery, wonderfully warm. Fluid and real; the opposite of what he was at that moment.
The last time he’d held solid form was ages ago, yet he could remember the carnal thrill of taking something smooth and unmarred and ruining it with his own teeth. Souls went down smoother, sure, but that was just energy for the metaphysical batteries. Until he was stable he only had dark dreams and memories of far-away places.
These were moist, green, tropical and lush locations where they sacrificed young women with fair hair and skin to keep him from stealing the souls of the entire community. Virgins volunteered for the honour of dying for the greater good. Rumour was his bite brought orgasmic pleasure at the moment of death.
Not true in the least. It hurt. He felt their pain as he tore into that tender skin, hardly touched by sun. They screamed and it only made him more ravenous. He tore with clenched teeth and the straining of his own neck muscles. The blood would spurt and spray all over their thin white shifts, running hot down his neck and chest. His face was completely wet with it, and the victim would be gasping, eyes pleading for death. When they were mad with the need to pass he would let his mind wander in to theirs, finding that spark inside that drove the whole mechanism of their human bodies. He tore it out by the root, and that’s when death occurred.
The dark-skinned tribes of small jungle islands used to give gold and chocolate. In return he’d take their killers and rapists in their sleep. It was punishment for evil-doers, and they kept paying him for it until he would become tired of the climate and move on. In the North they didn’t do sacrifices. So instead he was the Arctic boogeyman; a tale to caution people on how dangerous it was to wander away alone in the coldest of the cold and dark months. He couldn’t be picky on what he ate there: he took anything he found for months then headed for the equator to thaw his hungering body.
But lately every time he tried to solidify, starting with a few souls taken here and there, growing his power slowly but surely, he lost the will to keep going. He would scatter again to the winds of time, blown away to linger and wait for the urge to hit him again. Months and months of existing off of souls was no way to thrive. It was a difficult hill to crest; he needed blood. He wanted the meat.
Maybe this time. If he held the memory of that food as a goal for going through with all the work of becoming fixed in the world, maybe he could see it through this time.
That first soul had been lovely. So pure, sweet. Completely untainted. How delicious the young ones were … their flesh was even better.
Yes, the souls were necessary; they were the vegetables that kept him healthy and going. But next to that he had to have the living, breathing, bleeding and still wriggling meat to make it all worthwhile. He only lived once every few millennia … he had to make it worth the effort.
To celebrate the new book, Sin Eater, the first book in this series, is available as a free eBook from Friday, August 2nd to Monday, August 5th. Click here to download!
C.D. BREADNER 