Chapter 14
Cave
What cannot be shared and becomes mine the moment I claim it?
Something I have never possessed that I now refuse to lose.
What transforms a dead thing into something that lives?
Valli disappears between the first row of cornstalks, and they quickly swallow her whole.
People confuse my motives when I hunt. I like to wait and watch. Catching my prey isn’t the best part; hunting them is. I have been patient all night, and now it’s my time to take her.
Behind me, Noa is still lying in the dirt, reveling in his spiritual awakening, announcing it over and over again.
They are all mine, and no one will touch them ever again. I do not share people; I take things and do not give them back.
The world took something from me once before and never gave it back. I won’t let it happen again, even though it was my fault—I did not look after them right.
Cipher watches me, then smiles. “Go find her. Don’t let her get away.”
When I finally move, I don’t run. That is for people who are afraid of losing, and I’ve never lost anything in this cornfield.
I don’t intend to start with Valli.
As I step between the stalks, they close behind me without a sound, knowing me on a soul-deep level.
This is my domain. I know every row, gap, and dip in the ground.
Even where the stalks grow close enough together that a person must turn sideways to pass through.
I know the direction the wind moves in the dark, and what it does to the sound of the stalks.
When people run from me, it’s easy to find them. When they’re afraid, they move toward the edges, searching for a way out. But there is never a way out, not until I grant one.
I can hear Valli, and her movements surprise me. She isn’t trying to leave, nor is she panicking. No, she wants me to find her.
I move parallel to her, shifting between the two rows over from her. She won’t be able to hear me like I can her. People tell me that my ability to move stealthily is unnatural, but I’ve never given it much thought. It’s simply how I am.
She stops, and I do too; I want to know why. Has she heard something? I listen to ensure no one else has come into my field. If they have entered while those who are mine are naked, they will die—slowly and painfully. Removing a person’s eyes isn’t hard, and I’m sure Banks would love a gift.
Valli moves again, circling back, and I tilt my head as I listen to her feet slapping against the ground. She is smart and has likely figured out that I would expect her to run to the edge of the field, so she started in that direction but then changed course. She is trying to think like me.
I drop back and follow her at a distance, wanting to see what she does next. To see if she can listen to the corn or if the silence of the night gets into her head.
She creeps forward, and I close the space between us to one row, needing to see her. Through the gaps in the stalks, the pale gleam of her skin in the darkness is mesmerizing. She tips her head up and listens.
I reach out and drag one finger along the corn ear to my left, just enough to make it whisper.
She goes completely still, then turns slowly toward the sound. “I know you’re there,” she whispers into the night.
“The faster you move, the closer I get. The further you go, the more I want you. I am not the dark, but I live in it. What am I?”
She whips her head in the direction of my voice, which is to the right of where I touched the corn, not that she heard me move. Valli can’t see me as I continue to shift quietly around her, waiting for her to run. She twists sharply to the left, and my hand shoots out and closes around her arm.
Using the momentum, I push her down, and she lands face-first on the ground, my body coming down on top of hers. Twisting my other hand in her hair, I bring her head up and align my lips next to her ear so she can hear my gravelly voice. “Yours,” I whisper, and she shivers, breathing hard.
She bucks beneath me, but my cock wants her, he wants her now. So I reach beneath us and pull myself from my pants, then rub along her ass crack.
“Fuck me,” she whimpers.
I don’t need to be asked twice. Twisting her hair tighter in my grip, I angle her body how I need it to be.
The thought of her already filled with Cipher’s cum excites me further as I press my erection into her core.
She is so wet and warm, and as I thrust forward, my eyes roll back into my head.
It’s been a very long time since I fucked a woman; they are so fragile, and I break fragile things.
“Come on, Scarecrow,” she taunts. “Show me what you’ve got.”
She thinks she can handle what I’ve got?
I don’t ease into it; instead, I thrust forward hard enough that she gasps, and her fingers curl into the dirt beneath her.
The sound she makes goes straight through me.
I do it again and again, setting a pace that is far from gentle, but it was never going to be.
She is so warm and tight, and it’s been so long that the sensation almost undoes me.
Yet I don’t slow down; rather, I twist her hair tighter in my grip and pull her head back.
Valli arches into it, her spine curving up toward me, and I growl against the side of her neck.
This beauty doesn’t lie there and take it; she meets my every movement with passion and fire.
Dragging my mouth down the curve of her neck, I bite into her flesh. The feel of her clenching around me and the sound she makes has me biting her harder as her hips slam back against me.
“Don’t stop,” she grits out.
I pin her hips flat to the ground and drive into her, and she screams, loud enough that the entire island will hear her.
I shift my mouth to her shoulder and suck hard on the skin there, needing to mark her and show the world she is mine.
Everything in me needs people to know she is mine.
I don’t enjoy killing people, but I will to keep them away from her.
She writhes beneath me, moaning my name—not Scarecrow, but Cave—and I love how it sounds. As I drive into her and rotate my hips, her eyes close and her mouth falls open in ecstasy. She is extraordinary, and she is mine.
Her body tightens around me, and I drop my hand from her hair to wrap it around her throat.
I feel her pulse against my palm and the sounds that she makes as she comes apart beneath me.
Her whole body bows as she cries out, and I feel it everywhere.
I drive into her twice more before I follow her, and when I do, I press my mouth to the bite on her neck and growl, “Mine.”
Neither of us move for a moment, both breathing hard, but once I can, I push off her tiny body and pull her up and cradle her in my arms. She is unsteady on her feet and chuckles as she looks down to where she is covered in dirt, with just the moon glowing down on her.
I wish we could stay like this forever; I’ve never seen anything so beautiful.
When I pick her up, she doesn’t protest. She pushes her face against the side of my neck, and I carry her back through the rows to the middle of the field.
When we emerge, Noa is sitting, still shirtless, with his hair a catastrophe, and a huge grin on his face. Cipher is on his feet, and I stop in front of him to let him look at her.
Valli reaches out and lays her hand against his jaw. “Hey.”
“Hey,” he says back, blushing slightly.
Plenty of women have requested Cipher for the chases, and every single time Nixie has had Ares talk to me about it, I shut him down.
Cipher is mine, and I have never wanted to share him with anyone until now.
The same goes for Noa. He was requested a year ago, after a woman came across him in the cemetery.
I heard the things she said about him, and when the woman arrived at night and her wristband flashed green, I ripped it from her wrist.
Then she ran into the cornfield, after she had been warned not to come in.
So I picked her up and carried her across the park—she screamed the entire way—and threw her over the bridge.
Unfortunately, she knew how to swim, and Khodi jumped in and helped her to shore.
Since that night, Nixie removed Noa from the rotation too.
I carry Valli over to Noa and place her into his arms. He wraps them around her and cradles her while Cipher removes his jacket and drapes it over her body.
“She good?” Noa asks me, and I nod.
Then I turn back to Cipher and grab him, scooping him up into my arms. He doesn’t fight me like he normally does; instead, he presses his face into my neck and smells me.
I’m not the monster everyone thinks I am—I know tonight meant something to him.
Sex can be a primal thing, and that doesn’t interest him much at all, so I take what I need from him, and that is how he likes it.
Yet with her it was different. I saw the way he looked at her, like something unlocked in his brain.
As if all the spare pieces of himself he saved just in case he needed them one day locked into place.
Noa follows behind me, talking Valli’s ear off about how amazing she is.
His spiritual awakening makes another appearance, and she listens patiently.
Most people lose interest once he gets excited about something, as it becomes all he talks about, but I find it soothing—his voice is like white noise.
When we reach the shed, Noa follows me around the back of the building, and we walk into the shower Cipher built us outside because I barely fit in the one inside and sometimes he likes us to shower together. It’s big enough that we can all fit inside, but I carry Cipher in first.
After I set him down, I turn on the shower as we both get undressed.
He lets me guide him under the water and wash him down, and I run the silly loofah he loves over his body, cleaning the dirt from his skin.
I look down at him, putting my hand on the back of his neck, and lean down to lay my forehead gently on his.
“I’m good,” he whispers.
Once Cipher is clean, I leave the water running and get out with him. I wrap a towel around him and walk naked to where Noa and Valli are waiting. I grab Noa’s hand and drag him in next.
He lets me strip his pants off, and when he steps in, he talks the entire time I clean him off. Noa gives an animated narration of tonight’s events, as if I wasn’t there. I wash the dirt off him and lift his wrists to inspect the damage.
“They don’t hurt. I’ll put some cream on them and wear the marks like trophies,” he crows.
With a smirk at his words, I wrap him in a towel and motion for Valli to join me.
I left her for last, since she was the last to join us, and I wanted Cipher and Noa to understand that they both matter to me.
Plus, I want to take my time with her, to make sure she’s clean.
So I pull her under the water and wash the dirt from her arms first, working my way down to her feet, then back up.
When I reach the marks I left on her, she tilts her head to give me better access.
I run my thumb along the deepest bite, and she shivers.
“Sore?”
She looks up at me and nods. “A little.”
I won’t apologize for marking her. It helps ease the tension I feel when she leaves, knowing I won’t be there to murder anyone who looks at her. There is no hiding the marks I have left on her, and that makes me happy.
When we finish up, I wrap her in one of the towels Cipher brought for us, and we go back into the shed. Noa’s already passed out and is snoring as we walk past. Valli stops and grabs the throw blanket off the back of the couch and puts it over him.
Cipher is sitting at his workbench with a small bottle of antiseptic and a cloth. “I cleaned Noa’s wrists already, can I clean you?” he asks her. I see the uncertainty in his eyes, and I hate how nervous he is.
Valli doesn’t hesitate, walking over and taking a seat on a stool he pulled out for her. Cipher looks over the marks on her neck and shoulder, then opens the tin. He tips her chin to the side with one finger, then works slowly, checking and cleaning each mark.
She keeps her eyes on his face, studying him as he tends to her skin. There is something between them, something Noa and I won’t ever have with her, and that makes me happy.
“That one is going to bruise,” he murmurs, cleaning the deepest bite.
“Do you think I will turn into a scarecrow now?” she jokes.
When I laugh, they both glance over at me in surprise.
Cipher smiles and puts the cloth down. I stand there naked, watching them together, content knowing they’re mine.
Valli might not understand what that means yet, but she will learn.
I’m not like Kayla’s men, who would back off if she asked—I will always be there.
If she tries to leave us, I have no qualms about dragging her back kicking and screaming, and then I will tie her to my post until she remembers who the fuck I am.
I. Am. Hers.
Cipher jumps up off the stool and hurries to grab a pile of clothes, then hands them to her.
“Will you all go to bed? You’re so loud,” Noa mumbles, even though no one is talking.
Valli laughs and takes the clothes from Cipher, then she walks past Noa and leans down, gently brushing the hair from his face while smiling down at him, as if she is memorizing how he looks.
I walk over to Cipher and give him a nudge, and when he looks up at me, I nod my head toward her.
“Thank you,” he mouths, and I nod again.
He needs her right now, and my cornfield is calling me. She is safe here with them until morning.
For years, it’s only ever been the three of us. Now I can’t imagine us without her.