John Smith grunted as he bottomed out. He was balls deep into the Vice Mayor’s trophy wife and he couldn’t help but show his manic grin, though in the darkness of the bedroom, he doubted the young woman noticed. Instead, she was too busy yelling his name.

“Oh, Walt, you got so much better! Don’t stop!”

Well, the Vice Mayor’s name anyway, heh. 

He pounded her for a good half hour, with the woman screaming in pleasure and climaxing multiple times before he finished. She passed out by that time, and John chuckled as he left the bedroom and wandered into the bathroom to freshen up. The bright light would have blinded a normal man coming from a pitch-black room, but John’s pupils adjusted fast enough that there was practically no difference in his sight, from darkness to light, or even the other way around. 

He took a piss, washed up his privates, then splashed water on his face before he caught sight of his reflection in the bathroom mirror. He huffed at the heavy-jowled man, with more than a few age lines around his eyes and forehead that stared back at him. By all accounts, a fairly normal-looking, middle-aged man, save for the fact that his lips were stretched almost all the way to his ears in a rictus grin. 

“Instinct…it’s been too long,” he muttered to himself as he reached for his cheeks with his fingers and massaged the grin back to normal levels. The elasticity of his skin and flesh allowed John to return his visage easily enough. He walked out of the bathroom, stared at the woman on the bed stained with his seed for a long moment, before snorting. He was bored. Chained. Tired. He longed to return to his Unfettered life. 

But he was here because he chose to be, and he would burn in the Infernal Abyss before he’d break his discipline. 

Well, at the very least, he should be able to get something new and fascinating in his hands soon. 

_____________

Evan Andrews, cloaked in the shadows cast by the dusk, watched through a set of binoculars with a lewd grin on his face. Someone like him, perched on the roof of an apartment building, would have sent up alarms from any resident or security personnel. Unfortunately for them, the shadows were his to command, and no one, not even the security cameras, could see him. 

As for what he was observing, it was through a bedroom window with its curtains open. The interior might be dimmer than the ambient light, but with the coming darkness, soon enough, he would be able to see clearly inside. Not that he was unable to make out anything as he was at the moment, but since the room was currently empty, it hardly mattered. The only thing that kept his attention was the line of light glowing through the bottom of the bathroom door. He’d watched her as she entered to bathe, and he knew from the last few times that Lilibeth had the habit of walking around her bedroom practically naked if she was alone in the house after bathing. He noted that her friend, Scarlett Baxter, wasn’t at home.

And as he expected, the door opened and she glided out of the bathroom with just a pair of high-waisted panties on, her glorious bosom in full display. Evan absently wiped the drool off his lips as he drank in the sight of her. Lilibeth’s hair and body were completely dry, oddly enough. Didn’t she just bathe? 

As he also hoped, she didn’t put on any clothes, but instead, sat down on her bed with her legs folded so that her heels were above the opposite knee. She was facing the windows too, right at the setting sun, which made interesting shadows play upon her pale skin. 

Despite growing hard, Evan made no move to play with himself, nor did he try to capture a photo or video of the glorious sight. He was better than that. He enjoyed watching Lilibeth engage in naked meditations until the sun fully set and she closed the curtains. 

With a sigh of satisfaction, Evan hummed as he absently scanned the surroundings, of both Lilibeth’s apartment and the street next to the building he used. His gaze sharpened at the sight of a sedan, a white car with blacked-out windows. He’d noticed that car parked in the vicinity of Lilibeth’s apartment for days now, and it was always the same middle-aged man hanging around. 

While he didn’t have logic on his side, intuition told him that the man was after Lilibeth. He clicked his tongue and slinked towards the fire escape. The set of outside stairs would have creaked once he set his weight on them, but he extended his hand and stretched his finger. The shadows that comprised his digits extended then broadened. They wrapped around the rusty steel joints and muffled the sound. 

He sped down the stairs and jumped off the final landing onto the alleyway with little trouble and he crossed the three blocks that separated his building from Lilibeth’s. The sedan was parked a few houses down, near a corner cafe. He spotted the middle-aged man, someone with dark hair, a fairly average build, and was just slightly shorter than Evan. 

He stopped short of actually confronting the man as his better sense got to him. What was he going to do anyway? Accost the man, and then what? Beat him up? Rob him? Maim him? 

He stood several paces away and leaned against a brick wall. The twilight cast long shadows and he casually placed his hands behind his back. His fingers extended down to the floor and crept across the shadows. The stalker man was sitting inside his car, talking on his phone. The window was ajar, though just enough to get some airflow. The weather was cool as it was halfway into the Season of Air already. It started to drizzle so he pulled up his collar.

“…subject shows little variation to her schedule once she’s in her domicile. Continued observation…?” 

Evan frowned. Subject? Do they mean Lilibeth? 

“…it’s not a bad sight…”

“…should I approach the subject already? She doesn’t seem hard-pressed to maintain her lifestyle. Exposing her nature wouldn’t necessarily change anything since it’s hard to prove…” 

Evan stiffened as he parsed through the chatter. That man was spying on Lilibeth and had nefarious intentions. Well, he was the pot calling the kettle black, but he was a selfish man. She was his, nobody else’s!

So what should he do? 

That man has to disappear! But not here, and not right now. Where, though? Oakmont Estates was an upscale community and it wasn’t by any means sparsely occupied. There were dozens of pedestrians along the street itself, though most of the crowds were concentrated on the boardwalk a few blocks away. Oakmont’s beaches and resorts were exclusive clubs that cost thousands of Torries in membership fees per annum. Lilibeth had really come back up in the world. 

Evan squashed a tendril of envy that wormed up his guts. He’d have it all, too. But for now, he’d have to deal with mister stalker. 

He wormed a bit of his shadow stuff into the car’s trunk, grit his teeth, and severed it. The shadow shard retained a connection to his mind and he’d be able to track it, though he could not project his senses to the fragment. Then, he walked five blocks away to the parking lot he left his car in. He waited for his target to leave, but it took a couple of hours for that to happen. Then, he followed it as it left Oakmont and headed towards Neo Prism City proper. The traffic flow was horrendous, and it was late in the evening, closer to nine o’clock than eight, by the time they entered the district of Jackstone, southwest of the Winderfield Island. 

The man drove his car into a three-storey pay parking building and Evan followed inside. There was no secure street parking available here and if he did so, he was likely to lose his hubcaps, if not his wheels, or Divines, even the whole car. The damage was about five Torries for overnight parking, the only price available this late in the day. He coughed up the dough, but by the time he managed to park and seek the middle-aged man’s car, it was already empty. 

Evan swore silently as he retrieved his shadow fragment, then exited the building anyway. He found a nearby diner that advertised being open for 24 hours. It wasn’t overly full, but there were no open booths available so he had to settle for a barstool. 

“What’ll it be, honey?” the homely woman at the counter asked him as soon as he sat down. “House special’s lamb burger with orange-lime soda.” 

“I’ll have that, thank you,” Evan said. “Large on the soda, please, and extra chips.” 

“Sure thing, big boy.” The woman smirked and winked at Evan but he just nodded and hardly paid attention. She wasn’t bad-looking, but next to Lilibeth, nobody else was beautiful. While he pondered over his next steps, it seemed good luck was with him. He noticed the same middle-aged man walk into the diner, call out a cheerful greeting to the waitress, then pick up a bag of food. 

He didn’t stay long to chat, so Evan nodded to the waitress and said, “Where’s the toilet?”

He didn’t see it inside and assumed it was around the back, and he was gratified to be proven right when the woman answered that it was, indeed, at the back. 

He walked out even before his target did, and he waited around the corner, cloaked in shadows. The target left the diner cheerfully and headed to the building across the road. Evan scooted out of sight and jaywalked, though it hardly mattered since the traffic flow was light here. 

Before the man could disappear into the building, Evan expanded his fingers into a pool of darkness. The man stepped on it, and a fragment clung to his shoe sole. He waited for the target to disappear into the building, then he walked towards the alley to the side. He hid in the shadows while waiting for the man to reach his apartment, which took about five minutes. Once the distance stabilised, Evan shot a shadow tendril towards the fire escape ladder and pulled himself up. The building was about five storeys tall so it was an easy climb to the roof. From there, he quickly found the access door. It was locked, of course, but it was a deadbolt rather than a padlock, so it was simple enough to slither his flattened fingers in the gap between the door and the frame to unlock it from the inside. 

The shadow shard was just a few paces below him, certainly on the fourth level, so he went down the stairs and into the hallway. He stopped at the door, slid his fingers under the door, and opened it. 

The middle-aged man looked up from the dining table with an expression of surprise which quickly turned to alarm. He fumbled for a knife, but Evan’s fingers shot towards him even before he could get up, and stabbed into the man’s shadow. 

“Urk!” 

 The man froze, his body completely unmoving. He was in a half crouch, and his right foot wasn’t touching the floor. But Evan’s shadow stitching didn’t freeze the man at a point in space. He fell over with a groan, his muscles spasming.

Evan sauntered over after he kicked the door closed. He leaned over the fallen man ang grabbed his jaw. Fear swam behind his eyes, but there was iron behind it. 

“So, you’re after Lilibeth…” Evan said slowly. “Why?” 

The man didn’t answer and it took an embarrassingly long moment before he realised that his stitching prevented the man from talking. He grimaced and wrapped his fingers around the man’s neck, wrist, and ankles, then he undid his power. 

The man spat on his face, and Evan slammed his fist onto the man’s nose. “Let’s start again, shall we?”

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep