Page 51 of Haunted By the Shadow of Death

Death was waiting for me there.

“Why didn’t you kill her?” Death said, glaring at me.

“Because I didn’t want her dead. Why did you?”

“She betrayed you and would’ve caused a threat to you and the pack. You don’t leave people like that alive.”

Now she was worried about the pack? She’d just killed two of them off. I wasn’t discussing it, not right now. We had to get out of here before anyone returned and the death toll grew.

I grabbed our bags, trying to ignore her presence.

Kicks stood at the bottom of the stairs, shirtless but with pants that were only slightly torn and blood-splattered.

The blood didn’t bother me. It was as if I were becoming numb to the remnants of death, especially if I hadn’t caused it.

What I wasn’t used to was being near Kicks after he’d shifted. There was an intrinsic feeling of unpredictability as the energy coursed off him and seemed to squeeze out all the air in the room until all you could sense, breathe, feel, was him.

He tilted his head toward the door, and I nodded. He walked out, not asking what had happened upstairs, even though he must have heard the thump of Blondie hitting the floor.

He headed toward the bike that was parked out front. I got on behind him, and for once, there was no fear that I’d take him out. Right now, it felt as if he were indestructible.

I wrapped my arms around him, taking the excuse to hold on a little tighter than needed. Was this what life would be now?

Chapter Twenty-Two

Kicks drove the bike off the road, stopping in the middle of nowhere. We both got off, neither of us speaking as he unpacked his bag from the back and tossed it on the ground.

Were we stopping here for the night? It looked that way, but I was too raw, the feeling of darkness nagging at me, to ask him with the way his energy felt. I was afraid I’d be the spark to his bomb, or maybe vice versa. I wasn’t sure who would blow first.

Kicks walked over to the edge of the woods and then stopped, his back to me. “Don’t ever get in between me and the enemy,” he said, his voice low.

“I was trying to help.” I was too raw to have this argument, but it was unavoidable.

He turned to face me, his eyes burning. “I know exactly what you were doing, but they could’ve hurt you.”

“I was trying to stop it from escalating. I was trying to salvage the situation before it went exactly as it did,” I shot back, all the tension I’d had bottled up set to explode.

“There was no salvaging that situation.” He spoke like it was an absolute, his jaw set.

“We don’t know that.”

“I know you shouldn’t have put yourself in between me and them. That’s not the world we live in anymore. You can’t be that reckless,” he said, his voice rising and the distance closing between us.

“I’m not some helpless little girl. I can kill with a touch. They. Weren’t. Taking. Me,” I said.

“You have no control over what you’re doing. What if it didn’t work?” he said.

He was so close I had to arch my neck back. “I was fine. Their hurting me wasn’t a problem, but you wouldn’t even listen.”

“If you want a man that’s going to sit back when you’re threatened, that’s not me. You knew who I was when you mated me,” he said.

“And you know who I am. Not exactly helpless,” I replied. I wouldn’t even talk about how I’d been waiting to jump into the fray if he needed me.

Our gazes burned into each other’s, the tension between us thick and palpable. My eyes slipped downward, to his mouth. I forced them back up, but it was too late. He could feel the attraction, see it in my eyes.

Before I could step back, his arms wrapped around me. His lips found mine. Instead of wanting to push away, I wanted to sink into him even more. His kiss obliterated my consciousness, overwhelming me with the raw emotions neither of us could put into words. It was as if all the tension, the fear, the anger collided in this one moment. I wanted to stay this way, to forget what had just happened and let the moment sweep me away.

His hands moved to my waist, pulling me closer as I tangled my fingers in his hair, grabbing on to him. Every brush of his lips, the feel of his tongue over mine, made me grab on tighter, arch into him.

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