Chapter 8

She's so fucking beautiful. I've watched her from afar all these months since they've been on the run. But up close? She's the most dangerously beautiful thing I've ever seen. Touching her would be like holding a fucking star in the palm of my hand.

I'm not usually someone who gets obsessed with things, but one look at her changed all that.

I killed before I trekked down this road of murder and mayhem.

Only once, and I told myself that was it. I was never doing it again. But the way she did it—how she looked death in the face and let guilt fall away—was eloquent. She was like a black widow luring her dinner into her home with a serene smile on her face and happiness in her eyes.

She was unhinged.

The kind of lunacy that lives in her is one any man would die to touch.

And now it's all mine.

It's been two days since I took her away from Crows Hollow. Stole her from the Butcher himself.

I've gotten hundreds of miles between me and him.

I'll need all the miles between us to do what I want to his precious Lyla.

The closer I got, the more I realized he wasn't good for her. He didn't love her; if he did, he didn't show it.

She deserves to be coveted and cherished.

She deserves not to be called stupid at every turn.

The other night had been the last fucking straw. After I handed her the booties and watched her try to find me, I crept to the window and watched her look over my work.

The subtle way she'd rubbed her thighs together and shifted from foot to foot wasn't apparent to anyone in the room. But I saw it. I pressed my face to the glass, too. Her breathing had slowed, and her nipples were peaked beneath her jacket. She tried to shift them more than once to get them to relax.

She was impressed.

Even more, she was turned on by what I'd done, how I'd emulated her Butcher and improved upon his methods.

She's still unconscious, pulled under by the injections I've been keeping on board. I don't need her rousing while we're driving. I'll wait until we're there before letting her come to.

There were two knives on her person and a gun hidden in her boot, but she had drawn none of them. Had she been waiting for the perfect moment to pull them on me? Or had she felt what I had? The lure to the depths of someone just like her.

Someone who sees every part of her and doesn't balk at it.

Finding someone with whom you can be your entire self is rare, yet the Butcher had that in her and didn't return the favor. He molded her into his little plaything, never giving her the affection and admiration she deserved.

He'll come for her. But when he does, I'll be ready.

Her hand rests on the edge of the seat, fingers curling daftly over the leather. Every so often, my eyes flick over to her perfectly manicured red nails, and my mouth salivates.

What would her nail look like amongst the many others I've collected?

The thought makes my stomach sour. I shake away from the vile idea. She's not like them. She, herself, is the trophy.

Turning back to the road, I let time and the worries of what's coming disappear.

Because she's mine now, and nothing can take away this feeling.

Once we arrived,I secured her to the bed. My parents are long dead, and this cabin was willed to me, though this is my first time using it. I'm confident this isn't what my parents thought I'd do with it.

You might assume that someone like me, a sociopath, would have been raised in a dilapidated trailer on the less desirable side of town. If you believed that, however, you would be mistaken.

Both my parents were doctors, and I was brought up well.

I still have many happy memories of being in this lake house.

But I knew I was different the first time I saw a dead body at work with Dad.

It was solidified by the first time I snapped and shoved a broken beer bottle through Billy Somner's face at a college party.

No shock had come after, nor had guilt.

I'd disposed of his body and gotten away with his murder as if nothing happened. The news spouted on and on about him until, one day, they stopped.

I told myself I could control the urges, and I did—until her.

She lit a flame in me that'll never go out again. It showed me how to be free of societal constraints and ideals.

She groans as she turns over on the bed, tugging her cuffs along the metal rods of the headboard with her. "Fuck."

The drugs I used are some of the best on the market, but they're going to be a bitch to wake from.

She seems to recall what happened before her three-day nap suddenly and gasps. She tries to sit up but can't, and her frantic eyes open.

She doesn't know how to do this, I realize.

She doesn't know how to be the victim instead of the one with the weapon and control.

"Good morning, oleander," I drawl.

She looks me over in the light of day, drinking every detail with her calculating green eyes.

She was his nurse. I learned a lot while I stalked her. I devoured information from the articles that spoke of how her mother and friends searched tirelessly for her.

He somehow got into her psyche and unlocked the monster that was there all along, convincing her to release him and run away with him. Or was it the other way around?

I've been more than curious since encountering her in that club.

I'm too curious for my own good.

"Who are you?" she rasps, and I stand, grabbing a water bottle.

Once the top is off, I lean over the edge of the bed. She doesn't balk; she only opens her mouth to what she's offered. She's nothing like them.

I consider the repercussions of her knowing my name and can't come up with any.

"Kage Davis," I offer.

She takes in my name and looks over my face as I give her a few more mouthfuls of water, watching how her throat contracts and moves as she swallows.

"You saw me kill that man in the club," she recalls from our earlier encounter in the shed.

I nod once. "I did. He was a friend. Though not a very good one. He was always putting his foot in his mouth. I always told him it would get his ass beat one day. I guess you did him one better."

Despite herself, she fights a smirk.

Something in my chest warms.

"You're going to kill me, then?" Her voice has no fear, though I know it has to lurk somewhere beneath the surface.

I bite my bottom lip, drawing her eyes down my face. "No, I don't think so, at least. I have you to thank for showing me who I truly am and for allowing me to take the hand of my baser nature."

She swallows, this time with no water in her mouth.

There's that pesky fear I was looking for.

She stows it, laying back on the pillow further. "He's coming for you."

Her words give her the upper hand. Though I'm a skilled killer, the Butcher is the stuff of legend. Going up against him won't be easy, though I don't think he'll be able to find us, even if he figures out who I am.

"I'll deal with him when he comes," I tell her, skimming my fingertips over the exposed skin of her stomach where her shirt has ridden up.

Gooseflesh rises to meet my touch.

"Don't fucking touch me," she says, but my eyes flick to hers as I hear the wobble in her unsure tone.

She's sure he's coming for her, but she's unsure of how her body's reacting to me.

"You killed them because of me?" she asks, her voice low and shaky.

I shake my head, fisting the sheets next to her body. "I killed them for you, Lyla."

"Why?" Her brows crease with genuine curiosity tugging on them.

"Because you're worth it. Because you belong to me. Because you deserve more."

She laughs, making me shift on the edge of the bed. Anger rises inside me and growls when I beat it back down to keep from harming her and from touching her with malice.

"I'm a fucking killer, Kage. I've killed people I don't know, stolen their lives from them because it fucking felt good. I went from someone who swore to do no harm to someone who licks other's blood off my blade. What I already have, I don't deserve."

I scoff, turning away from her and trying to regain control of my reaction to her. To the rage simmering beneath my skin.

"You don't deserve to be called stupid. You don't deserve to be disregarded like he does. You deserve to hear that you're loved!" I shout, losing myself and throwing the water bottle against the wall near the window.

It's snowing outside—a stark contrast to the blazing fire in the room between Lyla and me.

"And you love me?" she asks, a joking lilt in her tone that grates against my already fraying nerves.

I crawl back onto the bed, hovering over her body and dropping my face close to hers.

I breathe her in as she turns her face, my nose skimming from jaw to temple. "I could. And once I did, I'd tell you every chance I got."

She snaps her face back towards me, and the swift change throws me off. I back off some, assessing her from above. "You know nothing about love, then. You're just as inexperienced as a boy trying to get his dick wet for the first time."

I growl, bouncing the bed as I get off it in a flash of rage. The headboard teeters and hits the wall behind it, likely scuffing the flowered wallpaper my mother loved so much.

It was her mother's before her.

"Your tongue is sharp!"

She wiggles her body into the mattress, getting comfortable. With a smile, she says, "Oleander has a bite. Have you ever tasted it before?"

Her using the name I'd given her as a weapon has me grinding my teeth audibly.

Erupting out of the room and into the living room, I unsheathe the blade from the back of my pants and throw it across the room. Its tip pierces through the wall, the hilt wavering back and forth from the force.

Maybe what I saw of her was a facade because the woman lying on my parents' bed currently has a lot more fire in her than I thought she did.

I thought she was his puppet, and now I'm wondering what kind of mess I've gotten myself into by stealing from him.

As I look back towards the bedroom door, I smirk wickedly.

At least while I have the chance, I'll play with her.

He can have back what's left over when I'm done.