Library

Chapter 18

Renzo

I hearmy little rabbit scream and I'm bounding through the undergrowth towards her without a second's thought. I find her crouching on the ground, her little pig laid out in front of her wheezing and shaking.

"Pip," she sobs, her hands fluttering all over him in indecision. "What's wrong? I don't know what's wrong with him!"

I examine the animal. His eyes are glazed, his jaw grinding in pain.

"D'you get hit by some magic, little man?" I ask him and my little rabbit glances up at me in alarm.

"Hit!" she gasps. "Shit! Pip!" She grabs a hold of the sleeve of my jacket, pulling on it. "He's so tiny. He can't … what should we do?"

"Little rabbit," I say, waving my hand above the small pig, trying to determine what's wrong with him. "Calm the fuck down."

"What's wrong? What's wrong with him?"

I wish I knew the fucking answer. But I've spent my life harming not healing and fuck me if I know. Something tells me imparting that piece of information to my little rabbit is not going to help our current situation.

"Yeah, he's been hit by a spell," I say confidently, ignoring the pathetic look the pig throws me.

"Is he … is he going to be okay?"

"Just fine," I tell her, lifting the little man gently into my arms. "Just going to need a bit of time to work the stuff out of his system."

"Oh Pip," she says, resting her palm on his brow. "Is there anything we can do to help him?"

Her voice sounds less panicked now. She fucking believes me. Guess I should feel guilty or something, lying to her like that. If the pig dies, she won't be happy. But instead, I have to suppress the corners of my mouth from pulling upwards. She believes me, my little rabbit – though I bet she'd deny it – she trusts me.

"He needs rest. Come on. Let's get moving."

I stride back the way I came, my little rabbit hip hopping beside me like I'm the Pied fucking Piper.

The little pig's body is hot in my hands. He's burning up with a fever. She uses her magic to blow cool air over him as we walk, whispering soothing words in a voice that makes my skin fucking tingle.

"How old is this pig?" I ask her, staring down into its feverish face.

"Pip?" She screws up her face thinking. "I don't know ten, eleven, maybe twelve years old. I remember I was small when my aunt found him wandering the forest on his own. Deduced his mom had abandoned him, the runt of the litter. He was too adorable to leave, so we kept him."

"Huh," I say.

"What?" she says, stroking the pig's cheek like she'd done mine earlier behind the bush, something I want her to do again. Over and over again.

"Ten's old for a pig, right? Little man doesn't look old."

"No," she says, "unlike the rest of us, Pip never seems to age, lucky rascal."

"Huh," I say again, looking down at the small pig in my arms.

He doesn't look like a wild pig to me. He doesn't look like an old pig either. The pig manages a feeble grunt as if telling me to leave well enough alone.

We walk some more, right to the edge of the forest and the foothills of the mountain, ignoring the paths and climbing the first slope as day breaks behind us, our shadows endlessly long on the ground in front of us.

"Are we nearly there?" she asks, her eyelids heavy.

"Nearly, little rabbit. Look there it is."

She lifts her gaze and finds the shepherd's hut nestled in the crag of the mountain, invisible from the sky and to anyone walking from any other direction than the one we're walking.

"It's safe?"

"I think so," I tell her. The shepherd that used this hut is decomposing under some rocks in the stream in the valley over yonder. No one's claimed the hut since he met his untimely end. And by end, I mean me.

Still, my little rabbit approaches the wooden building cautiously, searching with her senses for anyone nearby and even though she senses no one but us, she pushes back the door like someone might jump out and pounce on her.

The hut isn't exactly some five-star hotel. Its one room houses a single wooden bed, its mattress stuffed with straw, a chair, and a shelf with a kettle, a cup, a plate and some dried meat in tins. I lay the little pig out on the end of the bed and my little rabbit pulls one of the threadbare blankets over his quivering body, whispering to him some more until his eyes drift shut.

The place smells of rotting wood and damp. That's never bothered me before. But I want her touching me again and I don't know if she will when the place smells like shit. It's why I'm guessing girls like candles. I remember Marcus was always lighting the things whenever he had some girl round sucking his dick.

I wish I had one now. I'd light it. Ask her to touch me again, touch me a whole lot more, suck my cock.

It's a hell of a lot warmer in here than it is outside but she adjusts the blanket under the pig's chin anyway, then peers up at me.

"Are you sure he's going to be okay?"

"Positive," I say.

Her shoulders sag and she smothers a yawn.

"Time for bed, little rabbit."

"It's morning," she says.

"Yeah. Best to travel at night and sleep in the day. Lie down now and go to sleep."

She peers around the tiny hut. "Are you going to rest too?" I nod my head and she narrows her eyes. "There's only one bed."

"Yeah," I say. "There is."

"We're not sharing a bed," she tells me, already toeing off her boots and curling her feet up onto the mattress.

"Yeah," I say. "I figured as much." I tug one of the blankets onto the floor and lay it out alongside the bed. Then I kick off my own boots, shrug off my jacket, and lay it over my shoulders, lie down and stare up at the ceiling, tucking my hands behind my head.

I hear my little rabbit fuss about on the mattress, then finally lie down herself. I glance over at her. She's curled on her side with her hands tucked under her cheek. Our gazes connect and that sensation in my stomach goes batshit crazy.

I stare back up at the ceiling. What the fuck is wrong with me? I want to consume my little rabbit so badly, it's fucking killing me inside. When I want stuff, I take it. I could take her now. Sure she'd kick up a fuss, probably zap me a hell of a lot with her magic. Hell, she might fucking kill me before I even got started. But that would be half the fun of it, right? That is half the fun of it, right? When they scream and make a fuss?

Fucking and killing. It's not a lot different. That's why they call it la petite mort, right?

But this little rabbit isn't the only one confusing the hell out of me. I'm confusing the hell out of myself.

I'm different. I've known that as long as I've understood what the word meant. It may bother the fuck out of everyone else, but it's never bothered me. So I don't do what I should. So I don't act like I should. Yeah, I'm pretty sure my brain doesn't work like it should. So fucking what?

But this, this is different. Because I'm lying on the floor instead of climbing on top of the girl I want to fuck.

"Renzo," she says into the silence. It's the first time she's used my name like that. It has my head snapping her way. "Thank you for Pip, for those families, for … for those men."

I stare at her. "You know I'd do anything for you, little rabbit. Anything at all."

"I asked you not to kill those men."

"Ahhh," I say, my cheeks tugging upwards. "If you ask me to do something fucking stupid, something that's going to get you hurt, then I'm not going to do it." I shrug and her own cheeks tug up into an expression that makes her look a thousand times prettier.

"I've never had this compulsion before," I confess. "You're the first person I've ever wanted to do anything for."

"Marcus Lowsky?" she points out.

"Not the same." I wet my lips. "He wanted me to kill you and I didn't want to do it. So I didn't. Funny, because there were other times he asked me to do things I thought were fucking stupid, I did them anyway."

"I guess you didn't care enough about those things."

"You think I care about you?" I ask her.

A pink color spreads across her cheeks. Even prettier. "Do you?" she whispers.

"I … I'm not like other people, little rabbit. I see how other people are. They get all scared, all angry, all sad. I was born all wrong. I don't work like other people do." She holds my gaze. "You care about your mates?" I ask her. "The enforcer, the professor, that stuck-up kid?"

"Yes," she says.

"What does that feel like?"

Her eyes flick upwards and she's silent for a moment. "It feels like … the room lights up when you're with them. Like everything is brighter, more colorful and your heart beats so fast you can hardly breathe. And you want to be with them all the time, so much it hurts to be apart." She chews on her lip. "But mostly you want them to be happy, to be safe. That's more important to you than your own happiness, your own safety."

I nod, turning over her words in my head. "Then I do care about you, little rabbit," I conclude. "Because that's how it feels."

The corners of her lips tug upwards again. "You're so fucking confusing," she mumbles.

"What's confusing about this?"

She doesn't answer and I reach up and grab her hand from under her cheek, her breath hitching as I do. I take her hand and lift it back to my face.

"I like it when you touch me, little rabbit," I say, and the darkness of her pupils swims wide.

"I like touching you," she murmurs.

"You do, do you?" I say, my voice darker than her eyes. I shift up onto my knees and tug my shirt over my head. "Then touch me some more, little one," I tell her.

Comments

0 Comments
Best Newest

Contents
Settings
  • T
  • T
  • T
  • T
Font

Welcome to FullEpub

Create or log into your account to access terrific novels and protect your data

Don’t Have an account?
Click above to create an account.

lf you continue, you are agreeing to the
Terms Of Use and Privacy Policy.