Chapter 19 #2
My rampage halts. “You can leave?” Bitter disappointment weaves through my voice against my will. I hold my breath, waiting for him to respond as my anger wars with fear and sadness.
I don’t want him to go.
I’m not sure if that’s selfishness speaking or because it’s him I don’t want leaving.
Lynx motions to our surroundings and the fence he’ll never be able to get very far from. “This is Hell.”
“Give me thirty seconds to send you back permanently.”
His eyes harden with something that looks like betrayal and panic. He points an accusatory finger at me. “All this time, you knew the spell to—”
I shove him because I can, and I want to touch something warm. “No, you idiot. I’m saying I’m going to kill you—”
We both still when a car drives right past us. A police cruiser.
Toward the manor.
My attention catches on something bluish cream partially hidden under fallen leaves on the other side of the driveway. Swirls of ink decorate the meaty human arm crawling with maggots, and my gut falls beneath my feet. It looks fresh.
Someone else died here.
That means we’ve doubled the likelihood that someone new will take ownership of the house and turn my situation from bad to worse.
“What the fuck was that?” Lynx is all but gawking at the cop car that’s disappeared round the bend.
I frown at him before shaking my head. “We have to get back.” I don’t wait for him to follow. I fist a handful of his shirt and yank him forward. He stumbles along, clearly perturbed by something I can’t bring myself to give two shits about.
Keeping the police from finding the bodies is as much for his ass as it is for mine.
None of this is funny anymore. If the police find my body, they’ll know I’m dead, and again my thoughts turn to my parents. I’m not sure whether they’re even allowed to own property after what they did, but as far as I’m concerned, it’s a possibility.
As is them being let out of prison.
Then I’d be forced into a house with them. Watching them. Witnessing the vile things my mother says. Seeing them live their lives while Ella and I are both dead.
I can’t do it. Won’t. I refuse.
And I would rather die all over again than let them get a single penny from selling the manor.
The cops need to leave, and every single corpse on this property needs to be six feet under where no one will find them.
Lynx opens his mouth and squares up to me like he’s ready for me to stab him again, but the panic in my eyes and the fact that I’ve broken into a run must make the few brain cells in his thick skull register that I’m not playing.
“What type of beast was that?” He runs ahead of me, clearly pacing himself so he’s close enough to hear my response.
Beast?
“That’s a car.”
Lynx frowns like I haven’t answered his question, but his expression becomes one of pure determination. It’s the face of someone riding into battle.
My nonexistent pulse skyrockets when he looks over his shoulder at me and his eyes flash red. Horns protrude from his head, and I swear to God he grows almost a foot in height. As if this situation couldn’t get any worse, he speeds ahead in his demon form.
Fucking hell, I didn’t die just to finally take up cardio.
I put every ounce of energy I have into willing my legs to move faster and intermittently hiss out his name between pants.
Whether by miracle or pure ghostly talent, when I manage to get a couple of feet away, I launch myself at him, tackling him a couple yards away from the tree line that breaks into the clearing.
I heave oxygen into my lungs, shivering from the adrenaline as the car drives around the fountain and comes to a stop right in front of the entrance.
A squeal escapes my lips when Lynx flips over so I’m straddled beneath his weight.
All the air is punched from me as I take in the monster towering above me, his black shirt straining against the expanse of sprawling muscle.
Heat seeps through the fabric and licks my skin as if it’s the first time sunlight has touched me.
One hand is braced beside my head as he leans over me, fanning my warming flesh with his hot breath.
It’s almost enough to make me forget entirely about our unwanted guests.
Lynx brings his fangs unnervingly close, and a flash of something other than fear slices down my spine. A dull ache starts in my core that makes me livid beyond reason.
I’m meant to be mad at him, not wanting to jump his bones again.
“This isn’t the time for games,” he snarls, looking between me and the car he’s staring down like it’s a worthy foe.
The engine dies, and before I can respond, Lynx has me on my feet behind him, one arm out like he’s either trying to stop the car from coming at me or to keep me from running away.
This is ridiculous.
I slap his hand away and dart under his arm to block his path.
“Shut up and listen to me for two fucking minutes,” I snap, pointing at the two men dressed in blue stepping out of the cruiser, taking their sweet, merry time to look up at the decrepit manor.
“Those are police officers, and unless you want to share this prison with more people, we need to get them to leave.”
He pauses, frowning in confusion in the direction of the newcomers. “It’s a carriage.”
Does he not…?
“Uh.” No? Yes? Fuck, I don’t know. That’s not important.
“Tidus dug up my body, and I’m pretty sure I saw part of another person before.
If those guys find limbs lying around, there’s going to be a whole swarm of cops here, and then we’re going to be stuck with people shitting on our parade on an hourly basis. ”
Lynx looks from me to the men casually walking around the front of the property with their hands on their hips. “Then they die.”
“No—” I stop his advance with my whole body, practically fusing us together so there’s no universe where I’d miss the hard press of his monstrous cock against my stomach. I flush crimson from head to toe and stumble back from his downstairs demon.
He glares daggers at me like I’m at fault for everything wrong in his life, but there’s no mistaking the pink tinting his cheeks.
The faint sound of voices drifts through the air, pulling me back to the present.
“If you touch a hair on either of their heads, you’ll be fucking this up for both of us.
Tidus might have left something inside, so we have to be in there to make sure there’s nothing for them to find.
We need to…” I drift off, looking around for an idea.
He cannot mess this up for us. “You’ll need to talk to them. ”
“And say what?” he says like I’m an idiot.
“Charm them with your sunny demeanor.”
We’re so screwed.
“I’ll just kill them.”
“Lynx,” I hiss. “That is not an option. Just—just do as I say.”
God, I sound desperate.
Out of everything, that’s apparently the wrong thing to say because his ire multiplies tenfold.
“I have been alive for centuries. I have seen things your pathetic human mind could never comprehend. There is no universe where the likes of you could tell me what to do.”
I stare blankly at him and practice deep breathing before I do something stupid like knee him in the balls, and he goes and adds a couple more ghosts to keep us company.
“Right, yes, you can handle this by yourself because you have phenomenal people skills, and you definitely didn’t just call a car a beast. Pop quiz: if they ask you for your number, what does that mean?”
I didn’t miss the way he stared at the speakers and phones at the party like they were alien objects. Add in the fact that his outfit looks like it was taken from the set of a period drama, and this big scary demon doesn’t know jack shit about the modern world.
The muscle in his jaw feathers. “I’m not wasting my time with—”
“Do us both a favor and admit that you don’t know what a phone number is, how Wi-Fi works, or how quickly they could get a SWAT team and a chopper here to hunt you down and put a bullet through your skull. So how about you shut up, get over yourself, and follow my lead, huh?”
He steps forward, closing in on my space. The shadows of the forest stretch around him, air crackling with something sinister that skitters down my spine and raises the hair on the back of my neck.
I fist my hands at my sides, forcing myself to stay put and not stumble back like my instincts are screaming at me to. He grasps my jaw in his hand, a threat and a deadly promise wrapped in one. I stop breathing when he leans down until his lips are inches away from my own.
With his added height in this form, I feel like a mouse cowering beneath him, frozen with a heartbeat that could send a human into cardiac arrest.
I feel small, breakable, yet somehow… like I might be dainty—something precious he doesn’t want to hurt, given the gentle way he tips my chin up to lessen the distance.
“Let me make one thing clear: speak to me like that again, and the next time you run, you’ll learn what it’ll feel like to spend the rest of eternity with your pussy wet and denied every orgasm you beg for.”
Desire clenches my core. Not to be outdone, I edge forward until every breath we breathe is each other’s. His eyes fall to my lips, watching them move around every word as if he might be able to taste them.
In slow motion, his features seem to soften like he’s lost and is grappling for control of a situation he’s never had in hand.
It sends me on a power trip.
Voice low, I say, “Then don’t give me a reason to need to talk like that.”
I yank myself away, instantly reeling from the loss of heat and electricity. He blinks like he’s just been snapped from a spell.
I glance behind us. Shit. “They’re going inside. Don’t fuck it up.”
He glowers at me, and I do the same. The naive idiot doesn’t understand the full magnitude of how bad this could be for us—for me.
Lynx shoulders past me, but I grab his forearm. “You can’t go looking like that. Humans don’t know demons exist.”