The Heir She Loved (Shadows of Sin #4)

1 Everett

June 5th, 2022

I leaned back in my chair, my hand gripped around the black coffee, ignoring the looks of the girls in the booth a few yards away.

I had just gotten done with a short assignment, hunting down three Initiates who had decided to go rogue. Lucky for me, their trails led me only a state away from a certain engaged couple. It was a whim, coming here.

A stupid whim.

And I would have left 5 minutes ago had I not had a certain charm digging into my thigh.

God, what was I doing?

“This is strange.”

I glanced up, taking in the blonde-haired male as he took a seat across from me. “Did you tell them?”

“You ordered me not to,”

Jeremy replied, searching my eyes. “I don’t know why. Grey and Em are my family. Yours too.”

“The Family and your family are two very separate things,”

I explained evenly. “The fact that you could even compare the two just shows how different our lives are from his.”

Jermey’s eyes hardened. “Greyson is a good man.”

“I never said he wasn’t.”

I took a drink. “We simply come from different worlds. It’s good. We need someone like him in our lives. Keeps us…human.”

Jeremy lifted and dropped his hands. “Is that why you came to me? To figure out how they’re doing? Because the answer is—”

“No,”

I replied, glancing towards the window. This city reminded me too much of Seattle. Not in weather, but the people. All strange and… unpredictable. For the first time in my life, all I wanted was to get back to Colorado. Back to her.

“Then I mean no disrespect, but why are you here?”

My eyes shifted back to his. He was guarded, which I could understand. I wasn’t particularly ‘friendly’ with the Initiates, even so, I respected Jeremy. If we did open up that school, I would push him to go through the extra years so he could train to be one of us. A Shadow. I wasn’t sure if he would make it, but there was a possibility. “I have a question.”

Jeremy’s eyes lifted. “A question?”

He eyed me warily. “About what?”

I regretted this with everything I was. “Everything I say here is confidential, you understand that?”

I asked, my expression hardening. “That includes your little family.”

He searched my eyes for a moment before nodding. “I understand.”

My hand tightened around my cup, my heart picking up. Fuck me, what was I doing? “I’m…”

My lip curled, my stomach twisting. I shouldn’t have come here, this was a fucking mistake.

I shook my head and shoved the cup away. “Goodbye, Jeremy.”

“You’re lucky,”

he said when I went to get up.

I froze, half standing, my eyes finding his, my heart racing. “What?”

I said through my teeth.

His eyes had softened, understanding coating them. “Finding someone that gives you the desire to shift.”

I watched him for a heartbeat and a half before returning to me seat, my jaw clenched tightly. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

He nodded. “Yeah, I got it. You know, I’ve always been jealous of Grey. He makes it look so easy being that vulnerable. Watching the rest of you guys, it’s like you guys would rather pull out your own fingernails than admit that something softened your heart, but Grey? It’s more difficult than he makes it look. Takes sacrifice, vulnerability, bravery. Jack sort of found it with Rae, I’ve seen it, but this?”

He gestured to me, causing my expression to dry. “You’re acting as if you’d rather peel your own skin off than take the next step. It’s kind of sweet,”

he smiled.

I glared at him. “I’ll kill you.”

He shrugged. “At least I’ll die happy. So, you met a girl,”

he smiled, his eyes shining. “What next?”

I leaned over the table. “My gun is pointed at your cock. If you continued to make fun of me, you’ll never fuck again,” I lied.

His face paled a little, but his smile remained. “You came here for advice. You came to me because I’m close with Grey, and you’re hoping to get some sort of shovel that’ll help you carve the right path for her. You’re not going to shoot me because you need help, whether you want to admit it or not.”

How did Greyson stand this little fuck? I sneered and straightened. “I don’t need advice on fucking a girl.”

Jeremy shrugged. “No, what you need is something you’ll never say out loud, so I’ll just tell you what I know, and you can do with the information what you please.”

I searched his eyes for a second before nodding him on. That’s all I needed. Just something that would help me make all of this make sense. I needed to understand what was happening and what I should do next without changing what was happening. I didn’t want things to change, I just wanted them to…I needed them to grow.

“Okay,”

he inhaled deeply. “Listen to the words she isn’t saying and react the way you naturally would,”

he told me.

My face twisted. “What?”

Jeremy nodded. “Yeah, do that. Easy sounding, hard to execute, but my guess is she’s showing you that she already cares about you, unless…”

his eyes narrowed, “you have her chained in your basement?”

I glared at him.

He held up his hands. “To each their own, live your best life, and all that jazz. Whatever the circumstances, just take care of her. That’s it. Take care of her. Mentally, emotionally, physically. Everything. Listen to the things said and unsaid. React naturally, learn.”

My expression softened, my brows pulling together. “Learn?”

Jeremy nodded. “Learn, Ev. You have to allow yourself the opportunity to learn. This isn’t an assignment. It’s not some rogue you’re hunting, or some client you’re going after, it’s a girl. Learn. Listen, take care of her, and learn.”

June 2st, 2022

I watched after her until she disappeared between the trees, gun gripped in hand, before turning back to where the bullets had come from.

Whoever the fuck had decided to be this stupid would certainly pay in blood and bones.

I pulled my gun out and loaded it, my eyes skimming the tree line. Whoever they were, they had terrible aim, but he drew her blood, and the rage I f

elt at seeing that was fucking unrecognizable.

Steven should have been the last motherfucker to draw her blood other than me. This was unacceptable.

I headed for the trees, eyes and ears trained. Two bullets within two minutes. The person was either unfamiliar with a gun or unsure of themselves. Either way, they’d die for the sins they committed today.

If they hadn’t heard of me before, they were sure as fuck going to know who I was before they found their way to Hell.

I kept my gun at my side and stayed low as I headed through the trees, searching for any sign of movement. My mind and body fell into the thrill of the hunt. My heart slowed, my breathing eased, my mind was calm. All that mattered was finding my target and putting a bullet in their head.

Her face filled my mind, the fear in her eyes.

No! No, she was safe. She was smart. She had a gun.

But she was stupid enough to challenge me. In every situation, she challenged me. She stood up to me, talked back. If she had done that to anyone else, she would have died.

She was smart, but she was also prideful, stubborn. Fuck. She had better listen to my orders this one goddamn time.

I shook my head as I continued through the trees. I needed to focus. I had to trust her too.

A twig snapped to my right and I took off, catching movement a second later. I lowered myself a little more seconds before a bullet whizzed by me, slamming into a tree on my left.

Silencer.

And every time they shot they stopped moving. Bad aim, freezing to shoot, they were no expert. That worked in my favor.

When they started running again, I ran after them, my footsteps quiet and quick. I could see them—him sprinting between the trees. He was wearing a gray sweatshirt, a black beanie, jeans. His gun was in his hand.

He glanced back, and I saw the fear in his eyes before he turned back. “Fuck,”

he said and started reaching for something in his pocket.

I pushed myself, watching as he pulled out a phone. A hired gun then.

“He’s on top of me,”

I heard him gasp. A second later, he tossed the phone and tried to run faster only for his foot to catch on a root.

I slowed as he ate shit, the gun flying from his grip. Fucking idiot.

He scrambled onto his back as I slowed to a walk, stalking up to him, my breathing only slightly labored. “Please,”

he begged, holding up his hands. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

I stopped above him, pointing the gun at his head. It was almost sad how easy this had been. “I ask this out of courtesy. Who was on the phone?”

“He didn’t give me a name,”

he rushed, shaking his head. “He was Russian, hired me because my cousin vouched for me. I needed the money, man, I’m sorry, please. I won’t say a word, I won’t—”

I put a bullet between his eyes, the sound echoing around us, silence falling seconds later. I didn’t have the patience to cut him apart. He hurt my fucking girl.

But I couldn’t believe there was cell service up here—

A sharp pain erupted in the side of my skull, stars dancing across my vision.

Fucking son of a bitch.

I spun around, the world spinning, warmth dripping down the side of my head.

The guy that stood before me was shorter than the one I had just shot.

His eyes widened as if he hadn’t expected me to remain standing after that. He looked at the gun in his hand and back, the panic clear in his eyes. “I—”

I pulled the trigger, putting one in his stomach without hesitation.

He grunted, his gun falling to the ground as he clutched the wound, the blood spreading across his shirt. “Fuck,”

he moaned, falling to his knees. “I’m sorry,”

he whined. “I’m sorry. It was just a job, I’m sorry.”

I walked up to him, pressing the barrel against his head, forcing his eyes up. “Do you know the name?”

He swallowed, his face already paling. “Del—Delepski,”

he grunted. “Please. Please don’t do this, I’ve got kids.”

My lip curled, the rage in my gut growing. “You should have thought about them before making that deal.”

I pulled the trigger, watching him fall to the ground.

I grabbed the side of my head, slowly looking around the woods, my head pounding. Fuck me, that was going to hurt for a while.

When I was sure there was nobody else around, I pulled out my phone and called Evelyn.

“You’re not getting out of it,”

she hummed. “Teach her how to fire a weapon and then we’ll go from there.”

“It’s fucking Delepski,”

I said, turning back towards the clearing.

Evelyn was quiet a second. “What is?”

“The people following her. It’s the Delepski’s.”

There was a sharp crack and then silence before the sound of a door slamming found my ears a second later. “What the fuck? They followed us back here?”

I pulled my hand away from my head, inspecting the blood coating the heel of my hand. “Why are they after Olivia? We’re the ones who threatened them. Why her?”

I adjusted my grip on the gun. “We’ve got a name, Evie, figure it out.”

I hung up the phone, a snarl ripping from my lips. The message we had left them obviously wasn’t clear enough. Fine, but the mistake they made would come at a heavy fucking price.

It took me only 5 minutes to walk back to the clearing. Crossing it, I headed straight for the trees I told her to run into. I kept my steps silent, keeping my gun in my hand as I strained my hearing to listen for her.

For her breathing.

Her shuffling.

Her fucking heartbeat.

Anything that would tell me that there hadn’t been a third assailant. Anything to tell me that she was still alive.

I couldn’t risk calling out for her, not yet. Her adrenaline had already been high before that bullet grazed her cheek, she would have run chaotically, as fast as she could. She was a runner, so she probably wouldn’t have stopped until she ran out of air, but with the adrenaline ridden panic she felt, she would have run out of air sooner than if she had just been running through the park.

So I had about a mile and a half at her sprinting gait to search, and I would find her. If I was out here for the next two lifetimes, I would find her again.

An hour went by, and I was getting frustrated. Angrier each second that passed. Where the fuck was she?

Had she been hit by a bullet I didn’t see? Had that second guy attacked her before coming after me? Where the fuck was she?

I couldn’t risk calling Jack for this, he would tell Malachi that I had used our resources to locate a girl who was nothing but an ex owing a debt. But I didn’t need them. I could do this on my own.

I would do this on my own.

I wouldn’t fucking lose her to some half-assed hired Craigslist gunman. I refused.

I fucking refused.

I would find her and when I did, I would fucking punish her for letting her panic take her so goddamn far away. She needed to learn how to control it. How to think through it.

My hands were gripped so tightly, my nails were digging into my palm, the grip of my gun burning into my right hand. I was going to fucking kill her. How fucking insane was it to allow her panic to do this. To get her lost in the woods while people were shooting at us?

How fucking idiotic!

She let the panic go straight to her head and now I was wasting precious time hunting her down like a goddamn fox hunting a field mouse.

I worked my jaw, a low snarl escaping my lips as I climbed over yet another log that was bigger than fuck. If she was dead, I was going to feed her to her fucking dog, one goddamn finger at a time—

A whimper found my ears, small and soft, and so quiet, for a second, I thought I imagined it.

I froze mid-step, my heart exploding in my chest as I held my breath. I knew that whimper.

Seconds ticked by like hours before another soft cry finally met my ears.

I took off without thought. Was she crying? Did she understand that people were hunting her down right now?

I threw myself over another log, sprinting through the trees. She was smarter than this. She was stronger than it, I had seen it. I watched it. She challenged me and shouted at me and fucking slapped me! She screamed and shouted and pushed every button I had, she was stronger than—

I stepped around a tree and a gun fired, the bullet whizzing past me, slicing through my jacket on the right side, just along my ribs.

I jumped back, eyes wide, my gun already up. It was an effort not to pull the trigger simply on instinct. “What the fuck, Ol—”

But my words were cut off when I found her huddled inside of a large indent in a tree, her knees to her chest, tears streaming down her face, mixed with the blood from the wound. It hadn’t stopped bleeding yet.

She had the gun gripped in both hands, shoved back against her chest, shaking as it was pointed at me.

That shot would have bruised her chest, but all she did was stare at me unblinkingly.

Her big beautiful eyes widened as she shoved herself further into the tree, only to freeze when her terrified mind finally registered who it was.

I lowered my own gun, taking her in, my heart thudding at the sight.

She wiped her sleeve under her nose, trying to swallow the sounds, that trembling gun still trained on me. “I followed orders,”

she told me, taking in my face, her eyes lingering on the wound on my head, questions and pain in her eyes. “I did what you said. I ran. Stayed low. I didn’t see anyone. Just trees. I looked though, I swear to God, I looked, but I didn’t see a single person. There’s nobody else here. Must have imagined it, right? I imagine a lot. Delusions, Steven calls them. I’m sorry,”

she whispered, the tears pouring down her cheeks. “I followed orders, I’m sorry.”

She was terrified.

She held such fear in her eyes that I felt something within me crack, and then she saw me, and she relaxed. Why would she relax? She hated me. She was supposed to hate me.

Her eyes slowly shifted to anger. “Was this a ploy?”

she suddenly accused, causing my shock to shift to a frown.

“A…what?”

I asked carefully. What the fuck?

She sniffed again, wiping her sleeve across her nose as she shoved herself to a stand, dropping the gun carelessly on the ground, hissing when the tree trunk she used to hoist herself up bit into her hands. “A ploy. You know, to get me to trust you. Because that’s really fucking mean, you egotistical, arrogant, jerk!”

What the actual fuck was happening right now? “I don’t need you trusting me, Olivia. I need you to do what I say and not ask fucking questions. Getting lost in the woods? And how fucking dare you question my orders.”

Her eyes widened in complete disbelief. “Me? You’re the one that led two killers to these woods! You’re supposed to be training me how to shoot a gun!”

“And I brought two perfect targets here just for you,”

I bit, stepping up to her. “You write like you’re so fucking fearless, but look at you,”

I gestured to all of her, my heart slamming, my head pounding, my mind spinning in fear and relief and anger and irritation. “Whimpering in the alcove of a tree, crying cause why? Afraid of earning some scars yourself?”

Regret. It wasn’t an emotion I was used to feeling, in fact, I don’t think I had ever felt it before because in this moment, it hit me like a ton of bricks.

Her face went bright red, her hands shaking in rage, and fuck, did I love it when she got angry. “How dare you,”

she seethed.

I couldn’t back down now though. I had reached her. She needed this. She needed to release the rage, not swallow it down like she had so many times before. If she needed me to be her punching bag, I’d be the best damn punching back there was, but fuck her if I wouldn’t punch back.

And honestly, I needed to release some anger myself. I needed to release something much fucking deeper and much more complicated than that.

I think we both did.

And I think that’s what made this work so well. We were volatile and toxic and chaotic, like fireworks exploding in a cave filled with c4 and gasoline, but goddamn if I wasn’t addicted to the feeling of it. To the feeling of exploding and crashing against each other, ricocheting off the damp walls of our own destruction. I needed it.

I needed her. Because a day without fighting with her wasn’t a day I wanted to have.

I laughed, the sound far from joyous. “All talk and no bite. Fantasize about dismembering people and then run when things get tough. Oh, but not every time, right? Because you froze. For three years, you froze. But maybe you got off on that too. Maybe you got off on being beat to shit—”

She slammed her fist into my face, causing stars to dance in my eyes again.

I stumbled back a step, grabbing my head, my eyes finding hers, the world tilting. “You fucking bi—”

She lunged, a snarl on her lips, and shoved me back suddenly, my feet catching on a root behind me.

I fell to my ass, my gun slipping from my grip, pain shooting up my spine. I cursed under my breath trying to get ahold of her, but she was already jumping on top of me. “You fucking cunt,”

I snarled as she slapped and clawed at me, my head pounding. I wasn’t sure if I had a concussion or not but fuck me if I didn’t have one now.

I managed to get an arm around her waist and flipped her onto her back, slamming her into the forest floor.

She locked her legs around my hips, continuing to throw her untrained little punches as I fought to gain control of her arms.

I snarled, tears streaming down her face, dirt, sticks, and moss tangling in her hair and knit sweater as she continued to fight, the blood from my own reopened wound falling to her face.

I finally got my hands wrapped around her wrists and slammed them down next to her head, a snarl ripping from her lips. “You can’t fight me. I’ve been trained.”

“Fuck you!”

she shouted, bucking her hips up, doing her best to…actually, I wasn’t quite sure what she was trying to accomplish there, but she wasn’t letting up.

I leaned down until she couldn’t look away from me, my anger raging. “You’re angry because bad people followed me into the woods. Sorry to say, little writer, but that’s the fucking job. They hunt me, I hunt them. It doesn’t stop until there’s a bullet in someone’s head. But this little show of yours is fucking sad. You have the balls to slap me, talk shit, but you get scared when the real fire show happens? You’re a pup with no fucking teeth.”

She screamed, thrashing uselessly as I sat back and watched her do it, my cock as hard as a rock. It’s been hard since the ride down here, but now? God, she was so fucking irritating. All I wanted to do was tie her to the fucking tree and shove my cock so deep into that tight little pussy of hers that she lost the ability to even form sentences. That there was no chance she wouldn’t swell with my child for the next nine months.

My eyes widened at the sudden though, my heart racing at the idea of it. Wait. Wait. This was…

My breathing had picked up. “Stop it,”

I ordered. And when she didn’t listen, I lifted her wrists and slammed them back down. “Stop it!”

She cried out, pulling at her arms. She was panting, her eyes lined in tears, the nearly invisible freckles she had plastered along her nose and cheeks almost glowing in the light streaming in through the branches.

Fuck me, she was beautiful.

“Fuck you,” she bit.

“Why are you acting so afraid?”

I demanded, searching her eyes, my thoughts running wild. “We both know you’re stronger than that.”

She watched me for a long time before turning her head away, glaring at something in the distance.

Oh my God, this…this…woman. “Olivia,”

I said, enunciating her name carefully.

Her throat bobbed, her anger fading ever so slightly, her brows furrowing in fear as she watched the trees in the distance. She flexed her fingers a little and swallowed again, her breathing slowing. “You didn’t come back,”

she finally said, causing me to pause.

I sat back a little, searching her eyes. Every thought in my mind freezing. “What?”

Her face hardened and she turned to face me head on. “You didn’t come back, you fucking dick. You left me here. You were gone, and I was alone, and all I heard were gunshots in the distance.”

Fear filled her eyes for less than a second before she hardened them again, glaring death at me. “It felt like a lifetime.”

And I was so shocked by her words, I couldn’t do anything but stare at her. At her beautiful bright green eye, the other one half blue, half brown. Filled with such anger. Anger at me. Because she thought I had died.

She was angry because she thought I was never coming back for her.

But I gave her my word. I had given her my word, and my word was everything.

My word would span across her life, across mine.

I would always find her.

Always.

Because she was…

Fuck, she was mine.

She was mine.

“Dammit,”

I breathed out and slammed my lips against hers, my heart thudding against my ribs as I released her wrists, one hand grabbing her neck, the other her hip.

I tightened my grip around her neck as her soft lips worked against mine, blood and tears mixing with our saliva as her tongue darted across my bottom lip.

I parted my lips, deepening the kiss, the taste of her on my tongue like heaven crashing to earth. Every word she had ever spoken, had ever written, had ever thought about, I could taste it all.

Her legs relaxed around me, falling to either side as her hands slid up over my shoulders, trying to push my jacket off.

I broke the kiss and sat back, watching her as I stripped off my jacket and then my shirt. I tossed them to the side and reached for hers, quickly tearing it off, discarding it with the rest before our lips crashed together again.

She moaned softly into my mouth, her hands clawing their way down my chest before finding my belt buckle, and I let her take it off, stealing it from her hands as soon as she ripped it from my pants.

I couldn’t catch my breath. I couldn’t think. All I wanted was her.

I sat back again, my cock throbbing, begging to be inside of her. “Take the rest off,”

I told her as I threaded one end of my belt through the buckle.

She wasted no time tearing off her pink bra, shoes, leggings, and finally her underwear. She was so desperate for me that it wasn’t even a thought in her mind that I was about to take her on the forest floor.

“Wrists.”

She fell to her back again and held out her wrists, one resting on top of the other, her pupils fully dilated. No question, no hesitation. Fuck, she was mine.

Mine.

I slid the loop around them and cinched them down tightly, buckling the belt in place before taking the other loop and pulling her arms taut above her head, hooking it on a stump behind her.

She groaned, tracking me as I settled back between her legs, her body stretched to perfection, each of her labored pants revealing her ribs, her tits glowing in the sunlight, her knees up, her pussy glistening.

I took her in, my body shaking in need as I studied the beauty of her. Primed and ready just for me.

This was a mistake.

If I fucked her now, it would change everything.

She wouldn’t be just some girl paying off her ex’s debt. She would be mine.

She was mine.

I found my hand drifting to my back pocket fully aware of the decision I was making, fully aware that I was changing the course of both of our futures permanently and without remorse. I pulled out a knife, her eyes turning black with lust when she saw it.

I flicked out the blade and grabbed her right thigh, forcing it to lay open enough to give me a good canvas.

“What are you doing?”

she panted.

Something stupid.

“Olivia Rose,”

I mumbled, my heart slamming in my chest as I pictured the way she had laughed while shooting that gun, the way she had challenged me when I had her tied to my wall, the way she had stared at me when I set her leg on fire. I thought about the way she wrote her stories, the way she walked, the way she talked, the way she dressed. I thought about every glare, every shred of attitude, every time she decided that she was going to argue with the serial killer who had inserted himself into her life.

I thought about it all as I slid that knife against her skin, deep enough to leave an angry scar. “I claim you,”

I said, my voice clear and concise as I carved that ‘E’ into her thigh, “from now until death finds us.”

She was panting, groaning, arching her back against the pain. “Fuck,”

she whispered. “What does that mean?”

I watched the blood drip from the letter as I set the knife to the side. “It means,”

I started, pulling my cock out, her body reacting at just the sight of it. Stretching, pulling, her hips bucking towards me, as if she were in heat, waiting for my cock to relieve her. “That I fucking own you. Forever.”

I shifted forward, sliding my hands up her legs, her thighs, her hips. Touching every inch of her until I was positioned above her, my hands on either side of her head.

She bit her lip, her eyes searching mine, completely unaware of what I just signed her up for. “Then I claim you, Everett,”

she told me, causing me to freeze, my eyes widening, “from now until death finds us,”

she repeated, her eyes unblinking, her voice steady, something like relief shining in her eyes. As if she had been suffocating her entire life, and I had just given her a fresh dose of oxygen.

She…she what?

Olivia gestured to the knife, and I, like a pup following his master, reached for it, handing it to her, hilt first.

She took it easily and positioned it above my heart, her eyes flicking to mine and back. Her lips parted as she pressed the tip of the knife into my skin, the sharp pain euphoric across my skin as she began dragging it slowly, carving whatever the fuck she wanted into me. I didn’t care, so long as it was her doing it, I didn’t care.

When she was done, she dropped the knife to the side of us and placed her right hand over the mark, her eyes finding mine, wild and explosive. “Fuck me,”

she begged. “Please.”

I swallowed, my cock twitching between my legs, my hands digging into the soil. I wanted to do one last thing. If I was going to finalize this, I would do it right.

I pulled my mask off and set it to the side, her eyes swallowing me whole.

I angled myself just right before pushing forward, feeling the warmth of her pussy begin to swallow me whole as her body arched against the feeling.

I groaned, going slowly at first, trying to control myself, trying to ease her into it.

Her legs tightened around my hips though, lifting her hips higher into the air, shoving me deeper, and feeling that, I lost it. I slammed into her, hard and fast, the sound of our arousal filling the silent forest air as her cries of pleasure met my ears.

Fuck she felt so goddamn good. She sounded so good. She was everything. Everything. She had consumed me completely in four months’ time.

But I couldn’t tell a soul about it, not yet. Not even Evelyn. Nobody could know. There was already a target on her back because of her association with me, once she became a Claimed, there would be a far bigger one there. The proof had already come with Jack and Greyson, I wouldn’t let it happen to her.

Once I delt with the Delepski’s, once I trained her to fight, then I would let Malachi know, but until then, this would stay in the woods.

I wouldn’t let her get away. Not now. Not ever.

“Fuck, Everett,”

she moaned, pulling at the belt, her pussy clamping down around my cock. “Don’t stop, please.”

Fuck, I loved it when she said my name. She had given it a whole new meaning. A whole new life. Reviving it from the ashes into something wholly brand new.

I kept going, just as I was, hard and fast, pressing my forehead against hers, inhaling her life breath as she inhaled mine. “Fuck, Olivia,”

I groaned. “Take every inch of me, every ounce.”

She erupted around me, crying out my name for the world to hear.

I grunted, slamming my lips against hers, using every ounce of strength I had to pound into her, scraping her body against the forest floor, ripping another orgasm from her soul and swallowing it whole before I came inside of her.

And it was done.

She was mine.

Locked into an eternal, binding contract with me that would remain until long after we were dust. Forever wasn’t long enough, not when it came to her.