Chapter 20
CHAPTER
TWENTY
PHOENIX
“Aubrey.” My voice was a warning as I stalked after him. I’d thought… fuck, I wasn’t sure what I’d thought. He’d been so excited about the idea of tigers that I’d thought the skull might make him happy.
Instead, he’d shoved past me and tried to make his way deeper into the house.
“Fuck off, Phoenix. I’m tired.” He was full of shit.
No one who was a carrier could be tired right now.
I could feel the rain outside, could feel it trickling against the roof like it was tingling against my skin.
I knew without a doubt that the rest of my pack would probably be out in it, hunting. Making sure we had food to eat.
I was here with my own prey, and I realized I was upset.
I didn’t know who the fuck Bishop was, though that was the name on his tags. The ones the Order asshole he’d been with when I’d first seen him said didn’t belong to him.
I didn’t know who Bishop was, but I’d trailed through that fucking jungle to find him a tiger skull and he’d thrown it on the ground.
“Come here , Aubrey.”
He was making his way further into the house, but there wasn’t really anywhere he could go.
Nowhere he could hide.
Fuck, I was so tired of him hiding from me. I was tired of him pretending that he wasn’t just as vicious, just as capable of killing. I was tired of him pretending that he couldn’t feel the rain too.
I took a few more steps toward him and watched him pull his knife—I wasn’t sure if my expression was more shocked or amused.
“Are you going to cut me?”
“Your head is all fucked with the rain.” Even as he said it, we both knew it was a lie. Yeah, the rain was slowly starting to get under my skin. Even without it touching me, I could feel it—my body tingling, my blood rushing.
Instinct burning through me and telling me that now…
Now was the time—now was the only time I could prove to Aubrey that he was just as much an animal as I was.
It made me take two steps back, made me twist the door open. The wind caught it, and the smell of rain on the leaves infiltrated my senses.
Fuck, it was going to be a good storm.
I stepped out and groaned as soon as it hit my skin.
“Are you fucking crazy, Phoenix? Get out of the storm.”
I threw my arms wide, tilting my head back and letting the coolness of the water wash over my skin.
Why the fuck would I get out of the rain?
My pack and I loved this weather the most. We loved it when the people who couldn’t accept that the world had changed, that we were different , cornered themselves while trying to hide away.
I could feel it now, soaking into my skin, running along my nerves, making my body burn… to hunt. To kill.
To claim.
“Either tell me who the fuck you were talking about earlier or come out here. You can do it with or without the knife. It’s not going to change anything.
” I wasn’t sure how much longer I was going to be coherent enough to convince him with words, and I think he saw it too.
Aubrey scrambled away as I tilted my head back again and let the water slick across my lashes.
The thunder crashed above me, and I moved without warning.
He ran, but he wasn’t going to be fast enough. Not now. Not in the rain. All I could think of was his flushed skin, the way his lean muscles were on display beneath the tank top he wore. His hair was still wet from the shower, and he was beautiful.
Beautiful and mine , and I was ready to do whatever it took for him to finally mean it when he said it.
I wasn’t surprised when the knife he was holding bit into my arm in a shallow slash that still left a trail of scarlet running down my wrist—Aubrey’s eyes were wild, wide and panicked and desperate. I could see how much the rain outside was trying to claw its way under his skin.
I could see exactly how much he was like me.
“You’re so willing for me to bleed as long as you’re the one doing it, huh?
Come on, Aubrey.” It almost felt like I was choking on his name, trying to swallow it down, trying to keep it for myself.
I wanted to eat him whole. “Tell me, or let it go. Tell me or come into the rain and let me fuck you until there’s no room for you to feel it anymore. ”
That’s what this had been about all along, right? Me fucking away his pain. That was why he was with me. Because I was powerful, punishing. Because I was strong.
If that was all he wanted, that was the monster I’d be. I reached out and grabbed his wrist, tugging him forward.
“F-fuck. Let go. ” His teeth were chattering when he tried to scramble back again, but I was through playing games. Fuck, I was so through with the games. The rain soaking into my skin made me realize the best way to be finished was to completely, thoroughly claim him.
Mine.
I’d split him open and carve out every memory in his chest until there was only room for me . I’d eat his heart while it was still beating and give him mine to fill the hollow in his chest.
Mine—the thunder roared, and I wrapped my fingers in his hair, jerking him forward and toward the open door.
Mine—and he fought, thrashing like a wildcat in my arms, splitting my lip and leaving me with more shallow knife cuts littering my arms and chest.
Mine—and I dragged him out into the rain, throwing him to the muddy grass in front of the enclosure I’d opened earlier to find him that stupid fucking tiger skull.
If he wanted a predator, I’d give him one.
If he wanted teeth and claws, I’d tear him apart .
I was ready to make him something new until he finally let go of his past and felt whole. With me.
The shocked look on his face as the rain soaked into his skin was intoxicating.
How long had he been avoiding it? Scrambling into shelter when it fell and clawing at himself because monsters like us craved the storm on our skin.
It was starting to steal away my ability to think, sinking bone deep and leaving me with that word grating in my head.
Over and over again.
Mine… mine… I needed Aubrey to be mine.
I stalked after him and he scrambled back on hands and knees, though I noticed he kept the knife clutched to his chest out of pure instinct. It didn’t matter.
Fuck. Nothing mattered but the storm and him.
I tore my shirt over my head and threw it back toward the house. With the rain on my skin, I felt like I could let him flay me alive and I’d still want to feel him pressed against me.
I needed him.
He barely managed to get to his feet before I caught him by the arm and swung him around.
The knife he was holding caught on my side this time, slicing across my hip and making me groan.
The pleasure and pain mixed together, and I wondered if he could tell the difference between the rain on my skin and the wounds he was cutting open.
I wondered if it mattered. Everything was red.
“Let me go ,” he hissed again, jerking away from me while his body followed instinct and rocked forward.
In this world, the rain was God. In this world, it was the one thing you couldn’t resist .
The rain, and now Aubrey, who snarled in my face and slashed the knife across my chest—they were all shallow cuts. The slickness of blood gave him the ability to push back from me, and this time he fell to his knees on the ground.
“Stop fighting it, Aubrey,” I snarled, coming down into a crouch and stalking forward like I was the tiger he’d mourned.
I covered his body with mine, clamping my hand on his neck to pin him on a ground that was starting to run wet with mud and blood.
“Fuck, just let it go. Whatever the fuck it is that’s holding you back, let it go and be here.
” I dipped my head and scraped my teeth on his shoulder, licked the rain from his skin and felt it burn my lungs. “Be with me.”
Fuck, the rain made you honest. I’d never asked anyone to stay. But…
“I can’t.” He half choked on the words while he writhed beneath me, gasping like he couldn’t draw enough air. His nails dug into the earth, leaving behind scars that I didn’t have to ask the story of. I knew these—I could see these. We made them together.
“Let go .” I mirrored his earlier words, and Aubrey slammed his fist on the ground and screamed .
The sound was lost to the thunder, to the rain. It was lost to everyone but me, and I drank it down and knew that it wasn’t defiance.
It was pain. It was all the pain he’d been holding in his chest, every ounce of agony that had been tearing him apart, ripping from his throat and feeding into the sky, the air, the fucking clouds, and the red rain that had damned us all from the beginning .
Aubrey screamed, and he slammed his fist to the ground again.
Aubrey screamed as his fingers tore at his clothes, ripping his shirt over his head, yanking at the button of his pants. He turned in my arms with rain-damp skin and lifted the knife between us.
“Make me,” he snapped, but the fury and challenge in his tone was belied by the begging agony swimming behind the sting. He needed this.
He needed me and the violence that only I could give.
I took the knife from his hand and slid it along his jawline, pressing it to his throat. “If that’s what you need.”
I made quick work of completely stripping us both, then used my knees between his legs to slide them open, helped along by the wet mud, and twisted my wrist so my blood-soaked fingers wrapped around his cock.
He was already hard, and I wasn’t sure if it was from my proximity or the rain.
I only knew that he threw his head back and nearly cut himself wide open when I started pumping his dick.
His fists slammed against the ground again while I watched pain tear across his features.
“Fuck you, Phoenix.” He moaned the curse and rocked his hips into my hand, pressing against the knife until I watched rivulets of red trail along his neck. I pulled it back and lifted, then stabbed it into the ground.