Page 65 of Bird on a Blade

“I don’t know what I’m going to do,” Edie whispers, breaking the spell. “All these people you’ve—” The slightest beat of a pause “—killed, they can all be traced to me. I’m anaccomplice, and?—”

“And I’m a Hunter.” I pull away so I can gaze down at her, the fear in her eyes gorgeous and tantalizing even if I don’t necessarily want her tofeelscared. I just like what I like, that’s all. “The cops aren’t gonna do shit to you. To either of us.” I run my thumb along her cheek, over her lips. “And I know you don’t want to talkabout him, but neither is that ex-husband. We’ll figure something out.”

Edie’s eyes are glossy. “I’m scared.”

I smile. “I know. I can smell it on you.” I kiss her before she can say something about that, and then I taste her fear, too, a spiced sweetness that reminds me of Christmas. “But I’m here, baby.” I ghost her lips with my lips, breathe in the steam that smells entirely of her. “And I’m not leaving you to the wolves.”

She shudders against me and then kisses my neck.

We don’t talk much after that. I wash the blood off her, rubbing my thin little washcloth over her skin until all the blood is gone. She does the same to me, her movements slow and measured. When we get out of the shower, I pick her up, still wet, and sit her on the edge of the tile counter so I can tend to the cuts I made across her chest.

“Your hand is worse,” she starts, but I shush her. I dig out the witch hazel Mama taught me to always keep on hand and rub it over her cuts to clean them. Then I pat them dry and dress them with some thin bandages, kissing the tape into place. I won’t lie that it feels fucking odd to dress someone else’s wounds. I’ll dress my own, sure, but I’m more interested in splitting flesh than putting it back together. But Edie’s different. Of course she is.

Only when I’m finished do I let her look at my hand. It’s still oozing blood a little, and it burns like hell, although I’m numb to that kind of mild pain most of the time. It gets worse when Edie looks at it, somehow. I spread her knees so I can settle between her thighs as she rubs cotton pads of witch hazel over the cut, dropping them aside as they fill up with my blood. Then she winds my hand up with a bandage with this determined look on her face, like she doesn’t want to mess up.

“Feel better?” I say when she finishes.

She looks at me. “You were bleeding everywhere.”

“Yeah, well, there’s a lot more than justmyblood to clean up.” I grin at her, and she blushes and looks away.

“I can’t believe I asked you to do that.”

I’m not sure if she means me cutting her or me killing that asshole who attacked her. But when I make her look at me, my response is true in either case. “And I hope you ask me to do it again.”

Her lips part; her pupils expand. I’m sure she’s leaving a streak of wetness on my bathroom tiles that has nothing to do with the lingering humidity from the shower.

“I think,” she whispers, trembling. “I think I will.”

Lust courses through me. I get down on my knees for her, hoisting her thighs onto my shoulders, and press my mouth to her cunt. It’s somehow wetter than I was expecting. Edie slides back, tilting her hips to give me access, and I eat her like I’m starving to death, plunging my tongue up inside her pussy and flicking it over her clit. She grabs at my still-wet hair, pressing my head into her cunt and holding it there. I like it, that forcefulness. How different it is from that first night I made her come, when she was still scared of me. When we both still thought I might kill her for real.

She comes on my tongue, her moans echoing through the bathroom. I barely let her come down before I slide my cock inside her, fucking her one more time before I have to go out of this steamy bathroom that smells like my perfect prey and face the mess and the body and whatever comes next.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

EDIE

Irun the sponge over the altar, leaving a trail of pink, soapy water in its wake. Sawyer told me to leave it, that he’d take care of it after he disposed of Logan Greer’s body out in the deep part of the woods. But I couldn’t stand seeing the mess every time I walked through the church—which was often, considering how I kept pacing around, my heart thrumming nervously in my chest.

Who the hell have I become?

I dip the sponge into the bucket. I found both stashed in the little hall closet across from the bathroom—along with a pair of yellow dishwashing gloves. Whenever I think of what happened earlier, I’m shocked by what Idon’tfeel.

I don’t feel disgust.

I don’t feel horror.

I don’t feel frightened—at least, not of Sawyer. Everything else, though? The risk of getting caught? The revelation that Scottisactively trying to kill me? The fact that I have no idea what my future could possibly look like now?

That leaves me cold and quaking.

Cleaning up the mess of the altar helps push it aside, though,and here I can at least pretend that the blood only belongs to me and Sawyer. Becausethatpart of earlier?—

Well, let’s just say I keep finding myself pressing my thighs together at the memory, squeezing them against my clit.

I slop more water on the altar and run the sponge over it in broad strokes. The water seems to rehydrate the blood, and it feels like I’m just pushing it around, making more of a mess. Clearly, I’m not cut out for cleaning up a crime scene.

I squeeze out the sponge and grab the towel I’ve been using to blot up the bloody water.Finally. It looks like I’m starting to make some progress.

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