Page 51 of The Fire Went Wild

“Right,” Jaxon says, shifting around. “Yeah. So—“ He takes a deep breath. “You did kill me earlier tonight. Technically.”

“Technically?” I shake my head, irritation bubbling up in my chest. “Will you stop dancing around and just tell me what you are? I know you were dead. I saw it. But now—” I gesture at him.

“I can’t die,” he finally says. “I’m—well, I’m not sure what we actually are. When I was growing up, my grandparents called us the Elect. But I’ve heard us called boogeymen. Hunters, too. That’s the most common name for us, at least around here.”

I stare at him with bafflement. “That doesn’t really—explain anything.”

“Because there’s no way to explain it,” he says. “I am what I am. I can’t die. And I have this—” He hesitates for a minute, eyes boring into mine with an intensity that makes my blood surge. “I have to kill, or else I lose my mind.”

That last bit hangs between us like the mist curling up from the swamp. I want to tell him it sounds like he’s already lost his mind, but I bite back the urge. Because the first half of what he said, that he can’t die—I saw it. I saw it, and I tried so hard to doubt it, but in the end, I was just lying to myself.

So if that part’s true, then it’s a lot easier to accept the rest of it, too.

“There are others,” I say slowly. “Like you.”

Jaxon nods, guarded caution moving across his features. I squeeze my coffee cup and look down at the dark, glossy surface.

“Edie,” I say softly. “She’s with one of them, isn’t she? Another—another Hunter?”

I’m just guessing, but when I glance back up at Jaxon, I know immediately I guessed correctly. He looks—relieved, almost.

“Yeah,” he says. “But like I told you, she’s safe. I’m not telling you anything more.”

My body buzzes.An old friend from high school.But what if that old friend wasn’t from high school, at all?

“She’s with Sawyer Caldwell, isn’t she?” I whisper. “The Fat Camp Killer?”

Jaxon flits his gaze away. Doesn’t say anything. But that’s all the answer I need.

I feel numb. Confused. And suddenly, very very tired.

“Can I take a shower?” I say. It’s the only thing that makes sense right now.

There it is, again, that expression of relief. He nods. Pushes himself out of the chair. “Yeah, of course. Just—” He looks at me again with a black intensity, and I shiver because it reminds me of the way he looked at me in the swamp as he thrust his cock inside me and choked me into an orgasm.

It reminds me that I liked it.

“Just don’t do anything stupid,” he says, and I know he meansescape.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

JAXON

It’s the middle of the day, the winter sun is bright and pale, and Charlotte’s asleep in her bedroom. I didn’t chain her to the bed this time, but I did lock the door.

Because I really,reallycan’t let her escape now. Not when she knows what I am. When she knows what Sawyer is.

What she is.

I couldn’t bring myself to tell her when she asked about it on the porch, even though I felt the Unnamed whispering in my thoughts that she needed to know the truth.There’s something on her, it said,something strangling her soul.Then my Guardian chimed in, its voice harsh and raspy:He must break that binding first.

Telling her will break it!

Telling her will breakher!

Have you ever tried to have a conversation with a beautiful woman while two ancient gods argue in your head? I’m surprised I made it through unscathed.

Anyway, she’s sleeping now. I checked on her a few minutes ago, and she was curled up on the bed in the little silky nightgown from her suitcase. The temptation to crawl into thebed and play with her unmoving body nearly overwhelmed me, but I refrained. Partly because I didn’t want her to try and kill me again, to test to see if what I told her was true, and partially because I need to clear out these two actual dead bodies from my yard.

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