Page 47 of Body Tox

She started to get off, but I held her tighter.

“You can go back to torturing me later. Right now, be still, and let me hold you, woman.”

She gasped but laid back down without a word.

We lay there in silence, the sirens eventually dying out, the sounds of her silent tears quieting finally, too.

The woman who’d set fire to two different buildings and was trying to kill me had just closed her eyes and fallen asleep on my chest. My wrists were damn near breaking, the cutting metal sinking into my skin, but I didn’t let go. I just held her until I fell asleep.

When I woke up, Echo was staring at me. She was sitting in a criss-crossed pose on the side of the stone slab, watching me with a puzzled look. Her hair was wet, and that soot that covered her face had been washed away.

Now, her radiant beauty was shining on her face, enhanced by the light from the hole in the ceiling. The sunlight felt brighter than usual. It was lighting up the room around us, but then I heard church bells and the sound of shuffling underneath us.

Looked like mass was in session.

“Are you going to atone for your devilish deeds, Little Wraith?” I mused, yawning and stretching my body where I was able.

It hadn’t escaped my attention that she’d adjusted the chains, and I had more slack for my arms. They weren’t directly above my head anymore, and the constant dizziness I’d felt the night before was less upon waking up.

“Come on,” she said, scooting off the stone and walking over to a box on a wooden fixture in the room.

There were all kinds of tools and materials up here. Rugs that had been rolled up, forgotten, glass containers, and rusted implements were littered all over the ground and on random tables spread around the area.

There was a window on the far side of the small space and a trap door that I assumed went down to the main prayer room.

I didn’t know a thing about this place, and I was kicking myself for not reading any layout or blueprint plans for it. I knew most of the blueprints of every building in Alaska, yet this church remained a mystery.

The only thing I knew about it was the creeps that put on robes and collected idiots to sacrifice. I wondered if Echo knew about the origins of this place or the cult.

“Are we going on a field trip?” I said, watching the little fiery blonde fiddle with that box at the back of the table.

“I am not asking, Asher,” she warned, and now I could see the golden metal she held in her hands.

It was a knife—actually a big ass curved dagger. One that looked lethal, and the memory of the gold flashed in my mind from the video.

Curious as ever, my little mystery.

“Ah, so this is your paintbrush?” I teased, enjoying the freedom with my damn arms again. I stuffed my hands under my head. “I prefer to stay at the murder castle.”

A slight twerk of her brow told me she definitely didn’t know what this place was.

“How long did they keep you in that tower, princess?” I said, laughing.

She didn’t laugh. She walked closer to me with her pointy friend.

“What do you know, Pretty Boy?”

I shrugged innocently, and she lunged at me, her knife tickling my neck.

“You sure do love playing with knives, don’t you? Be careful because those shiny tips bite, baby. Like me.”

She smiled. That beautiful, teasing look was back where it belonged.

“I know they bite,” she said proudly, unbuttoning her jeans and bringing those milky thighs into my view. “But today, I’m more interested in hearing yourbark, Vamps.”

My eyes widened, and I couldn’t help but desperately watch her hand as she slid that damned knife over her thigh. Her moanmade me instantly hard. I had to hold my breath, my humor dying off like my strangled hard-on.

She had my boxers half on, and the band was threatening to snap me in the stomach.

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