Page 68 of The Fire Went Wild

“Depends.” Her breath is all fast and panty, and I know the answer is yes. I can feel it in the way her pussy contracts around me, the way her skin is flushed beneath the mask of blood. “Think you can make me?”

If I wasn’t buried hilt-deep in her right now, that might have given me pause. But I’m wearing the mask of my gods, and I’m fucking a gorgeous, ferociouslivinggirl on the corpse of her first real kill, and nothing’s going to give me pause. Especially not when I wrench my glove off so I can feel her clit throbbing against my skin.

“I’ve done it before, haven’t I?” I fuck her with my cock and rub her clit with my thumb and watch her dissolve in front of me. I know the second she comes, I will too, and so I try to drag it out as long as I can, slowing my pace until she jerks and keens in protest. The corpse flops beneath her, matching the rhythm of my thrusts.

“You’re an asshole,” she gasps. “You’re doing that on purpose.”

The Unnamed flares inside me, a starburst of power. Because right now, I do have power over her. I snapped the binding thatheld her back, and now she’s spread beneath me, legs spread, her clit under my control.

“Beg for it,” I tell her, dragging the full length of my cock out of her just so I can slam it back in. “Convince me, and I’ll let you come.”

Charlotte screeches in frustration and hits me in the shoulder, which just makes me drop her clit and fuck her harder.

“Do you want to come, little Hunter?” Fuck, I hope she doesn’t try to hold out. I need to feel her convulsions as much as she does.

Her expression tells me everything, though. Her eyes are glassy with desperation. Her face is twisted with need. She grinds up against me as I bury myself inside her, chasing her pleasure. But it’s not enough. The angle isn’t right, and I won’t adjust myself until I hear her beg.

“Please,” she spits out, and I groan with pleasure.

“You can do better than that.”

“Please let me come.” She falls back over the corpse, her blood-splattered tits rising up, each one tipped with a sharp nub of a nipple. I push up my mask and lean over her to suck one into my mouth, tasting the dried blood. Charlotte groans.

“Please!” she shouts, her legs quaking around me. “Let me come, Jaxon! Or I’ll fucking kill you again!”

Thatnearly undoes me. I’m pretty sure the only thing that holds me back is the Unnamed, still surging inside me. I jerk up and quicken my thrusts. Charlotte stares at me.

“Please.” Her voice is small. Plaintive. “Please, Jaxon. I’m so close. All you need to do is?—”

I know what I need to do, and I do it, pressing my thumb hard on her clit. I stroke over it twice and that’s all it takes before my pretty, blood-soaked Hunter is moaning and gasping and shrieking andcoming. Her pussy clamps down on my dick and I let myself go, roaring as my cum pumps into her, pulse afterpulse matching Charlotte’s own desperate rhythm. Even after I’m spent I keep rocking against her, because she’s still shaking and shuddering and I want her to feel every ounce of pleasure that she can.

Eventually, she slumps back, draping gracefully over the body, her chest rising and falling as she breathes. I slide out of her and crawl backward off the bed so I can admire the scene in front of me. It feels like one of my sculptures:

Two bodies twisted together. Charlotte’s raging fire. Our victim’s cooling corpse.

I wish I had a camera.

Charlotte’s breath slows, and she tilts her head toward me. A darkness passes over her features, and my heart twists in my chest. Because there’s doubt in her eyes.

Whatever thing is binding her, keeping her from her nature—it’s gone. I felt it snap. But thirty years is a long time to think you’re human when you’re not, and it occurs to me that she’ll need time to adjust. To accept the truth of things.

Charlotte sits up suddenly, hands moving to cover her chest. She looks down at herself, her hair falling into her face. “Now what?” she mutters, sliding forward. Not looking at me. Not looking at her victim, either.

“We go back to Louisiana,” I say, sliding off my mask. “And I can train you.”

Charlotte jerks her head up at that. She seems to be considering what she wants to say next. Eventually, she spits out, “Train me?”

“You’re a Hunter.” I feel uneasy, saying it now that it’s real and not me goading her on during sex. “Something—something was stopping you from knowing that. But when you?—”

“I’m not a Hunter,” she snarls, scrambling off the bed. “I’m not?—”

She’s looking for her clothes, I think, but she catches sight of her victim instead and slaps her hand over her mouth and makes a low keening sound. “What’s wrong with me?” she whispers. “Why?—”

“Nothing,” I say quickly, setting my mask to the floor so I can go over to her. When I wrap my arms around her waist, she doesn’t pull away, which is something, I suppose. “You just—there was a charm on you, stopping you from knowing that you’re a Hunter. We don’t have to talk about it now. Ambrose wants to?—”

“Who the fuck is Ambrose?” she shouts.

“Another Hunter.” I spot her sweater and pants lying on the floor, although the scarf is nowhere to be seen. We need to get out of here. But Charlotte’s in a panic because the Unnamed’s plan didn’t work the way I expected, and I can’t have her running down the street covered in blood. “Let’s get you cleaned up.”

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