41. Jackal
FORTY-ONE
JACKAL
She emerged from the bank with blood on her dress. Splattered up her arm. Smeared under her eyes across one cheek.
Did she fucking kill someone?
I stalked behind her as she marched down the street with a purpose, oblivious to the looks she drew from everyone she passed by. It was like watching a robot march down the sidewalk, and I tailed her silently, intrigued to see what she would do next.
The blood kept following her, though, so now I was worried the person she’d tried to kill might’ve been herself.
Did she intend to bleed out and jump into the bay or something?
Whatever her purpose, she was well on her way to achieving it.
I followed her down a dark alley, where she stopped to rummage through some trash bins. Apparently, she didn’t find what she was looking for because she kept moving, her hands empty save for that backpack she held.
She stopped at a pawn shop at the corner and emerged minutes later holding a display case containing a fantastic signed baseball bat. When she rounded the next corner, she smashed the case and pulled the thousand-dollar memorabilia from its scattered remains, swinging it once or twice as if to test its weight.
She was certifiable. Batshit, even.
But she wasn’t even there. Her eyes were cold and lifeless, and something about her movements felt wooden, almost stilted, like they were all forced. Like if she stopped she might turn into a pillar of concrete.
A part of me felt something it shouldn’t. I shook that emotion free and kept on, wondering if I might have to go home and report that she’d committed suicide off the fucking bridge.
The first detour she took was to the seedier part of this district. She singled out a man who was harassing a group of young women outside of a bar, and in broad dusklight, in front of everyone on the street, she swung that bat at his head and took him down, the resounding crack echoing off the brick walls around us. Before I could stop her, she’d hit him while he was on the ground, his head caving in.
She barely stopped to stare down at her handiwork as she stepped over his lifeless body and continued down the street, whistling to herself, that bloody bat dripping in her wake as it dangled over her shoulder.
Fuck.
She was on a rampage, not a suicide mission.
However, if the cops were called, there very well would be a sudden death at the end of this. In her present state, it was likely she didn’t stop even when told to lay down her weapon. And the cops in this town were the shoot first, ask questions later type. They very much would not hesitate to kill her on the spot if she even so much as hinted at being a danger to the public. Unfortunately for her, even these assholes were part of the public, too.
And if she went down as a member of the Guild, it would bring heat down on the rest of us, too. Heat we didn’t need. Heat that could mean the end of the Neon Dogs, whether we liked it or not.
I couldn’t let that happen.
“Slow down, bitch,” I muttered to myself as she rounded the corner, walking right into the back alleys of the underbelly of West Port Wylde. On either side of us were the doors to several underground betting parlors, fighting rings, and seedier whorehouses that were very much not operating in any sort of aboveboard manner. I waited for her to stop at one, to open a door and stride in, but she never did, her steps never wavering once as I struggled to keep up.
Her next target was around the corner, a man who stood over a girl who looked to be too young and too clean to be on this side of town, let alone all by herself in a place like this. She cried, wiping snot from her face as he gripped her upper arm and yelled obscenities in her face. Her whole body cringed away from him, and the urge to hurt him myself rose within me, but I should have known I wouldn’t get the chance.
Ivy struck like lightning, her bat flying as she spun on a dime and took him out at the knees. His screams were swallowed by the nearby traffic as the girl met her eyes and ran in the opposite direction, obviously scared of what she found in Ivy’s gaze.
She waited until the girl was gone, then brought the bat down again and again, beating him until she was covered in blood and brain matter, chunks of his skull scattered across the alley cobblestones.
If I didn’t stop her now, there was no telling how far she’d go.
I had to act fast.
She was going to ruin everything.
I jogged and caught up to her, uncaring if she heard me approach or not, and just as I reached out to grab her by the shoulder, she turned that bat on me, assuming I was another creep here to hit on a woman who didn’t want it.
Instead, I caught her bat and stopped it midair, the move jarring me to the bone as the sudden action sent a shockwave of pain up my arm and into my shoulder.
Her eyes were lifeless like they’d been in the apartment, but there was something barely there, something in their depths that she struggled to cling to, like a mouse in the river, trying its damnedest not to drown as the waters swirled around its little body and carried it away from shore.
Something in her wanted to live. To survive. But was it enough?
Would it be a mercy to let her end herself this way?
“You’ve gotta stop killing pricks on the sidewalk, Ivy. It’s not good for our image, you know. We have a process these things have to go through. ”
She stared me down, her mouth turning down in a scowl as those empty eyes narrowed, and the heat of rage rose within them. “Go to hell,” she muttered, clearly not recognizing me.
Maybe it was the collar.
Ha. Ha ha. Funny.
I tried again, irritation rising in my gullet like a death row inmate’s last meal. “Listen, Ivy, you can’t just go around killing people. You’re a member of the Guild now.” My eyes caught on something shiny attached to her dress that I hadn’t noticed before. “What’s this?”
She flinched as I reached for it, her whole body curling in on itself as her eyes cleared a little and recognition rose from their depths. “None of your business,” she snapped, yanking the bat out of my grip. I let it go, not eager to obtain splinters over a fucking tug of war. “Leave me alone, Jackal, or you’re next.”
I smirked as she turned her back on me and started to stalk off. I wasn’t about to be discarded so easily, so I followed her, intentionally jabbing a dagger of words into her side at every opportunity.
“Oh, don’t threaten me with a good time, kitten. I might like it.” With each step, my words grew crueler, more biting, intending to sting her enough to provoke her so I could end this. “You know damn well you’re not going to find what you’re looking for out there. Why are you running from me? Are you scared?”
“I’m not scared,” she snapped, her voice cracking as the words left her lips. “Not of you.”
“That’s not what it looks like, kitten,” I crooned, teasing her as I walked backward and she stalked further down the alley, coming to a dead end before she realized I’d led her right here intentionally.
And now, she was cornered.
Mission accomplished. Now I just had to talk the sense back into her .
“You look like you’re ready to kill me,” I said suddenly, eyeing the bat as she lifted it over her shoulder again in preparation to swing. “How come, Ivy? Do you want to hurt me?”
“Yes,” she growled, her eyes cutting away, returning to mine. “I want you to die so I never have to look at you again.” She shifted that bat and grimaced. “Now, hold still so I don’t miss.”
I ducked as she swung the first time, dancing just out of her reach on swing two. For the third one, she let out a shriek of frustration, and I let her overcompensate for the move she thought I’d make, grabbing her bat mid-swing to tug it forward. I led her further than she’d intended and used that momentum against her, dragging her into my grip as I tossed the bat on the ground beside us.
I pinned her struggling ass against the building and snarled as she writhed in my grip. “You can’t hurt me, kitten, unless I let you.” My teeth snapped next to her ear, and I watched as the realization that she was vulnerable set in and took over. Brought a trace of humanity back to her. “And I don’t plan to give you that power tonight.”
“I’m not your kitten,” she growled, yelping as I spun her around and pushed her front against the bricks. “Let me go, Jackal, before you do something you regret.”
“I don’t have regrets,” I shot back, using my body as leverage. “And you don’t scare me. Bigger men than you have tried and failed to take me down.”
“Fuck you, Jackal.”
I grinned wider. “I’d love to, but instead, I’m out here, chasing your ass down.”
“You can just walk away, you know,” she pointed out. “YOu know what’ll happen if you let me keep going.”
I knew exactly what would happen to her, which was why I couldn’t let her go. I had to do something, and fast, but carrying her out of this alley over my shoulder would earn me more attention than I wanted .
“You’re just the most insufferable bitch I’ve ever fucking met, do you know that?” I asked her, growling as her ass rubbed against my crotch. “Stop fighting me.”
“Go to hell,” she spat over her shoulder, bringing her thick-soled foot down on the instep of my right boot.
I howled, biting the sound off with a chuckle-groan, pissed beyond comprehension as she laughed at my pain.
I liked pain, liked it when she gave it to me, usually. But this wasn’t on my terms. And right now was not the best time for my dick to get hard, for me to want to sink myself in her fucking hot, wet pussy.
I shouldn’t be thinking of this right now.
I should be coming up with a way to incapacitate her and get her back to the Guild, so we could figure out what the fuck was wrong with her.
“Get your dick out of my ass, you pervert,” she snapped, shattering the calm between us. “And let me go.”
“Shut up, bitch,” I snarled against her ear, grabbing her hands as I slammed them against the building. I moved them above her head and gripped both her wrists with one hand as I moved the second one down to pull on the front of my pants.
Things were getting tight in there.
“You’d better not try anything, Jackal,” she mumbled, a little of the fight gone from her as she waited to see what I’d do next.
I spun her around to face me, staring into the depths of her soul as she still struggled to get the upper hand on me. “Or what, kitten?” I asked, wondering if she had a plan or if she just assumed I’d honor my word to her long enough for her to get her way. “Will you hurt me?”
“For starters,” she said as I leaned in and inhaled her scent, taking in the aroma of sweat, blood, and fresh rain, along with somthing else I couldn’t identify. “Then I’ll dismember you and throw you to the crocs in the river.”
“Oh, please, don’t threaten me with a good time,” I purred against her throat, taunting her as I took away her autonomy, as I took back the power I’d given her, that we’d all given her, when she joined our ranks. “You know I like it when you hurt me.”
“I knew you were a fucking sadist when I met you.” Her eyelids fluttered shut as she leaned back against the wall and gave me contradictory permission to continue my pursuit. “Looks like you’ve proven me right once again, dog.”
“Not your dog, kitten,” I growled, my lips dancing over her skin. To contradict my point, I bit the juncture of her throat and collarbone, drawing blood like some vampiric parasite as she moaned and arched her back, even as the blood trailed down her throat, down into the valley of her breasts.
I licked my lips as I wondered what it’d feel like to clean it from her skin with my tongue.
“A wild animal,” she panted, her eyes hooded, lashes fluttering.
“A predator,” I corrected, my free hand trailing down her arm, back up again, playing in the blood she was coated in, not all of it hers. “And tonight, you’re the prey.”
“Go to hell,” she snapped, though I could tell her heart wasn’t in it. “Let me go.”
“Actually, I’m done doing what you want, kitten,” I purred in her ear, dragging my nose along the column of her throat. “I think it’s time for Jackal to get what he wants, don’t you?”
She remained silent this time, her eyes burning a hole into my skull, trying to kill me with her glare alone. When that didn’t work, she started squirming again, which had the complete opposite effect she wanted.
My cock twitched in my pants, and I pressed my hips against hers, grinding her into the wall, showing her the effect she had on me.
“You make me this way, Ivy,” I whispered, my free hand fisting in her hair for a moment. Those locks were still damp and ragged, and they curled around my fingers with ease, allowing me to tug her head back more, exposing her neck to my gaze. “You turn me feral. I might be a dog, but when you fight me, when you demean me, when you belittle me and try to tear me down, you bring out a beast.” I let out a low growl against the skin below her ear, reveling in the shiver that raced down her spine. “And tonight, he’s hungry. Ravenously so.”
Without another word, I brought my lips against hers, nibbling the soft lower one as she tried to pull away. She yelped into my mouth, and I took advantage, sliding my tongue past her parted lips as she struggled in my grip.
I moved my hand from her hair to her hands again, pinning one on each side of her head as I groaned against her mouth, rocked my hips into the softness of her belly, humped her like the dog she accused me of being. I took from her what she pretended she wasn’t ready to give, desperate to make her see that she was still human, that she still needed what I could offer. That she wasn’t all the way gone.
“Who hurt you?” The words were barely a whisper against her lips, but she went still as they registered in her mind, the heat and aggression draining from her muscles.
I waited for an answer, but it was not forthcoming. She said nothing, choosing instead to lean toward me and demand that I return to kissing her.
But for some reason, something inside me yearned for that answer she was unwilling to divest. I needed to know what she was trying to hide.
“What happened to make you this way?” I snarled, slamming her against the wall with my body. “Tell me, dammit.”
“No,” she gasped, her legs spreading around my knee as I slid it between hers. “I won’t.”
“You’ll tell me eventually,” I assured her, my hands releasing hers as I trailed them down her sides, yanking her up by her waist as I slid between her legs entirely and pinned her against the wall again, this time, with her thighs gripping my hips, her thin panties just barely barring me from her core.
I dropped one of her hands on my shoulder and snarled out a command for her.
“Hold the fuck on so I don’t drop you.”
She gripped my hair instead, tugging on it like a fucking bitch as I freed my cock and shoved her panties to the side in one swift move, shoving myself to the hilt inside her sopping wet pussy as she arched into me and whined to the sky.
The clouds opened up as I buried myself inside her, pouring down on us, turning the barely-dried blood on her body to fresh rivers of red. The water painted us both in the most vibrant shades of life’s essence as I fucked her against that wall, panting and heaving and grunting, not a single coherent word spoken between us. She scratched and clawed at me until I was forced to grab her hands again and pin them above her head, driving my cock harder into her with a snap of my hips.
Sure, I liked to receive punishment, but it felt just as good to dish it out, too. And I’d been letting this frustration, this need, build up inside me as I struggled to give her what she wanted from me. Struggling to give her the obedience our oath demanded.
“Fuck,” I moaned, resting my forehead against her shoulder. “You’re so tight, kitten.”
“Get your prick out of me,” she snapped, her breath coming in desperate panting gasps. “I don’t want you?—”
“Your words say no, but your body says yes,” I retorted, grinding my dick into her again. “Maybe you just need it from another position to prove me right and make you see how much you like it.”
I pulled her off my dick and spun her around, bending her over at the waist with a shove of my hand. Her palms slapped against the wall as she tried to catch her balance, and before she could utter another word, I was inside her again, her tight cunt swallowing my length like she was made just for me. Solely to take my cock. A perfect fucking fit.
“God, kitten, you’re so fucking wet for me.” My hand slipped around to the front of her dress and I shamelessly hiked it up, my fingers delving into her panties to seek out her clit and drive her absolutely mad with pleasure. I wanted her to collapse for me, to shatter with a curse on her lips, hating me even as she came on my cock and crumpled to her knees at my feet.
I was desperate to show her exactly who she belonged to now. Whose bed she’d lain down in.
“When you lie with the dogs, sweetheart, you get up with fleas. Hope you know that.”
I fucked her so hard her forehead scraped against the brick. I fucked her so rough she couldn’t get a word in edgewise. My cock slid in and out of her, driving us both to the end of a race there would be no winner of. We challenged each other with pleasure we were unwilling to give, but found ourselves struggling to come to terms with anyhow.
I couldn’t remember the last time I’d hated and loved someone in such equal measure, couldn’t remember a time I’d cared for a person I hated so damn much, who’d turned my life into a joke, a game, a travesty and an embarrassment, and yet still made me hard every time she so much as looked at me. I’d never wanted someone to cause me pain, never wanted the things she made me want.
But with her, I wanted it all. And I’d have it, or I’d kill us both trying to obtain it.
“No,” she gasped out, her denial turning to moans of appreciation as she arched into my touch, her legs wobbling dangerously.
At this rate, she’d fall down before she could come for me. And that just wouldn’t do.
I had to change that.
There was a set of stairs nearby that led to a boarded-up door, and with a groan of regret, I made the quick decision to drag her off my cock and force her to her knees on the hard concrete there, her hands three steps up, hair hanging in her face as she turned back to look at me as I knelt behind her.
“Spread your legs for me and take it like a good girl, kitten,” I commanded, and just like I knew she would, those knees inched apart, and she let out a little whine as her head fell and that gorgeous forehead touched the space between her palms.
Her lips parted, and I watched as she stared down at the puddles forming in the alley behind us, between my legs, at her feet, growing with every second we stayed in this torrential downpour like this.
“Don’t do this,” she begged, trying desperately to deny she wanted this. She wouldn’t have willingly spread her legs for me if she didn’t.
But I was no rapist. So I gave her a choice.
“Tell me why you want to die, and I’ll let you walk away, and I won’t stop you. Or you can stop pretending you don’t want me and take this dick between those legs covered in the slick of your arousal.”
She whimpered, spread her legs another inch, and arched her back, presenting her ass to me.
I tugged that skirt up over her hips, baring her to the cold, wet night, and yanked her panties completely down this time, ripping them at one side, watching with disinterest as they fell around her knee.
And then, I was inside her, our bodies rocking in tandem, her core hot and welcoming, swallowing my dick whole as she moaned and pleaded for more and fisted her hands.
Every sound, every sigh, every swear was like music to my ears as my balls tightened, as I raced to the finish line, as my fingers reached around and found her clit, found her wet, sopping cunt, and tweaked that little bud, dragging her, willing or not, over the finish line with me .
When she came, I saw stars.
I filled her with my cum as her pussy nearly strangled my cock, pulsing around me like a fucking heartbeat as she moaned and whimpered through her orgasm, her legs shaking, whole body sagging in my grip. I moved my arm to wrap tighter around her waist, her body limp and worn-out, pleasure radiating from her every muscle and tendon.
“You still with me, kitten?” I tucked myself back in my pants with one hand, setting her gently down on her ass on the steps as she turned to face me. “Ivy?”
“Fuck you,” she said, though there was no actual venom in her voice. “I hate you.”
“Ah, there she is,” I crooned, relishing the daggers in her eyes as she stared at me with menacing intent. “My kitten’s got her claws back.”
There would be time for truths later.