Monthly Bonus Content #5—'Spooky, Fall, Basket' (Li-Sar (female) Autumn Scenario Special) SPOILERS FOR THE VILLAIN ROMANCE

I don’t think my apartment has ever looked so decorated. The jobs I’ve fallen into haven’t exactly given me time to participate in seasonal decorating, but with Unit Bravo offering to take on my patrols so I can rest, it’s actually given me the chance to have some fun.

I step back, placing my fists on my hips as I nod at my display.

Paper bats trail down the wall, pointing directly to the sideboard draped in black cloth and littered with sparkling skulls, pumpkin baskets filled with treats, and carved candlesticks. Halloween bunting hangs from the ceiling and fairy lights sparkle and cast multi-colour light across the whole thing.

I’m not sure how else I could make it all more spooky.

“Hello, meor’dal.”

Oh. Well, that’ll do it.

An excited shiver dribbles down my spine that I try to turn into a shudder of revulsion but fail completely.

I turn on the spot, finding the source of the rich, smooth voice that haunts my dreams.

“Li-Sar,” I respond, swallowing as I stare over the supernatural spread out lazily across my sofa. Her long legs are crossed at the ankles, her velvet boots leading to a pair of leather trousers that display her shapely thighs, up onto a ruffled shirt that isn’t her usual wardrobe.

I fold my arms, trying to create some kind of barrier between us, but my heart still thuds wildly in my chest. “Interesting ensemble.”

She looks down, picking at the wide, lacey collar of the shirt and grins thinly. “I thought I should make an effort. Everyone else dressed up, so why shouldn’t I?”

“Everyone else isn’t appearing out of nowhere in my apartment,” I state.

She peels herself up off the couch with the fluidity of a dancer—not that I’m paying that close attention to her movements…

She strides towards me, resting a hip against my carefully decorated sideboard and pops a piece of candy into her mouth. “Let’s not pretend you’re annoyed to see me, meor’dal. You know I’m as eager to see you as you are me. These are delicious, by the way.”

I frown as she takes another sweet. “And what if I am annoyed?”

Her gaze flickers up and down over me, leaving a trail of electricity across my skin wherever her white-hot gaze falls. “You’re only annoyed that I didn’t come to see you sooner.”

I grit my teeth, knowing my main annoyance right now is that she’s correct.

Turning away, I move to the other side of the room to try and catch my breath, the task impossible in her heady, overwhelming presence.

“Why do you keep denying this, meor’dal?” Her voice comes from everywhere, and in a cloud of glimmering, sparking smoke, she appears before me. Her fingers find purchase around my middle. “Power or not—there’s a storm between us that’s desperate to be unleashed.”

My voice traps in my throat as my gaze trails to her lips. The words that come from them offer something I desperately don’t want, but everything else those lips could offer almost makes me weak at the knees.

She fills the silence I have left.

“Your blood sings for me. I hear it, no matter where I am,” she murmurs, pressing in even closer.

I should move away. I should.

But I don’t.

She reaches up to undo the top two buttons of my shirt, slipping her hand beneath the fabric to lay her palm against my chest. Lightning sparks at the touch. I brace for it to bite at me, sting at me, but it only sends my pulse into a frenzy and my body into a heat I can barely control.

“That rhythm…,” she whispers, and I can feel the pounding of it in my head, “it haunts me.” Something between annoyance and need crackles across her supernaturally attractive features. “You torment me. You plague me.” Her breaths are deep and even, falling across me with a wanting so hot I’m surprised the entire apartment hasn’t gone up in smoke.

She angles in closer, her lips trailing in the air so close to the skin of my neck. “Offer me relief, meor’dal. Offer it to us both.”

I scoff and lean away. “You really came here for a booty call?”

Anger flickers across her features, and she yanks me up against her. “You really think just that physical act would be enough to relieve me of your torment when what’s between us runs as deep and sharp as lightning?”

She snorts out a small breath before releasing me, shaking her head. “You really don’t understand what’s happening here, do you?”

“Maybe I do,” I reply, my words thick. “But maybe it’s more that I don’t want to.” Stepping back, I clench my fists at my sides, stemming the sting of magic that bites at them. “I won’t fall for you, Li-Sar.”

She tips her chin up, definite fury raging across her features. “The only one you’re lying to is yourself, meor’dal. We both know you’ve fallen as far into this as I have.”

“That’s not—” I don’t bother with the rest of the lie.

With swaying steps, she heads back to the sideboard and grabs another piece of candy, placing it into her mouth as she smiles around it. “See you soon.”

She’s then lost to a plume of crimson smoke, the air sparking with lingering magic for a while after she’s gone.

I slump onto sofa, drained and exhausted. My body aches as though it’s missing something.

And I do everything within my power not to admit just what that is.