Page 75 of The Fire Went Wild

But what I focus on are the tears glistening on her lashes.

“What’s wrong with me?” she asks. “Why am I—why do I feel so shattered?”

I freeze. The Unnamed is long gone, but my Guardian is nearby. Silent. It has no words of wisdom.

“Because of what we just did?” I brace myself for her rejection, but she actually shakes her head no.

“Not that,” she whispers roughly. “That was—” She hesitates, looks at me through her tangled hair. “You know what you’re doing.”

I blush. The Unnamed knows what it’s doing, more like.

Charlotte looks away. “I feel like something’s broken inside me,” she whispers. “And I—” She looks at me again, and her tears have fallen in dark lines over her cheeks. “How do you do this?” she whispers. “How do you justbethis—this monster?”

She doesn’t say it cruelly, and she’s not wrong anyway. I’m a monster. My daddy was a monster. My grandparents, too. My mom?—

Well, I don’t know much about her.

“I grew up with it,” I finally say, which is the truth. “And you—something kept you from knowing what you are for a long, long time.”

Charlotte lifts her face toward me. I step between her legs and reach over, and when she doesn’t pull away, I cup her face and run my thumb over the soft curve of her cheekbone.

She doesn’t pull away from that, either. Instead, she presses into it, eyes never leaving mine.

“I don’t want it,” she whispers.

Those four words break my heart. Because how can she bemineif she can’t even accept what she is?

But then she falls forward, collapsing into my arms. And even though it hurts that she hates what she is, at least she still wants comfort from me, the monster.

So I give it to her.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

CHARLOTTE

Iguess I could leave if I want to. Jaxon doesn’t keep me locked up anymore.

The morning after the Dining Room Table Incident, I wander listlessly around his dusty old home, trying to understand who and what he is—and who or whatIam. He doesn’t stop me. In fact, I don’t even see him until I glance out the window above the kitchen sink to find him repairing the hole in the fence, his hair in a knot on the top of his head and the sleeves of his shirt rolled up to his elbows to reveal his thick, strong forearms.

For a few moments, I just watch him, trying to embrace my new status as a killer. The events of the last forty-eight hours flicker through my head. Bare flesh, red blood, moans of pleasure.

And darkness. An endless, swirling darkness.

I killed a man, and I don’t even know hisname.

Jaxon looks over his shoulder, eyes catching mine. Then he breaks into a grin. I’m caught.

I duck away from the window, cheeks flushing. I feel trapped, unsure if I should recede into the dusty shadows of the house or go out the back door and talk to him.

Jaxon decides for me. The back door swings open and he steps inside, bringing a rush of cool, balmy air with him.

“Hey,” he says.

I wait, expecting him to say something else or attack me for more “training” or tell me his gods have someone else to kill. Instead, he just stands in the doorway, arms at his side. I wonder what would happen if I pushed past him and tore through the half-repaired fence and dove into the swamp. I’m sure he would hunt me down.

But even if he didn’t, where the fuck would I go? What the fuck would Ido? I’m an accessory to two murders and the perpetrator of one. Jaxon’s property feels like some kind of fairy world hidden in the heart of the Louisiana swamp, accessible only by magic and spells. There are no police here. No laws.

No morality.

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