NOVEL NEXT Chapter 260: The Race Against Desire
Eros stood alone among the wreckage he had wrought—three federal agents reduced to grotesque murals of crimson sprayed across concrete, black roses blooming from cracks where their blood had fallen. The air reeked of copper, ozone, and something older, something wrong. Heat still shimmered in waves that bent light around his body, but already that radiance was flickering, unsteady, like a dying bulb straining to stay lit.
Victory felt like drowning.
The first wave of exhaustion slammed into him, his body convulsing with the backlash of what he'd unleashed. His chest heaved, each breath jagged and uneven. The predator who had torn through trained killers with surgical cruelty now staggered, his legs buckling, muscles trembling like brittle wire.
He reached inward, tried to collapse the form, to retreat into something human again—Eros, even Peter. Nothing. The transformation held him prisoner, locked in a state that demanded more energy than his body could ever provide.
[DING! HALF-LUST MODE DURATION EXPIRING]
[WARNING: TRANSFORMATION BECOMING UNSTABLE]
[SYSTEM ALERT: CRITICAL ENERGY DEPLETION]
"Master," ARIA's voice crackled like a lifeline through the static storm in his head. "I have instructed Soo-Jin to return for extraction. The Maybach is en route to your position."
"Tell them to stay the fuck away!" Eros snarled, his voice jagged with panic. Another wave of hunger ripped through him, violent as a sledgehammer, folding his gut into knives. His silver eyes flared, then guttered, as though his own body was consuming him from the inside out.
"Master, your vital signs indicate—"
[YOUR LUST IS INCREASING! TIME: 00:04]
The countdown appeared across his vision, red numerals pulsing like a predator's heartbeat. Four. Four minutes. Each second dropping like a guillotine blade.
"Is that hours or minutes?" His voice cracked, desperate, even though every nerve in his body already screamed the truth.
[MINUTES HOST!]
The confirmation hit like an execution order. His blood ran cold.
"What happens when it reaches zero?"
[HOST WILL TRANSFORM INTO EMBOD STATE]
[WARNING: RATIONAL THOUGHT WILL CEASE]
[HOST WILL SEEK IMMEDIATE SEXUAL GRATIFICATION FROM ANY AVAILABLE TARGETS]
Eros felt ice water flood his veins. An Embod. Not just hunger—obliteration. Like a vampire starved past sanity, except he wouldn't drain blood. He'd fuck anything that breathed until the body's demands were satisfied. Human dignity, morality, self—gone.
The echo of an engine grew louder through the tunnels. The Maybach. Soo-jin driving, four women inside—Margaret, Alice, Rebecca, the fourth civilian. Survivors who had just crawled out of hell. Now they were barreling straight toward another monster: him.
Headlights cut through dust and ruin as the sedan appeared, swerving debris. For a heartbeat, instinct twisted ugly inside him—images of Margaret's body bent to his will, of terrified gratitude weaponized into submission.
He crushed the thought. There was a line. Always a line. He'd been twisted, broken, rebuilt, but he wasn't a rapist. Not then. Not now. Not ever.
"Wait, Master," ARIA's voice snapped with sudden urgency. "You are significantly faster in this state. Perhaps—"
"How fast system?" Silver eyes locked on the Maybach.
[CURRENT MAXIMUM VELOCITY IN LUST MODE: 127 MPH]
[WITH JACKET ENHANCEMENT + RESIDUAL AWAKENING ENERGY: 3.2 MINUTES SUSTAINED]
[SUFFICIENT TIME TO REACH HOTEL SUITE]
"What's the catch?" he growled, already knowing the answer.
[WARNING: EMERGENCY SPRINT WILL PERMANENTLY LOCK LUST MODE][ACCESS SEALED UNTIL FULL AWAKENING CONDITIONS ARE MET][FUTURE EMERGENCIES: UNAVAILABLE]
The math was brutal. Trade godhood for control. Burn his greatest weapon to stop himself from becoming the very thing he despised.
It wasn't even a choice.
"ARIA," he snapped, muscles coiling with nuclear tension, "tell Soo-Jin to drive straight to the hotel suite. Tell Madison I'm coming—" his voice broke, half-snarl, half-plea "—and that I need a lot of help."
"Understood, Master. Transmitting message now."
The countdown pulsed red in his vision. 00:03.
Eros dug his heels into the concrete. The chamber cracked under him. Every cell screamed, every vein lit fire. Then he launched—silver eyes blazing, roses scattering in his wake, the world smearing into a blur of impossible speed.
Eros exploded forward like a missile made of desperation and silver light, his enhanced form cutting through Miami's industrial wasteland at speeds that turned the world into streaks of neon and shadow. The jacket's systems screamed in protest as they tried to manage forces that belonged on racetracks rather than human flesh.
[TIME REMAINING: 00:02:45]
The city blurred past him in a kaleidoscope of light and motion. Traffic became colored smears, buildings turned into vertical streaks, pedestrians flickered like ghosts before vanishing behind him. His feet barely touched concrete as he sprinted through intersections, vaulted over cars, used walls as springboards when the streets became too crowded.
[TIME REMAINING: 00:01:30]
His enhanced senses caught fragments of Miami's night symphony—sirens wailing in the distance, bass lines thumping from nightclubs, the crash of waves against the shore. But it all felt muffled by the roar of wind and the thunder of his own heartbeat.
[TIME REMAINING: 00:00:45]
The hotel district rose ahead like a canyon of glass and money, luxury towers reaching toward stars that pulsed with his desperate sprint. His legs burned with effort that should have torn muscle from bone, but he pushed harder, knowing that failure meant becoming something Madison would have to survive rather than save.
[TIME REMAINING: 00:00:20]
The familiar silhouette of their hotel grew larger with each stride. Almost there. Almost—
[TIME REMAINING: 00:00:10]
Ten seconds left as he reached the building entrance, silver eyes blazing with the last of his supernatural light. His body shuddered under the weight of impossible speed, every nerve on fire, every cell howling for release.
He crashed through the lobby doors in a blur of roses and blood scent, marble tiles cracking under his landing. Guests screamed, chandeliers trembled, and reality itself seemed to bend around his unstable aura.
But Eros didn't look at them. Couldn't. His gaze locked upward, past panicked civilians and shattered glass, toward the upper floor where Madison waited. Toward the only anchor strong enough to keep him from dissolving into lust and ruin.
[TIME REMAINING: 00:00:03]
The sprint was over. The true test was about to begin.