It began like a whisper. At first, no one noticed the disappearances. Men came in and out of the Short and Sweet House every night desperate, sweating, moaning, satisfied. That was the business. That was the norm.
But soon… something changed. They started disappearing. Not immediately some were found lifeless in their beds the morning after a visit. Some never made it home. A few were last seen stumbling out into the moonlight, shirt half-buttoned, eyes blank with daze, their lips whispering one name Lyria.
And on their chests, always the same thing. A mark. A strange, burnt-black mask-shaped imprint, like fire had kissed them in the middle of passion. Sometimes it looked branded. Other times it looked drawn by shadows. But it was always there and it was always after a night with her.
Lyria wasn't surprised. She had grown into her body like a curse wrapped in velvet. Her skin glowed at night, her lips always red as sin, her hips curved like they had stories to tell. The girls in the house joked she was born with heat between her thighs. But they didn't know just how real it was.
Lyria could handle more men than anyone. More than her mother Serina ever could. Some nights, she would attend to three, four, even five men back to back, hour to hour and not break a single drop of sweat. Instead, her skin would glow brighter. Her eyes would turn darker. She would laugh a soft, sinister sound and lick the taste of lust off her lips like honey.
It was as if she was being fed by it. She never screamed. She never ached. She never broke. Instead, they broke. They twisted. Moaned. Shuddered. And died smiling, gasping, stiff. With that black mark on their chests.
One night, after a man with a silver tooth collapsed mid-thrust and turned cold before his body even stopped twitching, Serina stormed into Lyria's room, trembling with horror.
"You're going to stop," Serina hissed, slamming the door behind her.
Her makeup was half-ruined from crying. "You're going to stop this madness!"
Lyria sat on the bed, nude and glowing like a flame. She didn't look ashamed. She just tilted her head.
"Why would I stop?"
"Because men are dying!"
"So?" Lyria shrugged, spreading her legs lazily. "They come here to die anyway."
That sentence shook Serina to her bones. She had run the Short and Sweet House for years. She had birthed Lyria in sin and raised her in filth but never once had she imagined giving birth to death itself.
"You're enjoying this…" Serina whispered.
Lyria smirked. "More than you ever did, mother."
That night, Serina couldn't sleep. She paced. She wept. She remembered the smell of blood and sex and sweat from Lyria's room it had changed. It smelled wild now. Like burnt myrrh. Like something ancient.
She had to do something. A week later, Serina left the brothel without telling a soul. She journeyed far beyond the dusty borders of their town, past the market where women sold goat heads and spices, across a river so black it looked like ink.
And then, up the hill of eyes.
That's what people called it a hill deep in the forest, where people said the trees watched you. Where people said ancient beings lived. She reached a crumbling shrine at the top. There, the shaman waited.
He was tall, draped in animal skin, eyes rimmed in charcoal paint. His tongue was forked like a snake's. Around his neck, he wore a necklace made of bones and withered roses.
"You've brought me the scent of blood," he rasped, not even asking her name.
"It's my daughter," Serina said, her voice breaking. "She… she's killing them. The men. After sex. They die."
The shaman's eyes lit up.
"And she bears the mark?"
"Yes. A mask on their chests."
"She is no ordinary child."
"I know."
He listened. Then nodded.
"Bring her to me. A night with me may tame the hunger."
Three nights later, under a full silver moon, Serina led Lyria through the jungle. Lyria said nothing. Her eyes gleamed with excitement not fear. The closer they got, the more her hips swayed. The more she licked her lips. She could feel something pulling her.
The shrine was burning incense when they arrived. The shaman stood naked beneath a tree, arms spread like he was waiting for her. The firelight danced on his skin.
"Come, child," he said.
Lyria dropped her robe without hesitation. And then… they devoured each other.
His hands roamed her like a man touching lightning. She bit into his shoulder and he groaned like a beast. She rode him like a storm. The trees howled. The air thickened. Even Serina, standing far from the shrine, couldn't look away.
And as they climaxed, the earth trembled. Lyria arched her back and screamed not in pleasure, but in release. And then… he turned to ash beneath her.
One moment he was inside her. The next, he was dust, scattering across the forest floor. His necklace dropped to the ground, the bones clicking softly as they fell.
Lyria sat there, trembling. Sweating. Glowing. Serina rushed forward, horrified.
"Lyria! Lyria!"
"I'm fine," Lyria said softly. "I'm not even tired."
Serina fell to her knees.
"God have mercy…"
Lyria stood slowly, her legs slick with moonlight and the ash of the man she had just consumed. She picked up the necklace of bones and wore it.
"He said it would stop," Serina whispered.
Lyria turned to her, smiling darkly.
"Maybe it has.
Maybe it's just begun."
Together, they walked back to the brothel. But something in Lyria had changed. Her eyes looked older. Her steps heavier. Her skin too warm. That night, the air inside the house grew hotter than usual. The girls complained they couldn't sleep.
And far away, in another village, a man moaned in his dreams and woke up screaming with a mask-shaped burn on his chest.