dragon
Yvonne
2
The fog didn’t roll into Blackwood; it leaked, seeping out of the gutters like heavy, gray syrup that smelled faintly of scorched sugar and damp earth. It was Halloween night, the one time of year when the veil between the mundane world and the things that lived in the dark grew thin enough to taste.And tonight, Yvonne was starving.She leaned against the wrought-iron fence of an old Victorian, a living monument to midnight velvet and bad intentions. Yvonne was a creature of the nocturnal apex—a night witch whose beauty was as sharp and undeniable as a obsidian dagger. Her hair was the color of a moonless sky, tumbling in cascading waves over shoulders dusted with a faint, bioluminescent shimmer. Her lips were painted the bruised purple of a twilight bruise, and her eyes—oh, her eyes—burned with the fierce, hypnotic gold of a predator locked on its prey.She wore a corset of spun shadow that molded flawlessly to her breathtaking curves, hugging a silhouette so impossibly wicked it looked like a dare. A high slit in her midnight skirt offered glimpses of endless, stockinged legs, clicking softly against the cobblestones with every deliberate, feline step she took.She wasn't hiding in the shadows. She was the shadow, draped in a couture of pure, unadulterated menace.Around the corner came a cluster of neighborhood children—a pint-sized pirate, a glowing plastic-masked goblin, and a tiny witch clutching a plastic pumpkin overflowing with candy. They were hopped up on sugar-rush adrenaline, shrieking with laughter as they ran toward the next porch.Then, they rounded the corner and slammed to a halt.The laughter died instantly, replaced by a collective, breathless gasp.
costume
