NOVEL NEXT Chapter 259: When Death Bows to Desire
The bullet punched through Eros's skull like it was made of paper, brain matter erupting across the concrete in violent splashes that looked like abstract art painted with the essence of life itself. His body collapsed with the wet slap of meat hitting stone, blood spreading in a crimson halo around the ruin of his head.
Agent Ellis lowered his rifle, professional satisfaction cutting sharp lines into his face. "Threat terminated. Move on the—"
The words strangled to silence as the corpse at his feet began to do something impossible.
[DING! HOST 1st LIFE TERMINATION CONFIRMED]
[DEPLOYING FINAL PROTOCOL: LUST INCARNATE]
[ALL LIMITATIONS REMOVED]
[WARNING: ALTERATION IMMINENT]
Rose-colored radiance bled from the shattered skull, seeping upward like liquid fire that danced against gravity. The glow poured into ruined flesh, stitching bone back together, reweaving gray matter into alien patterns, rewriting synapses with designs that belonged to nightmares rather than biology.
His features shifted as though sculpted by furious, unseen hands. Cheekbones sharpened to razors. His jaw realigned into a blade of living flesh. Lips curved into a cruel geometry of contempt.
When his eyes snapped open, they were no longer human. Pools of liquid silver glared outward, reflections of every fear whispered in the dark—depths filled with the rage of every slight, every humiliation, every weakness that had ever scarred his existence.
The chamber thickened. The air grew heavy, burning hot enough to make every breath feel like drowning in acid. Invisible heatwaves distorted the space around him, warping perception.
Pheromones detonated outward, not as allure but as sovereignty—raw dominance saturating the chamber. The scent was primal, predatory, the chemical declaration of a beast that owned this space and everything in it.
Ellis's rifle twitched. Sloane gagged on air that felt too dense to swallow. Kane's jaw clenched as a thin line of sweat broke across his brow.
Eros was no longer a man. He was something remade in wrath and lust, something that had shed its disguise of flesh and stopped pretending to be human.
And in that instant, every living thing in the chamber understood the same terrible truth:
They hadn't killed him.
They had unleashed him.
Eros rose from death like a demon carved out of blood and fury, every motion a seamless blend of grace and inevitability. Heat rippled from his skin, not warmth but the searing promise of devastation barely restrained.
Kane's weapon slid from nerveless fingers, his body betraying instincts older than language. Pupils blew wide, breath came shallow—prey caught in the gaze of an apex predator.
"Jesus… fucking Christ," Sloane whispered, his shotgun trembling. Training manuals, combat drills, decades of doctrine—none of it mattered. This wasn't in any briefing.
Eros smiled. It was beautiful in the same way an avalanche was beautiful: irresistible, merciless, impossible to survive.
"You killed me," he said, voice vibrating with undertones of gravel and broken glass. "Now let me return the favor properly."
Black rose petals bloomed beneath his feet, their edges glinting like razors.
Ellis snapped his rifle to his shoulder, desperate reflex overriding reason. But Eros was already there—blur, displacement, inevitability. One hand clamped over Ellis's mouth, the other raising a knife forged of crystallized hatred.
"Shhh," Eros cooed, mock tenderness dripping venom. "Let me show you what real professionals do to amateurs."
The blade slipped into Ellis's torso with surgical malice, finding nerves he'd never known existed. Muffled screams tore from his throat as Eros traced agony into his flesh like a calligrapher inscribing perfect strokes.
"Twenty-six major pain receptors in the human torso," Eros whispered conversationally. Each word, another incision. "I intend to greet them all."
Ellis's eyes rolled back, his body convulsing as though electricity danced through every vein. When Eros finally severed the line between agony and silence, it was mercy only by comparison.
Sloane's shotgun thundered, buckshot carving a wall where Eros had stood. He spun to reload—too slow. Eros materialized behind Kane, one arm wrapping his throat in a chokehold that was intimate in its cruelty.
"Your turn," Eros purred, knife tracing lazy patterns across armored plates until it found the vulnerable seams. "Let's test your endurance."
The blade sank shallow, deliberate. Not fatal—never fatal. Each cut bled lightning into Kane's nervous system. He howled, clawing at the arm crushing his windpipe, but Eros held him like a lover indulging in slow destruction.
"Scream louder," Eros commanded, pressing steel into the shoulder joint until bone grated. "I want the last one to understand exactly what's waiting."
The chamber filled with Kane's shrieks, bouncing off concrete, saturating the air with the raw sound of a man being unmade. Blood spattered black petals underfoot, beauty and carnage indistinguishable.
When Eros finally dragged the knife across Kane's throat, the silence that followed was absolute—so profound it felt like the chamber itself was holding its breath.
Sloane stood alone now. Ellis was gone, Kane was gone. The shotgun hung slack in his hands, useless, forgotten. Fear had hollowed him out until he was little more than trembling flesh wrapped in tactical gear. It wasn't combat anymore. It wasn't war. It was witnessing divinity in its ugliest form.
Eros closed the distance with slow, deliberate steps. Each footfall hissed against concrete, leaving behind smoldering imprints like the earth itself recoiled from touching him. Silver eyes fixed on Sloane—unblinking, unrelenting, merciless.
"You know what's funny?" Eros murmured as he seized Sloane by the throat and lifted him from the ground as if he weighed nothing. The agent kicked and clawed, boots scraping against empty air. "I used to be afraid of men like you."
The knife shimmered into existence, the blade's edges slick with a gleam that wasn't blood but something older, purer, crueler.
"But you're all just meat," Eros whispered, tilting his head with an almost curious contempt. "Meat wearing badges."
The first slice took Sloane's finger. The second, another. Each cut was surgical, almost affectionate, and every scream was music conducted by a sadist in perfect tempo. Pain bloomed in intervals—measured, orchestrated, prolonged.
Sloane howled, begged, broke. The chamber filled with his agony, a cathedral echo of a man unmade piece by piece.
And when finally Eros drew the blade across his throat, it wasn't out of pity. It was because the performance no longer entertained him.
The body crumpled to the ground. Silence followed, vast and reverent, broken only by the soft fall of black petals drifting across the carnage.
Eros stood alone in his garden of corpses and roses. Blood pooled around his boots, steam rising where crimson met concrete scorched by his passing. He breathed deep, silver eyes burning with something beyond triumph.
But triumph was fleeting. Hunger stirred—an abyssal hunger that had nothing to do with food. This form consumed energy like wildfire devoured forests, every enhanced cell demanding more, faster, deeper. The body could sustain it for only so long before even cities would not be enough to slake its needs.
Connection. That was the key. Not tenderness. Not love. But raw physical dominance—violent intimacy strong enough to anchor this form before it collapsed under its own impossible perfection. Without it, Eros wouldn't just burn out. He would burn through everything.
The Lust Mode had awakened. Beautiful. Terrible. Unstoppable.
Now came the greater challenge: finding someone strong enough to endure what he had become. Because if he failed, Miami wouldn't just bleed.
It would burn.