Page 57 of Black Heart

Night vision illuminates my path forward, but I can’t shake the taste of Layla’s concern along with her arousal off my tongue. It’s a sweet mixture that sticks in my throat, but beneath it lies something else: trust.

It’s an unfamiliar flavor, and it distracts me for a moment too long.

The intruder lunges from the side, crashing into me with a grunt reminiscent of a wild boar ramming into its enemy. We stumble against a wall, his sweaty palm pressing against my throat as he tries to kick my legs out from under.

But I stand, immovable as the roots of the old oak out front. His body struggles against mine, and the taste of blood—that alloyed tang—singes my tongue as his fist connects with my mouth.

But he’s just another raindrop in the storm outside. He is not my equal.

Faster than he can track, I twist, snapping his hold on my throat. I hammer my elbow into his gut, savoring the pained wheeze he emits as I drive it home again and again—until he doubles over. A swift knee to his face sends him sprawling across the hardwood, his body thudding painfully against a corner table.

Before he can recover, I’m on him. One moment he’s struggling to rise, and the next his world is reduced to agony and blindness as my boot connects with the side of his skull.

His body crumples beneath me, twitching feebly in its death throes.

There’s an odd comfort in the stillness following such violence. The cessation of movement, the fading heat from a body now slowly cooling.

I rummage quickly through his pockets, discovering nothing but a cheap wallet and a burner phone with a single number dialed multiple times. No ID. They never carry identification.

One down. How many more to go?

I toss the wallet onto the dead man’s chest, then go still. The hair on the back of my neck rises. It’s too quiet. I turn, scanning the room for any signs of movement.

The unmistakable footsteps of another prowling hunter draws my attention to the left. There’s a second living pulse in this house.

Can he hear my heart pounding with adrenaline? Or does he mistake it for fear?

I drag the first intruder’s body into the open, arranging him on the living room floor, before searching one of Layla’s side tables, finding what I need, then procuring a knife from my boot and driving it through his hand, pinning a note between.

A brief glance tells me his time of death: 1:03 a.m. I take a cheap plastic watch out of my pocket, wind the hands to that time, then drop it on the note, rivulets of blood winding through the ink.

I’m sending a clear message: this is the Scythe’s territory.

Breathing heavily, I turn my back on the lifeless intruder sprawled out behind me. The silence stretches thin again, only punctuated by the soft patter of rain against age-old glass and wood. Yet beneath its rhythmic lull is the slight rustle of fabric and a muffled breath.

I allow myself a small, brutal smile behind my mask.

Positioning myself at the end of the long hallway, I wait for him to come to me. The intruder’s flashlight beam sweeps across the walls, inching closer until he pauses with a quick inhale of breath.

Looks like he found his friend.

The beam of light arcs toward me with an unsteady sweep.

“Who’s there? Who thefuckdid this?”

I press against the wall, keeping quiet.

As the flashlight nears, ricocheting between the walls without caution, I reach out, lightning-fast, and break the flashlight’s lens. The sudden plunge into darkness is followed by a startled curse.

Before the intruder can say more, my hand clamps over the man’s mouth, muffling any sound. The other drives a knife between his ribs.

I lean in close, my mask’s lips brushing the dying man’s ear.

“She’s mine,” I whisper, twisting the knife. “You never stood a chance.”

I ease the body to the floor, already alert for the next target. The entire encounter has lasted less than ten seconds.

My pulse quickens, a mix of bloodlust and another, deeper starvation.

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