House of Dark Delights Read Online Free PDF Page A

discomfort was all but gone when she felt a biting tightness on her right hand.
“Merde!”
The diamond ring, which she’d forgotten about, was digging into that finger as it grew. She sat up and tugged at the narrow band, growling in pain as she struggled to get it off before the finger finished enlarging. It wasn’t easy; although the finger was coated with lube, so was the hand that was trying to remove it. She closed her teeth over the ring, took a deep breath, and yanked. It slid into her mouth, thank God. She tasted gold and blood; the finger was abraded up to the middle knuckle, but at least she—or rather, Elic—wouldn’t have to end up getting Heather’s engagement ring cut off. The questions would have been awkward.
    She spat the ring onto the floor and slumped back down, swearing under her breath as the transformation ran its course. Her breast tissue shrank back into the pectorals; her genitals felt as if they were turning themselves inside out. It was only when he felt a penis and scrotum lying heavy between his legs that he truly felt like Elic again. He ran his hands over his face, his chest and arms, reassured by the firmness of the flesh, the unabashedly masculine contours. Diverting as it was to be Elle from time to time, it was always comforting to come back home into the body he’d been born with.
    During The Change, Larsson’s semen had become imbued with an incorporeal essence unique to Elic. It was a precious elixir, this
zeru,
as Lili called it, a merging of superb human genetic material with certain more ethereal qualities of the dusii race. The pressure of it, the lust it generated, made Elic’s cock grow heavy, rising just a bit in anticipation of his next stop: the bathhouse.
    Feeling a grating emptiness in his stomach—he was always famished after tapping seed—Elic sat up and grabbed one of Larsson’s protein bars, a never-tasted novelty. He lounged back against the headboard to unwrap it, smiling when he found it to be coated in chocolate, a weakness that had rubbed off on him from Lili. He bit off a mouthful and chewed, only to gag in disgust at the shocking, nostril-flaring foulness of it. Spitting the grainy mush into his hand, he squinted in the semidarkness at the wrapper:
A heavenly combination of chocolate fudge and soy crisps guaranteed to delight your taste buds.
    Lying goddamn humans.
    He hurled the bar, pre- and post-masticated, into the wastebasket. Larrson stirred at the noise, blinking his eyes open as he looked around. “Heather?”
    â€œNot exactly.”
    The big Swede focused on Elic, his obvious bafflement giving way to recognition as he took in the hair. “Oh, you,” he said, clearly thinking he was looking at the woman he’d just bedded, only to gape in stupefaction when Elic turned to face him fully and he realized there was a man in his bed.
“Jösses!”
he exclaimed, sitting bolt upright. “
Vem
…Who the hell…
Elic
?”
    â€œLet me ask you, do you actually
like
those things?” Elic asked, nodding toward the protein bars, “or do you just eat them for the—”
    â€œWhat the fuck…?” Scrabbling back toward the edge of the bed, Larsson said, “What the hell are you doing here?”
    Elic allowed himself a puzzled little smile. “You don’t remember?”
    Larsson stared at Elic, his eyes glowing like silver coins as he thought about what he’d just done with the woman who bore such an uncanny resemblance to the man now lounging in his bed—the buck-naked, half-erect man. He looked down at himself, at the oily sheen on his cock and balls, the little plastic bottle of warming lube; he’d feel it in his ass, too.
“Nej,”
he said, shaking his head in revulsion and disbelief as the possibilities crystallized.
    â€œSorry to have awakened you,” Elic said. “You really conked out there. I’m not surprised,