Page 47 of The Fire Went Wild

A pause. The weight of the swamp bears down on us. Then he says, “It was a prayer.”

This is the last thing I expect. I blink out my surprise. Jaxon shifts, rustling the plants. “We should go back.”

“Youpray?”

Jaxon’s stare is heavy in the dark. “Not to the god you’re thinking of, no. But yes. I pray.”

“Then what god?—”

“Don’t worry about it.” His voice is sharp-edged. A warning. “We need to go back to the house.”

Suddenly, I’m plunged back into reality. I can’t go back there. I’mfree.

“No.”

Jaxon moves so fast that it’s like he doesn’t move at all. One minute he’s in the shadows. The next he has me pinned up against the tree by the wrists, my hands pressed flat against the trunk. He glares at me, his expression twisted and terrifying.

“We need,” he says in a slow, even voice, “to go back to the house.”

I try to twist away from him, but it’s no use. He presses his forehead against mine, squeezes my wrists a little tighter.

“I’ll drag you back there if I have to,” he mutters.

I lash out with my leg and knee him in the balls. He grunts, grins, twists me around so my belly presses against the trunk instead of my back.

“Stop fighting me,” he says, low and terrifying. A reminder that he’s a killer. No amount of orgasms is going to change that. “I’m not letting you go.”

“Why not?” I try to look at him over my shoulder, my cheek pressed against the tree. He looks like the monster he is—hair wild, eyes burning, blood smeared across his skin.

I try not to think about the blood smeared across my skin, too.

“I can’t,” he says darkly. “Now, you can come willingly and behave yourself, and I won’t chain you to the bed again.”

I consider spitting in his face, but I suspect he’d enjoy it.

“And if I don’t come willingly?”

He rolls his eyes. “No matter where you go in this swamp, I’ll find you. I know it better than you can possibly imagine.” His lips curl back, and he shows me his white, shiny teeth, like he’s a predator. Heisa predator. “And then we’ll be right back to where we are now. So you might as well make it easy on yourself.”

I want to fight back. I really, really do. But I’ve already seen what he’s capable of. Stalking me in the pitch-black wilderness. Tearing men’s heads from their bodies.

Coming back from the fucking dead.

“If I go with you,” I say. “Will you tell me what the fuck is going on?”

His fingers loosen around my wrists, and he steps back. I hate myself for it, but I miss the dangerous press of his body against mine. “I’ll explain why I’m not dead,” he says.

Which is fair enough, but there’s more that I want to know, too.

“Tell me where Edie is.” I turn around to face him. His shoulders hitch, and he looks out at the swamp again. Brushes his hair out of his eyes.

“I can’t do that just yet,” he says, after a beat. “I’ll tell you what I can. She really is safe, by the way.”

“More or less?” It’s mocking, the way it comes out.

“She’s safe,” he says, more firmly. “The person she’s with—he won’t let anything bad happen to her. Okay? Happy?”

“Who’s she with?” I’m getting more and more irritated by his constant games.

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