Chapter 22
Lynx
Ishould be hunting for Tony and beating the living shit out of him for this. Assuming he’s changed back already. Though if he has, he’d probably shift into Tidus again and chase me all over the grounds, but if I got at least one good hit in, then I’d be a happy man.
Not because he’s killed these assholes. No. I’m pissed off that he’s taken the weird, somewhat tense, and not too insufferable atmosphere between me and Sable and ruined it.
Part of me thought—hoped—I’d fuck her again. She isn’t out of my system, and in all honesty, I can still smell the way she reacts when I’m near her. She was practically throwing her arousal at me when I stared at her mouth not even an hour ago.
I’m not a strong enough man to stop myself—Sable is slowly crawling under my skin, and I want her to keep going. No matter how much she hates herself for what happened between us—well, I assume she does, considering she hasn’t once mentioned it—Sable still wants me, and she despises that she does.
Another thing we have in common.
So fucking sue me if I wanted round two while walking around the woods with her.
I’d imagined her against a tree, naked, screaming, coming on my tongue before I face-fucked her with every inch of my cock until she couldn’t breathe.
I would’ve let her die all over again just to know what it feels like for her to choke to death on my dick.
But instead, I have dirt on my hands, my shirt is saturated from blood and the downpour of rain, and Sable is somewhere looking for more body parts.
She told me to hide the van before she vanished into the backyard, and I didn’t have it in me to tell her I had to use context clues to figure out what a van is, and I have no idea how to work it.
Vehicles, as she calls them, give me a headache. They’re so advanced now. Everything is. The world has been continuing while I’ve been… frozen.
Even talking to Sable about my brother felt wrong. But I couldn’t stop.
I spit on the ground to get rid of the rainwater trickling into my mouth, wipe my face, and keep digging.
I need to make sure this hole is deep enough that the fucking idiot dog can’t dig up another body.
The fact that he ripped Sable’s apart is bad enough.
Seeing her upset over her limbs being torn from her rotting body makes me question whether I should do the same to him.
Her face keeps flashing in my mind as I dig deeper. The hole starts to puddle with mucky water.
I pause, press my forehead to the hilt of the shovel, and let out a deep breath. My fucking shoulder hurts.
“Need a hand?”
My ears ring at his voice, like a fucking chalkboard being scraped. “Tony,” I start, dropping the shovel to look up at him, counting all the ways I could kill him with the shovel. “Do us all a favor and go back to Hell.”
He tuts. “Now why would I do that when I can hang out with my buddy?”
“I’m giving you five seconds to get the fuck out of here.”
He chuckles and puts his hands in his pockets. “Did he fuck things up again?”
I nod—barely.
Tony sighs and rubs the back of his head. “It’s the energy around here. He pushes through more than I can stop him. Have you been using your powers?”
My eyes narrow a fraction. “What are you asking me?” I’ve been careful not to leave too much demon residue.
Before he can say anything, I pull myself up from the hole and yank him forward by his collar until our foreheads are nearly touching. “Tell me it’s not strong. The residue. Tell me it’s faint.”
“Lying is a sin, man.”
Fuck. I shove him back and run my hands through my hair, smearing each strand with dirt, blood, and grime.
Fuck. I snarl, pacing the muddy path as my mind turns over.
“How strong?”
When Tony’s beast form attacked those idiots earlier, I didn’t use my demon magic to materialize near them. The risk wasn’t worth it, but… shit. Shit.
How many times have I used my powers? Shifted into my demon form?
I teleported the night I fucked Sable. It was an in-the-moment thing, and I didn’t think it would cause a stir in the energy. The less I use any of my powers, the less likely one of those soul-sucking monsters will come looking for me.
Tony shivers. “It doesn’t feel good, dude.”
“I won’t go back there,” I tell him through gritted teeth.
“Because of the ghost-ish human skirt or…?”
My gaze narrows on him. “Why would that have anything to do with Sable?”
He shrugs. “She’s hot.”
If he calls her hot one more fucking time…
I grab the back of his head and push him to the side to walk with me. “We have missing limbs of various humans scattered around here, thanks to you. Help me and I’ll let you stay a bit longer.”
He huffs, but ultimately, because he’s a total wanker, we go hunting for the rest of the remains. I try to avoid bumping into Sable so Tony doesn’t get the chance to flirt with her again.
Once we find every body part, including a damn half-chewed thumb, Tony helps me bury the evidence before we push the van into the nearby lake and watch it sink until it vanishes.
Pressing his hands to his hips, he grins at me. “I had one of these vans before I died. It wasn’t as techy, but it drives all the same. Hey, I just realized something.”
I roll my eyes. Here we go. “What?”
“Did you ever get your license?”
My brow arches. “What do you mean?”
The laugh he’s trying to hold back is confirmation enough that he’s trying to push my buttons.
“I question every day why we are friends,” I tell him. “I must have been desperate for companionship in Hell because you really are annoying on Earth.”
He winks at me. “You still love me anyway.” Then he pauses, glancing around, brows denting deep. “Something’s wrong,” he says, edging away as a ripple opens in the ground.
“Wait. Where the fuck are you going?” I grab his arm before he can leave.
“Stay close to your girl.” He yanks himself away. “I’ll fish for info and report back.”
Then he vanishes, and the portal closes.
What the fuck just happened?
The hair on her face draws my attention. There’s a dark strand caught between her slightly parted lips, ruffling with every breath as she sleeps, blanket tucked up to her chin because I couldn’t help myself. I want to pull it free, to know how her delicate skin feels beneath my fingers.
If I pressed my mouth to hers, would she gasp against it and kiss me back?
Knowing my luck, she’d punch me across the face and knee me in the balls.
I inch back, lowering onto the chair beside her bed. The draw to her is so fucking strong now that I can’t even sleep. I can’t rest unless I’m near her—what the fuck is happening to me?
Am I bound to her soul by a yearning that consumes me with every breath, even when I find her unbearable? I want to strangle her, but I also want to be deep within her walls, to see her smile at me, to laugh at something I say without it being at me.
This house. It’s screwing with me. I can’t care about Sable. None of it is real.
If I kill her again, will it stop?
With one snap of her slight neck, I could be rid of this new curse. A curse far worse than my current fate—actually caring about a dead girl, wanting her, needing her, not being able to fucking breathe without seeing her.
It’s a lie. A trick. A fucking game.
The Devil is laughing at me from deep in the flames of Hell. It thinks I escaped only to be trapped in a different type of hell.
One I’d like to break out of sooner rather than later.
But killing her has done nothing.
Maybe we need to fuck again. Maybe we need to do it during a ritual or in the middle of another summoning—I don’t know. I could have her bending over the runes drawn into the floor while deep inside her, chanting the words I don’t fully understand.
I run my hands through my hair and drop my elbows to my knees.
Tony still hasn’t returned to tell me what’s wrong, but I can feel something isn’t right. I don’t know if it’s paranoia or not—I can’t help needing to be near her. Just in case. That’s what I’m telling myself anyway.
It’s stupid. I don’t want to be here. It’s against my nature to give a shit about a dead human girl whose soul is trapped in a house. No one but another demon can hurt her. She’s already dead. Because I murdered her without thinking twice.
If a Tor’Oth does come, will they even sense Sable? It would come for me, undoubtedly, then she’d have all the time in the world to fuck around with the guys who come to party and walk freely around the manor without worrying about crossing paths with me.
She’d like that. To be free of me.
I grit my teeth and screw my eyes shut.
Not that I care. Whatever fate comes for Sable has nothing to do with me. In my case, the worst thing that can happen is that a Tor’Oth finds me and drags me all the way back down to Hell to suffer some more.
If I leave here, what happens to her? Will she be trapped here all alone? Forever?
“Lynx?”
My eyes snap open, and I glance up at Sable.
There’s a long, silent, awkward pause where we just stare at each other.
Her eyes are puffy with sleep, and her hair is a tousled, freshly fucked–looking mess.
Slowly, her brows are knitting together, and the duvet slips down to her waist to show off her sleep clothes, her hard nipples pressing through the material.
She’s annoyingly beautiful.
None of this is real. It’s this goddamn house that has us like this. Fucking feral for each other even though I’m her murderer and she’s stuck here because of me.
Why, in any world, would she actually want me? It was stupid to think the girl I robbed of life would even want me anywhere in her general vicinity.
“Why are you so pale?” she asks.
My anxiety is messing with me. I’m not pale. I’m ill because I don’t understand how I feel right now.
I swallow, straightening in the chair and crossing my ankle over my knee, playing it off as indifferent, like my heart isn’t about to crash through my chest and smack her in the face.