Chapter 5
M y little Wraith stood in the middle of her room, shaking like a leaf, as I finished making her bed look like a true crime scene before gathering her and the rest of my shit. I’m not killing her. So why does she look like I kicked her damn puppy?
She’s like a walking ghost. A shell of herself.
As if she’s truly got nothing left to live for.
Odessa Kuznetsov was ready to die just moments ago, and it looks like that yearning for the afterlife has yet to go away.
She’s eyeballed the arrows strapped to my back no less than a dozen times since I yanked her out of that bed. I’ve got news for her. Too fucking bad.
I told her, warned her , years ago, that every beat of her heart was mine. She doesn’t get to decide when it stops.
I do.
Odessa became the object of my every obsession, then ran from me right after I’d made it clear to her that she was— is —mine. Why did she run from me? We may have been teens, but I would’ve given her the fucking carved heart of whatever demons haunted her at night if only she’d asked.
I’m the way I am now because she made me this way. And now I’m fucked in the head and fucked because this is the first hit I’ve ever accepted and not carried through on it.
This is not how I saw tonight going, and I’m quickly approaching my limit. I need to kill someone. Multiple someones would be nice, actually. I’m itching to sink my arrows into as many hearts as I can before my own gives out from the fucking whiplash I’m going through.
Fuck, I need to call Rune and Calix. Figure out what to do with the extra body that’s currently hugging me on the back of my bike like her life depends on it.
Considering I’m pushing a hundred on the highway…
it does. She’s bundled in my blood-stained jacket, because to my surprise, she had no clothes outside of a handful of t-shirts and some kind of housekeeping uniform that looked like it would fall apart if I so much as blinked at it.
I didn’t like the idea of anyone getting a view of her ass on the back of my bike, and my jacket does a bang up job covering her all the way down to her knees.
Her nose crinkled when she scented and probably felt the blood that soaked through the fabric. She tried taking it off, but one look had her huffing and zipping it up to her chin.
There’s not much traffic in the middle of the night, but I bob and weave around the few cars that stand between me and my exit. Using the voice control feature inside my helmet, I call Rune.
Once again, he answers on the first ring. “You’re on a roll tonight?—”
“There’s a problem,” I deadpan, interrupting him.
“Uh, oh.” He’s got the nerve to fucking tease. “What kind of problem?”
“I couldn’t execute the contract.”
“And?” I’ve turned contracts down before, after completing my own research when the person who wanted to hire me failed to provide the proper information.
I hesitate. Rune and Calix wouldn’t hurt her, but the more people that know that she’s alive endangers not only her, but whoever holds such knowledge.
I weigh the options against the feel of Odessa clinging to me as I slow and exit the highway.
Rune and Calix are grown-ass men and can certainly handle any threat that comes their way.
Their body count isn’t nearly as hefty or as messy as mine, but they’re no less lethal.
Odessa’s helmet digs into my spine between my shoulder blades—I swear she’s doing that shit on purpose because I chose to keep her alive instead of giving her what she wanted— and her close proximity grates on my already frayed nerves, but I ignore it and answer. “And I have her.”
“Alive?” he asks.
“Yes, fucking alive, Rune. How the fuck could I carry a dead body across the back of my bike?”
Odessa stiffens behind me like she heard me, and maybe she did with the volume of my voice.
“You’re creative. I’m sure you would’ve found a way.”
“ Rune ,” I warn.
“What do you need from us?” His tone changes when he hears the severity in mine.
“Answers,” is all I say. I need to know the truth of what the fuck is going on.
“We’ll get them, A.” Rune pauses, quiet for a moment before he asks, “How are you?”
“On the edge,” I answer honestly. “It’s bad.”
“We’ve got you. However you need us,” I hear Calix say in the background. I know they do. That’s how they are. Especially Calix. Unlike me, all he does is feel.
“Be there in ten.” I hang up, pulling up to a red light.
I prop my bike between my legs and wait.
Odessa shifts behind me, her thighs sliding down a fraction, fitting herself a little tighter against me.
It’s hard enough to ignore her heat that’s wrapped around me, but with the way her body is gripping mine, it may as well be a siren in my ear tempting me to touch. To take.
I’m about to scold her when she does it again, but luckily the light turns green, so I tap her hands to hang on tight before I take off again.
She doesn’t, so I jolt forward, intentionally scaring her and forcing her to actually cling to me.
I’m sure every part of her just wants to let go and eat the pavement, but luckily her fight or flight response still leans toward the I want to live side of things.
This little Wraith has some bite, though, because when she grabs me, it’s right where my shirt has ridden up in the wind. She sinks her claws right into the skin there and digs hard enough into my abs to draw blood.
I bite back a groan of pleasure at the feel of her marking me, but my dick is now awake and thoroughly paying attention, hoping to feel more of her brand of pain.
I can feel the sticky wetness of the blood cooling against my skin as I wind down the backroad, nearly to Rune’s house that he shares with Calix.
The gate to their home comes into view as I pull up, and we wait for it to swing open. The moment it does, I’m through and winding my way up the long drive. The house is settled at the back of the property by the creek, out of sight.
When you work for the bratva as a hitman, you learn to appreciate the security and privacy of the woods.
Pulling up, I lower the kickstand and remove my helmet, but keep the cowl pulled up over my mouth and nose.
I saw the recognition in her eyes earlier, but I won’t give her the satisfaction of confirming her suspicions so easily. She ran from me. She will have to earn the answer to every question she has about me, who I am, and what I’ve become. What she made me.
I turn around to see her struggling with the strap beneath her chin. There’s a frustrated set to her brow. It’s almost entertaining, but then I remember the bruises and possible broken nose and how the helmet must be squeezing against the wounds.
“Come here,” I command, crooking my fingers at her.
“I’ve got it,” she snaps, her fingers still fumbling.
I roll my eyes and grab her by the chin of her helmet, yanking her toward me with a quick jerk of my wrist. She loses her balance and stumbles into me, her small, curvy body pressing into mine and her hands gripping at the belt loops by my hips.
Her breath leaves her in a whoosh and her big, dark eyes meet mine behind the lifted visor.
For a fractured moment, when I finally free the strap and remove her helmet, the look in her eyes sends me back in time. Like we’re teenagers again and I’ve just snuck into her room to slay her demons, and she’s looking at me like I’m both her salvation as well as her damnation.
Her body shifts against mine, and before I can process what she’s doing, I hear the distinct snick of my knife before I’m met with white-hot pain in my side, just below my ribs.
Looking down, I see blood blooming through the puncture wound in my shirt.
It takes me off guard, but I turn impressed eyes to the woman before me.
She stands on shaky legs with a trembling arm out to me, knife in hand, and wide, terrified eyes.
I narrow mine and fight the way a maniacal grin wants to tug at my lips. “A cut? Are you flirting with me, Wraith ?”
Her mouth pops open in surprise, but it takes a second for any words to spill out.
“I’m sorry, I—You… You were going to… so I-I thought I—” She gulps and takes in a few shaky breaths before squaring her shoulders and lifting her chin at me.
Her false bravado is positively adorable.
“I won’t become another slave. Another victim.
Not to you, or him, or any other man on this planet. ”
She turns the knife around, the blade poised just above her navel. I take a step toward her on instinct, but her shouted “No!” almost gives me pause. I’m not going to feed into her dramatics.
“I don’t fucking think so.” I lunge for her, grabbing her wrist and twisting just hard enough for a shocked yelp to escape her lips.
She drops the knife. I catch it with ease in my free hand and yank her closer.
I use the blade to brush a sweaty peach strand from her sticky forehead, reveling in the way she trembles against me.
Bending down into her personal space, I murmur through the mask, “What’s the matter?
Is the Wraith that desperate to become a specter?
” I drag the back of the knife down her face, over her neck, and down her chest until I pause directly over her heart—over the marks I made ten years ago. “ Ty moy, malen'koye privideniye .”
Her dark eyes flare in recognition for a split second before terror becomes her.
In a move I honestly wasn’t expecting, she grips my shoulders and sends her knee harshly into my lower abdomen.
It doesn’t hurt, but it does startle me enough to release her.
Before I can right myself, she takes off at a sprint, her peach hair slowly disappearing through the tree line on Rune and Calix’s property.
Thunder rumbles in the distance, and I stand to my full height, tipping my head up at the sky with my eyes closed, releasing a satisfied breath that warms the cowl covering my mouth.
I can’t wipe the grin from my lips as I take the first step toward the forest before me.
Odessa may have always been mine, but she sealed her fate when she chose to run from me a second time.
When I catch her, I’ll show her just how close to death I can bring her.
Only then will she finally know what it’s like to truly feel alive.
I love a good hunt, and I can’t wait to claim my prize.