Primal Pursuit - Page 143

He just keeps staring at me.

Rage erupts, and I spit at him. “Guess now you can finish the job.”

He wipes the spit off his cheek, doesn’t say a word, and that angers me more.

“You were supposed to kill me, too.” My chest tightens and heart constricts. “I was there. In the closet, watching you kill them.”

“I know.”

My head snaps up as adrenaline shoots through me. “You…what?”

“I know you hid in the closet. I could see you, in the mirror, pressed up against the slats of the door.”

“You’re lying.”

“I was meant to kill you, too. No witnesses. But…I couldn’t do it.”

“Why not? Killing a child should be easy for a monster like you.”

“You’re right. It should. But it wasn’t. I don’t know why. Your eyes, maybe. I don’t know.”

“Let me guess, you’re a killer with morals. Some kind of rule you hope would give you redemption one day. What is it?” I hiss. “No killing kids? Little girls? Pets?”

“You look me in the eye and tell me if you think I’m a killer with morals, with lines I don’t cross.”

He’s right. His heart is stone, his soul black. There is no level of fucked-up this man wouldn’t reach.

“I left you there, that day,” he says. “I left you in that closet. Alive.”

“Do you want a fucking medal?”

Davian runs his fingers along the back of my neck, over the rose tattoo there. “This? It’s?—”

“Like yours?” I twist my mouth into a snarl. “I saw it on your hand when you shot and murdered my parents. So, I got one. As a symbol of my vow to never forget you and to avenge their deaths.”

He nods, stroking it. “And the thorns?”

“Represent each year it’s taken me to find you.”

“You weren’t searching for me when you were twelve.”

“No.” There’s bitterness on my tongue. “But I wanted to.”

Davian’s mouth comes close to my ear. “You’re so bloodthirsty, aren’t you, Rabbit?”

“Each year,” I whisper, “that I haven’t killed you.”

“You think you can fucking kill me now, Rabbit?”

“Yes.” No. I don’t know. I want to. I don’t want to.

I have to.

He reaches down to where he cut me and runs a finger through my blood then wipes it on my nipples. They bead tighter under his touch. “But do you want to?”

I don’t—can’tanswer because it’s so convoluted. The simple answer is always the same. A resounding yes, but now feelings swirl through the letters, muddying them like blood in water.

“I think you do want to.” He bends and sucks onenipple, and I moan, my pussy clenching, and then the other, and he looks up. “But here’s the kicker, Rabbit. You want me even more. How fucked up does that make you?”