Chapter 24

For once, Brynne doesn't wake when I do. I manage to sneak outside and feed the animals alone, but it's lost its luster because she's missing. She's not cursing at Herman or playing with the goats as I work. Her company, even when she's silently reading and ignoring me, is something I've become accustomed to.

I am, however, thankful she's asleep so I can keep my eyes peeled and my senses on high alert without having her in danger. I can't believe they'd found me, and I don't understand why they'd send their calling card now.

It's been five years.

Five years of solitude.

After settling all the animals and putting the eggs inside the kitchen, I grab an extra magazine and move to check the perimeter of the property before I head inside.

I won't be able to think of anything else unless I know she's safe.

Last night serves as the sole reason for today's madness. The way her body felt writhing with mine. How she'd screamed for me. Cried for me. Gagged on me. She's a fucking sickness, and she's spreading.

I'm becoming mad for her, and while she's in my presence, I need to keep her safe. I dropped the ball before, and I won't do it again.

After ensuring the property is empty and all the sensors and cameras are working properly, I head back to the cabin.

Brynne is sprawled across the bed, mouth hung open, and drool leaking out onto her pillow. I bite my lip, imagining that it's my cum seeping out. Shaking my head at myself, I tiptoe into the bathroom, getting into the shower and washing.

Images of her last night were going to make it hard to take her home, but I know she's not safe with me. I know I'll never be able to move on from her, either. She's becoming a part of me.

After lathering and rinsing, I step out and towel off, tying the towel around my hips as I take a good, hard look in the mirror.

I sigh, reaching under the counter for my clippers and putting a guard on to take my beard down to something more manageable. The guttural moans when my facial hair moves with my mouth over Brynne's center are the entire reason I'm not clean-shaving it right now. Using a level three-guard, I leave a good couple of inches behind, though I wonder if she'll like the way I look beneath the rugged facial hair.

Just as I'm finishing, my phone pings with an alert. It takes a solid moment before I realize it's a perimeter sensor going off. I scramble for my phone, nearly knocking it off the counter.

Opening up the camera app, I click on the square lighting up in red, telling me which section has been infiltrated. Two men move through the wintry morning in full, black tactical gear, heads on swivels.

They're here.

It's unlike my family, not giving me enough time to respond, but we don't know how long that paper had been in the chicken coop, either.

I rush into the closet, dressing in jeans and strapping a gun around my thigh, adding one to my side, too. Slipping into a bulletproof vest, I look over to Brynne.

"Brynne, wake up!" I shout gruffly, grabbing another gun from the safe in my closet, and making sure it's fully loaded.

She sits up, the blanket falling and full breasts on display. "Huh?" She looks around in confusion before wiping drool from her face.

Stalking over to the side of the bed, I hand her the gun, eyeing her sternly. "Men have come for me. I need you to get dressed and get into the basement. The door is bulletproof. Lock it behind you. Do you understand me?"

Fear skitters across her face before she nods.

I turn and slip into a jacket. But before I make it to the door, she's on me, hugging me around the middle from behind.

"Be careful," she pleads.

I rest my hands on hers, leaning my head back, but I'm too tall for the back of mine to reach hers. "I will. Do as I told you, please. I can't worry about you and do what I need to."

"I will, Slate."

I squeeze her hands once more before moving out of the house. Checking the feeds, I find they've gotten one sensor closer. Too close to my girl for my liking.

I pull my gun, keeping both hands on it and my eyes on the lookout. In this snow, they'll stand out like two sore thumbs. Easy to pick off.

Likely, they'd underestimated the terrain. Which is my gain.

But it'll be Enzo's loss. He should've given me time to come in.

I hear one of them tell the other to keep low, and I bound behind a tree, holding my gun steady before me so that when they come into range, I can take them unaware.

"We're almost there," one of them announces, and they're close enough that I know I can take them.

I push away from the tree, shooting one in the neck instantly, and he falls, gurgles coming from his mouth as he takes his last few breaths.

"Drop it," I warn, finger on the trigger, apt and ready.

The other man smiles, and it's not until the cold barrel of a rifle touches my neck, do I realize why.

They were ready for me.

It was a trap.

* * *

"We thoughtyou'd come if we called," the one in front of me says with an obvious New York accent.

I can't place his face, but likely Enzo has gained many men in the days following his transition to Don.

"Well, I'm a sucker for men in black," I snarl as the one beside me presses the gun into my neck.

"You'll be coming with us, and you're going to go nice and quiet. Or Brutus here is going to put one in your fucking kneecap. The boss wants you unharmed. So, we'd hate to disobey."

"Yeah, but you know I have that twitchy trigger finger, Cap," Brutus says ruefully.

I smirk at their banter. It's been a long time since I've been in the presence of like-minded men. I didn't realize how much I'd missed it.

The man in front of me snickers. "I forgot about that. You'd best behave. Any wrong move and Brutus might startle and shoot that pretty face off."

I roll my eyes, but I also know when to shut my mouth. So I do.

Brutus digs the barrel into my neck, urging me forward towards the other man, and I go willingly.

Enzo is going to pay for this shit. I was coming in peacefully. Now, nothing about our reuniting is going to be peaceful.

"That's a good b—" the one in front of me starts, but a bullet shoots through the back of one of his knees, and he falls to the ground, I duck out of the way, in case it makes its way back out the front.

"Fuck! Who's out there? Shot my fucking knee off!"

Brutus swivels his head around, rifle ready to strike as he moves to cover his fallen man. But another bullet cracks through the still, cold air, this time hitting the man through the neck. He falls over.

"Cap?" Brutus shouts, leaning down just enough to check his boss's pulse.

He snarls, looking at me. "Who the fuck is out there, hmm?"

I shrug because I honestly don't know.

He sees the honesty on my face and takes a few steps toward where the bullets had come from before another shot rings out and he gurgles blood from his mouth.

He hits his knees, gun getting off one round before he topples over dead.

"What the fuck?" I mouth, looking around and staying low.

Racing footsteps pound through the snow, a crunching accompanying them, along with pants of fear. "Slate?"

I whip my head around to Brynne, who's in her boots, leggings, and one of my jackets that swallows her whole. She's got a rifle, that I assume she got out of the open safe I'd left behind. Her face is filled with worry.

"What have I done?" she whispers, but I catch it.

"Bunny! I told you to stay put!" I snarl, getting off the ground and pulling her to me.

She's shaking uncontrollably, and it's not from the cold.

"And you can admit later that you're glad I didn't. I had a bad feeling, Slate. I never ignore them."

I remember Brutus's dying shot with his twitchy trigger finger and tugging her back, looking her over.

"I'm fine. I'm alright."

I nod, letting the tension leave me as I look around to be certain we're alone.

"It was a trap," I snarl, looking at the fallen men and pools of cooling blood on the snow.

"Hence the bad feeling." She nods.

"Was that your first kill, baby girl?" I ask, hands cupping her face to get her frantic eyes to focus on me.

Tears brim in her eyes as she nods, lower lip trembling.

"I don't even know why I… I just acted. I couldn't let them…" She's in shock, I realize.

I don't know what kind of damage this is going to leave behind in her mind, but I pray not as much as it has in my own.

"Well, there are things we do now," I tell her.

She looks around at the fallen men, continuing to shake.

"First, you're going to wear their blood. As it's your first kill, you're going to coat yourself in the blood you've spilled."

She looks at me. "What?"

I nod. "You took a life. It's no small thing. Come, I'll show you. You're not alone in this. I've got you, baby girl."

She softens as I grab her hand, taking the rifle from her and slinging it around my shoulder to my back.

I kneel by the first man, waiting for her to do the same. When she does, I say, "Give me your hand."

She complies quickly, obviously wanting to get this over with.

I grab her wrist, turning her hand palm down and skimming her fingers through the first man's blood.

"Now, as with hunting, mark yourself."

She was raised by a survivalist; she knows what I'm talking about.

Raising two fingers, she marks across her forehead. I don't have to coax her further. She moves to the next man, marking her cheek with his blood.

I do the same with my own victim.

"We'll wear their blood forever, even after it washes away. A mark of honor because we survived them. But also a mark of shame because we ended a life before its time. Sometimes death is a necessary action, Brynne, but it doesn't mean it won't bother us. I wear the blood of all my victims, no matter how vile they were, before I put them down."

She rushes me, and I envelop her tightly into my body.

"Thank you for saving my life, bunny," I whisper into her hair, the metallic tang of blood wafting off both of us through the crisp breeze.

When she pulls back, her eyes are frenzied, but not with fear. Adrenaline can have this effect on its victims.

She stands on tiptoe to reach my mouth in a delirious kiss that takes me right into distressed instability with her. Lifting her, I move over the bodies, slamming her back into a tree.

She moans, breaking the kiss when I slip my hand down the front of her leggings.

"I need," she begs breathlessly.

"Daddy knows what you need, baby girl."

Her pussy is drenched and greedy, taking in my fingers as her hips gyrate in small circles. She needs to come down. She's too high. Too terrified.

Wielding death will do that to a person. It exhilarates while taking fear to the point of becoming overwhelming.

When I pull my hand back, she whimpers. I set her on the ground.

"Pants," I tell her, opening my own and freeing my aching cock, stroking it as the cold slithers across it.

She takes one leg out, fighting to get it over her boot, and her pants slide down the remaining leg, hitting the snow.

She hooks one leg around me as I find her entrance and thrust inside her.

She fights on her remaining leg to stay upright, but I can't stop. She feels too good, and we both need to come down.

"Fuck, bunny. Who are you?" I growl, kissing her roughly.

She answers back with her own intensity, lips nearly bruising mine as our teeth clash.

I never thought I'd find a woman meant for me. Even though I know it's selfish, I want to keep her. To hide her away from the fucking world.

She's the only one who will ever see me. The only one who seems capable of finding me in the dark.

"I don't know," she whimpers when I hit just the right angle and she breaks our kiss. "But I'm slowly finding out since I met you."

Her words mean more to me than she can even fathom, and it spurs me on.

Bending my knees, I angle even further upward, knowing my dick is creating a pressure she won't be able to take for long.

She'll come like my good girl right after she spilled blood for me on the ashen snow.

"Slate, so close…Oh!" She doesn't fight it, only lets her head fall back as she comes.

Watching her breaks me, and I fuck into her as hard as her body will allow as an orgasm rips through me.

She shudders the last of her pleasure as I finally stop jerking and pull out of her.

My fingers find her sopping wet with cum, and I shove them inside her.

She hisses but doesn't protest. When I've thoroughly coated them, I pull them out.

She eyes me warily; a satisfied look takes up residence in her eyes. I wipe the cum on her face, biting my lip as she gasps prettily for me.

"You'll wear this as your badge of honor, too. Because you're mine."

She bites her lip as she nods. "I'm yours," she rasps, and I crouch to help her back into her leggings.

She looks around and surveys the scene. "What do we do now?"

"Now, I take you back home so I can bury the bodies. That part, Daddy can handle."

She smiles warmly at me, but I can tell she's still reeling from what's just happened.

"En face de la mort, on comprend mieux la vie," Brynne says softly. — "In the face of death, we understand life better."

I nod. "Oui." — "Yes."