Chapter Seven
“It’s not going to be that easy, sweetheart.”
The rope pulled taut—wrenching my head up, and snapped.
I fell twelve feet to straw-covered concrete and landed hard. Pain zinged up my shoulder. “Ahh!”
“What did you think you were doing up there?”
Shadows moved in the dark, coming from all sides.
“What’s going on?” I cried, struggling to sit up. “Who’s there?”
“Who else?” They came into view.
Demons.
Darkness cloaked them. Shielding all but gleaming pools, lighting oddly in the beams filtering through the slats. At that moment, I understood why every Bedlam boogeyman story called their name. They weren’t of this world.
Arsenio, Cairo, Jacques, Legend, and Roan circled me. Arsenio pocketed the knife he used to cut my rope. The others didn’t.
Knives, bats, and propped on Cairo’s shoulder, a crossbow.
He grinned when he saw me looking. “Like it? Is it like the one you used?”
My blood ran cold. He knew.
“What do you want?” I was proud of my voice for not trembling.
“We’re going to make this real simple for you, de Souza,” Arsenio said. “We know you killed Cavendish and tried to pin his murder on—”
“I—”
Jacques pounced. His arms pinned me on either side, holding the bat tight to my throat. “Don’t interrupt. That’s very rude.”
I clenched my teeth so hard my jaw cracked. Jacques pressed hard on my hurt shoulder.
“As I was saying,” Arsenio continued. “You tried to get us arrested for— What were the charges, Legend?”
“Kidnapping, negligent homicide, or second-degree murder.”
I spoke through clenched teeth. “Pretty sure the first one was all you.”
Cairo stepped between us. “I considered throwing you at my father, but then I thought, where’s the fun in that? Whatever punishment the legal system comes up with for you, won’t be nearly as satisfying as what I’ve got planned.”
“I knew you wouldn’t be arrested.” My swallow bobbed against the wood. “Daddy wasn’t about to put his precious son and your little boy band in jail. But even if he did, you’d walk right out after they found my note. I confessed, Cairo,” I said. “I wasn’t going to let you go down for my crime. You can see for yourself.”
Roan broke off from the group. He came back down with my note in hand.
“See,” I said as Cairo read it. “I’m telling the truth. You and I are—”
Cairo crumpled and tossed it over his shoulder.
“—good.”
“We’re not even close to good. Why’d you steal my wallet if you were just going to confess?”
“Alright, I admit it. The recent string of threats and assaults made the idea of you rotting in jail while your dad bawled his eyes out very attractive. I didn’t want to kill him,” I cried. “Why should I go to prison for that twisted piece of shit?!” The scream ripped out of my heaving chest, surprising even me.
“Ahh. There it is,” Cairo said, crouching in front of me. “That look in your eyes.”
I looked away, face burning.
“That’s cold, Rain. You tried to run from your punishment by pinning it on me. Too pussy to follow through, you thought of another way to run.” He tugged on my rope. “By way of hemp necklace.”
“I’m not running. You don’t understand what’s going on here, Cairo.” Jacques pressed harder on my throat. “I have... to do this.”
“Here’s what you have to do,” he said. “Run.”
“What?”
“You heard him,” Legend said. “Run. If you get away from us, we’ll let you keep running. Get out of our town, start a new life somewhere, and you won’t hear from the Bedlam Boys again.”
“We won’t tell the cops it was you either,” Arsenio added, dragging my attention to him. “You got one over on us once. Do it twice, and you’ll have earned your stay of execution—to borrow a phrase.”
Injured, pinned, and shaking, I trapped his gaze and hissed, “And if I don’t?”
“If we catch you”—Cairo stroked my cheek—“you’re ours.”
“Yours?”
A smile so beautiful stretched his lips, my mind rebelled connecting it to the ferality in those eyes.
“You’re going to make up for the pain and emotional damage you’ve caused us, and will continue to cause while we’re suspects for your crime.”
“For my crime?” I repeated. “You’re not turning me in?”
“We have someone else in mind for Cavendish’s murder trial,” he said. “Till then, people will believe we’re killers, and I’ll need you to comfort me and my boys.” That smile only got wider. “Remind us how much you appreciate us feeding you, getting you out of that crack motel, and keeping your secret.
“We’ll own you, Rain.” He continued down, sliding along the valley of my breasts, to my exposed belly button. “Mind, body, soul, and body. Did I mention body?”
“Fuck. You.”
He laughed. “That’s the idea.”
“I’d rather turn myself in to the sheriff right now.”
“No, you wouldn’t,” Roan said, “or we wouldn’t have caught you swinging from the rafters.”
“But you’ve got the choice now,” Legend threw in. “We said you can run and that includes running to the station. You get away from us, you get your freedom.”
“You don’t,” Jacques whispered, “and you’re mine.” He dropped the bat. It bounced off my knee and rolled away. “Ten seconds.”
“Nine.”
“Eight.”
I swiveled between them. What the hell is this? This can’t be happening.
“Seven.”
Jacques picked up his bat.
“Six.”
“You can’t do this,” I said. I got to my feet, hissing at the pain in my shoulder. “You don’t have the right to keep me, or let me go.”
“Four,” they said. “Three.”
“Cairo, stop.” I backed toward the door.
“Two.”
“I said stop!”
“One.”
Twisting around, I ran.
I clutched my arm, biting my lip till it bled. I pushed aside the pain and ran faster than I ever had in my life.
“Whoo! This one’s fast.”
“Not fast enough.” A hand fisted my shirt.
Screaming, I ripped away, picking up speed—bolting for the trees.
They welcomed me back with open arms, reminding me of all the places I once hid on those days I played hide-and-seek with Ivy.
Friar’s Copse. If I shake them loose, I can hide there till they give up.
I looked over my shoulder and locked on to Arsenio only a few feet behind. They were not going to give up.
Crashing through the brush, I veered right to the thickest part of the woods. The trees grew close enough to share their bark. This was my chance to slow them down.
My heart thrummed in my ears, louder than their pounding and howls. The noise bounced across the leaves and it sounded like they were coming from everywhere. Behind, beside, and right at me.
“Come on, Rain.” Cairo slid in my ear. “This is what you wanted, isn’t it? My devotion. You wanted me to save your soul.”
Devotion.Why, of all the words to use, did he choose that one? What was devotion to a wounded wolf? Why, from his lips, did it sound so much like possession?
I ached to scream they couldn’t have me, but that would’ve given me away.
Lungs burning. Shoulder numb. Side swelling, I raced away from their thrashing—the forest muffling my footfalls in the sodden earth.
“Come back, little Rainey,” Roan called. He sounded far away. “Don’t you want to have some fun with us?”
Were they always this wickedly dangerous, or did they have to work at it? Either way, I was finally beginning to understand why everyone at the party dropped to their knees. These five took what they wanted. Power, respect, money, Bedlam. Now, they wanted me.
The copse emerged up ahead. There was a thick underbrush shielded by a tight collection of trees. I’d stay low and hide as they ran deeper into the forest. Then, all I had to do was make my way back home, bolt the doors, and stay there till they cleared out.
I have the generator and some food to last me a couple of days. Then I’d— Well, I’d figure out the rest later. Almost there. I—
Fingers tangled in my hair. I cried out as I was flung off my feet, pain exploding in my scalp.
“Hmm.”
In a blink, Cairo was there. Straddling me, digging my hands into the dirt, pressing his full weight on my body.
I wasn’t going anywhere.
“I hoped I’d be the one to catch you.” Cairo bit my sore bottom lip, drawing a gasp of pain. “Were you secretly hoping too?”
“You’re fucking insane, Sharpe. Get off me.”
“You know, I wondered for a second while I was holding exhibit a, my burned wallet, if this was karma.”
My breath caught, holding tight in my chest as Cairo laid my hand on his warring wolves.
“I’ve done wrong. More than the oldest man on earth could achieve in his lifetime. Was fate finally making me pay for it?”
He let go of me, only to grasp the crossbow. Light glinted off the tip pressed just below my collarbone. All thought fled my mind.
“Now I see that’s not true,” he continued, like we were a couple out for a lovely dinner and a chat. “You’re not my curse, Rainey de Souza, you’re my cure. I was bored, hungry, furious, before you came along and rattled the die on my one-track life.”
His words were a steady soundtrack to the movie playing on my heart. The tip broke my skin, greedily taking my blood.
“You’re going to give me what I want, Rain, and I’ll give you what you need.”
“You don’t know what I need,” I rasped, “and I won’t give you what you want.”
“Won’t you?” He lowered himself to my chest, kissing the spot of blood. “That’s our word: fate. It’s what brought us together. It’s the only thing that’ll break us. The only thing that’ll make me stop.”
“I—”
He dropped the crossbow and ripped my shirt clean off.
“Cairo!”
“I dreamed about you the other night,” he whispered, pressing his mouth to my ear. “We were running through town. Well, you were running. I was chasing.”
My bra strap slipped off my shoulder. Helped along by Cairo.
“I caught you behind the Roadhouse. Nowhere left to run,” he said. “You pleaded with me to let you go, and I put you on your knees right there in the filthy alley. I pried those pretty lips open like this”—Cairo cracked my jaw—“and shoved my cock inside like that.”
His tongue found mine—tangling in a battle of wills. He demanded submission. Yanked it out of me like fevered moans, and in my fury not to give it to him, it didn’t sink in that I was kissing him back.
“Till you cried,” he whispered against my lips. “Like this.”
Cairo tweaked my nipple without mercy.
“Ah,” I cried, tears springing to my eyes as dampness spread in another part of me. My heart was racing, running, beating out of control.
Taking me in his mouth, he gently flicked my nipple—teasing it, tasting it, introducing it to one of its new owners. I sunk my fingers in his hair even before it came, knowing the reprieve wouldn’t last long.
Cairo scraped the helpless nub beneath his teeth, rougher treatment than the poor thing was used to. Pain and pleasure wracked me in equal measure, so tangled I couldn’t tell them apart.
Growls peeled from my wolf. He snapped, bit, sucked, and nipped my tender flesh—abandoning my breasts only to devour every part of me. Tangling in my hair, he tugged my head back and licked a stripe from neck to chin.
“Mine.”
“No, Cairo. You’ve been waiting for someone to say it, and now it’s all you’re going to hear. No!” I fisted Cairo’s silky, gold locks, half pulling them from the root. “You don’t own me. No Sharpe ever will!”
The slap snapped my head to the side. The shock of it released my grip.
“A Sharpe will make you beg to be owned, bitch.”
My chest heaved with ragged breaths. Shrieking, I swiped at him, and Cairo caught my hands, slamming them in the dirt. Crossing them above my head, he licked my stinging cheek.
“That’s it,” he said, collecting my tears. “So fucking sweet. You’re my Rain now. Say it.”
I met those eyes—shining even now. “No.”
I didn’t know where the others were. Maybe they were concealed in the trees, watching our battle of wills, and a battle it was. A down-and-out, fight-to-the-death, no-survivors for my mind, body, and soul, just as Cairo said. If I failed here, the Bedlam Boys would own me in every way that mattered—even if I one day got away.
Maybe I could’ve said fate and called him off, but deep down I knew that wasn’t victory. It was waving the white flag. I’d be admitting their scorching burned me, and I needed their permission to leave as much as their demand to stay.
Fuck no. The Bedlam Boys can try to break me, but if there’s one thing I know, it’s that fire doesn’t survive the rain.
“Say it,” Cairo hissed.
“No.”
Cairo slapped the other cheek, exploding stars behind my eyes.
“Ahh.” Pressure built between my legs, contracting the muscles in my lower belly and spreading through my body. I was a gasp away from imploding in on myself like a dying star. Holy shit. Is this normal?
Sweat slicked my skin. My nipple was raw and achy, but inside, for the love of everything, something was happening inside me.
I bucked, yanking at my trapped wrists, and thrashed to get him off. I needed to get out of here. Away from him. Any more, and the dam would break.
“Get off!” I got my foot between us, rearing to kick him.
Cairo twisted to the side and caught my leg as it went wide. He hooked me around his waist like he thought that was what I meant to do all along.
Frustrated tears leaked down my face. “Cairo,” I pleaded.
He responded instantly.
Cairo nudged my legs apart, pressing his thigh to my middle. My body took over. I rutted against him, moving in time with the cock digging into my leg. The friction rolled my eyes up in my skull.
“Say it, or I’m going to be angry with you.”
Going to?Every inch of me above the waist was sore. If this was him in a good mood, heaven help the world when he gets mad.
“The last man who tried to control me died tied to a stake. What was it I told you we had in common?”
His smirk glinted in the dark.
Why? It was undoubtedly the wrong thing to say.
“Are you a virgin, Rain?”
I fell very quiet.
“Answer me.” He let go of my hands and grabbed my legs, locking them around his waist. He skimmed the hem of my dress. “Did you let another man touch you? Did he take what’s ours?”
I shook, swallowing hard. This was Cairo angry.
“What if I did? I didn’t even know you then.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“That’s not a question you have the right to ask me.”
“Raiinnneey.”
I stiffened. No way to tell if it was Roan, Jacques, Arsenio, or Legend. All I knew was they were close.
“Come on out, sweetheart,” one of them called.
I’m barely holding my own against Cairo. What do I do if they all catch me? Hold me down, hit me, ravage my breasts, rammed their cocks in my—
A moan escaped my lips. Cairo had found his way under my skirt, and slipped past the thin cotton barrier. He teased my clit under slow, soft strokes.
“Answer me, Rain.” The sound of his zipper pierced the night. “Are you a virgin?”
Slowly, unable to stop myself, I nodded.
“Really?” Satisfaction laced his voice. “Because you’re wet like a fucking whore.”
He dipped inside my pussy, soaking himself to the knuckles. I watched, transfixed, as he licked me off his middle finger.
“Hmm. I was wrong,” he said. “As delicious as your tears are, nothing is sweeter than your pussy. Taste.”
“No.” I smacked his hand away.
Cairo flashed. He seized my neck, squeezing till I choked—gasping for air. In went his fingers.
“Lick them clean. Don’t waste a drop.”
I obeyed—sucking, licking, slurping.
Cairo leaned over me. He pecked a light kiss on my nose and pushed in with one hard thrust.
“Ahh!” My cry rang through the forest.
“There,” Jacques shouted. “She’s over there!”
Cairo gave me no time to recover. He started pumping, angling my hips to bury to the hilt. The pain was excruciating.
“Cairo, don’t,” I sobbed around his fingers. “Please, no.”
He groaned deep inside him. “You are so fucking tight. You did wait for me.” He removed his fingers to kiss me. “Good girl.”
“S-stop. It’s too much.”
“Oh, baby. It’s not even close to enough.”
He jerked me toward him. I slammed back on the dirt, my head bouncing off a root. Cairo lost control.
The green-eyed Bedlam Boy pounded me like a beast. Mouth open in a silent scream, my world converged in this single slice of space and time, Cavendish, Jennifer, the sheriff, the new letter, the dangling rope in the barn. All that existed was the wolf who claimed me, and the others coming to take me away.
The pressure was rising, taking over me. Digging my nails in his shoulder, I threw my head back, and came so hard, Cairo cursed at my squeezing down on him.
“Holy fucking shit, woman.”
Jerking and flopping on the ground, I rode the crest of pleasure and pain till they threatened to choke me themselves. I sucked in deep lungfuls of air, gazing up at the trees, wondering what the hell happened. What the hell was still happening. Cairo was far from done.
“Cairo,” Arsenio called. “Do you have her?”
“I’ve got her.”
I dropped my head, eyes alighting on something.
“She’s ours now.”
“I’m not,” I whispered. “You don’t get to keep me. It won’t be that easy.”
“She says while her cum lubes my—”
I smashed the crossbow over his head.
Cairo pitched forward—dropping on top of me. He was out cold.
“Where the hell are you?” Roan demanded.
Pushing him off, I fixed myself as best I could and disappeared into the trees. This was my forest. I’ve run around inside her since I was old enough to get my wobbling new legs underneath me. My interlude with Cairo aside, there was never a question of if I could lose them in the woods. I was destined to the minute I crossed the tree line. It just took some creativity toward the end.
But now what?
I headed away from Black Widow Hill. If I continued in the direction I was going, it’d skirt the rim of the canyon, then drop me off at Chaney Bridge. From there, it was a six-hour walk to the next town, and I’d be limping the whole way.
Cairo fucked me. There was no sweet or cute way to put it. He got me in the dirt and fucked me like an animal. My cheeks stung, my nipples throbbed, and I’d fall asleep in an Epsom salt bath with dreams it’d help the soreness in my middle.
Did I keep going? The Bedlam Boys made it clear there was nowhere in this town I’d be safe from them.
I touched my neck. Did I finish what I started?
No.
The denial rang clear and true in my mind. What had changed since I stepped into that noose was hard to put into words. I just knew there was another way now.
My fingers moved down, brushing the tiny pinprick wound of the crossbow.
“You’re not my curse, Rainey de Souza, you’re my cure.”
Once more, I asked my grandmother what to do. The wind carried her whispers in my ear, showing me the way.
CAIRO
“Let me get this straight.” Legend’s dry voice grated on my ears. “You had her, and somehow she got your crossbow, hit you over the head, and left you in the dirt with your pants down?”
I probed the welt on my forehead, grimacing. “That about sums it up.”
“How exactly did she get your bow?” Roan asked. He wasn’t trying to hide his amusement.
The five of us tramped through the forest—lost as hell, but figuring if we didn’t go over a cliff, we were heading in the right direction.
“Ever been knocked unconscious mid-ejaculation, Banks?”
“Can’t say that I have.”
“I’ll arrange it for you.”
Roan cracked up.
“What are our chances of catching up to her?” Arsenio asked. The question wasn’t for me.
“Approximately six minutes since Cairo confirmed his location and we tripped over his body. Average healthy female— Above average due to years of farm work puts her a mile ahead in those six minutes. Prior knowledge of this area and a... high... motivation to escape,” Jacques said. “We have a slim-to-nil chance of catching up to de Souza.”
“Think she’ll do it?” Legend asked. “Leave town.”
“I read the suicide note,” Roan said. “Parents and grandparents dead. Sister fucked off. She’s got nothing keeping her here.”
“She’s got the university.” I grimaced again. What the hell? Didn’t I sound like a hopeful cuck wishing and praying my girl doesn’t leave me? That hit did more damage than I thought.
Even so, visions of her floated before my eyes. Her fleeing through the forest when I spotted her. Pouncing on my sweet little prey. Drinking the fear in those big eyes. Feasting on her screams. Absorbing her hits, smacks, and hair-pulling. The rage that burned beneath the surface even as she surrendered her submission.
I hitched my step, suddenly so hard I was limping as bad as my Rain would’ve when she ran from me. Yes, mine.
I didn’t care what deal we made. I couldn’t give a shit if she made it to Hunter’s Crest and was currently buying her bus ticket to her sister. I would find her wherever she was. We were bound together in blood, pain, and fire. As I promised her, only fate would break us.
“Up ahead,” Arsenio spoke up. “It’s the barn.”
“We follow her,” I stated. “She won’t want to run through the woods all night. Eventually, she’ll come out on the road and follow it out of town. We’ll pick her up there.”
“Three roads out of town,” Legend said. “Which, Jacques?”
“We’re closest to Abbey Road. If she heads in that direction, she’ll get as far as the river before she has to come out and cross the bridge.”
We broke free of the woods, riding the surge of renewed lust.
Now that I tasted that pussy, I wasn’t letting it get away. I nearly blacked out from her squeezing my cock alone.
“She’s on foot,” I said as we rounded the barn. “Legend, we’ll drop you and Roan off. Arsenio, Jacques, and I will wait out on the...” I trailed off.
The five of us ground to a stop, staring at the truck’s new hood ornament.
“Took you long enough,” Rainey said.
She munched on a bag of popcorn, of all things. Leaves and sticks tangled in her hair. There were smudges of dirt on her cheeks, cut through by tear tracks and decorated with my red handprints. Somewhere she found a baggy shirt that didn’t match the skirt, and a makeshift sling for her shoulder.
She couldn’t have looked more banged up and ridiculous if she tried, but reclined on my windshield, looking at me with that half smirk on her lips, it was everything in me not to tear those clothes off and have my fill for the second time that night.
And this time, I’ll get it right.I circled her. Keep those pretty hands tied.
“Surprised to see me?” She shrugged. “I told you I’d come back to you, Cairo. You didn’t have to be so impatient.”
“What can I say, baby?” I replied slowly. “The noose gave me pause.”
“A momentary lapse in judgment. It won’t happen again.”
She sat up and the guys twitched for their weapons. For the first time in our lives, we stood dumbfounded as she plucked the keys from Legend’s hands and climbed in the car.
“Well,” she prompted when we didn’t make a move to get in with her. “I considered my options, and I’m staying. Nothing and no one is driving me out of my town. If that means you and I are roomies for a while, so be it. I’ve been itching to get out of that motel anyway.”
“You understand what this means,” I said.
“I do.”
“The offer is off the table from here. Stay or run.” I leaned on the door, skimming my hand down her cheek. “You’re ours now.”
“We’re going to discuss this ‘yours’ thing.”
“No, we’re not.”