Page 80 of The Fire Went Wild

“The fuck does that mean?”

“Well, she did it,” I tell him, and the memory makes my cock stiffen and my whole body turns hot. “She did it, uh,reallywell. I had to trick her into getting started, but once she did—” I grin. “It was something, Ambrose. I got to tell you.”

“So it did work.” Ambrose gives a short little laugh. “Guess there’s something to your gods, after all.”

“Shut up, preacher.” I take a deep breath, trying to figure out how to tell him the rest. The Texas wind howls on my phone’sspeaker, sounding like static. “Here’s the thing, though. She was magnificent in the moment?—”

“Magnificent?” Ambrose laughs. “Oh, no, I’ve already got to deal with one lovesick asshole. Not you, too.”

I scowl, cheeks burning at the wordlove. “Shewasmagnificent,” I snap. “Like she’s been killing all her life. But that was all while it was happening. As soon as she was done—” I shake my head. “She reacted like a human. Now she feels guilty. She keeps moping around. The gods, they told me the charm broke, but she’s still poisoned by it, and she can’t stay like this, half-human and half-Hunter. And I don’t?—”

“Calm down.” Ambrose cuts me off, his voice firm. “Losing your goddamn mind isn’t going to help anyone. There’s a reason you don’t just want to initiate her?”

The question kind of hangs there between us. I appreciate him phrasing it like that—initiating Charlotte, not killing her, even though they’re the same thing.

“She won’t let me do that,” I finally say. “And I don’t—” I stop myself, but I can tell from Ambrose’s disapprovingmmhmmthat he knows what I was going to say.

I don’t want to kill her without her permission. I hope he doesn’t ask me why because I don’t feel like explaining it to him. Partly, it’s because I don’t like killing other Hunters unless they’re a threat. A show of respect, you know. But I feel bad about what I did to her after our first dinner together, how I licked her to orgasm without asking. Killing her feels the same way. Especially since I know I wouldn’t be able to stop myself from playing with her dead body.

But Ambrose doesn’t ask for an explanation. “Here’s what I think,” he says. “Some Christian magic forced her to live as a human for what? Thirty years? She’s the same age as Edie, right?”

“Yeah, more or less.”

“Okay. So sheisa Hunter. The binding broke. She killed. She was good at it. But she still sees herself as human, and it makes sense, because that charm was telling her she was human for thirty years. She’s got a huge disadvantage.” He pauses, and I know I don’t want to hear whatever he’s going to say next. “Dying and reviving would undo that, and you know it.”

I scowl, hating that he’s right. “But she’s not gonna let me kill her because she thinks it wouldactuallykill her.”

“Right.” Ambrose clucks his tongue. “So you’ve got to find some other way to help her understand that she is what she is. You know how humans see us. That’s how she sees herself right now.”

I slump deeper into the couch and concentrate until I sense her, my Hunter who thinks she’s human. She’s calm right now, and I know it’s because she’s sleeping. When she’s awake, she seems to exist on a knife edge of panic. I’m not sure she even realizes it, but I do. Because I know what she feels like when she isn’t hating herself.

And gods, does it break my heart.

“So what do I do about it?” I ask.

“You need to make her think like a Hunter,” Ambrose says. “No Hunter sees themselves as evil, but I guarantee that’s what that woman is thinking about herself.”

He’s right. I know he’s right.

“If you can get her to stop that, maybe it’ll help.” A pause, filled with the whistling static of the wind. “Maybe.”

I stare ahead, rolling Ambrose’s suggestion around in my head. I don’t disagree. But I know if I try to tell her she’s fine, she won’t believe me. But maybe she would believe it from someone else?—

And then, like that, I know what I’m going to do.

CHAPTER THIRTY

CHARLOTTE

The next morning, I skip breakfast in favor of drinking a cup of coffee and smoking my last joint on Jaxon’s screen-in porch. I’m not sure where he is; the house feels empty and silent when I pad downstairs. But I know he’s around here somewhere.

I’ve taken two hits when Jaxon emerges from his shed, looking suspicious. Well, more suspicious than usual, anyway.

After all, he’s a murderer.

And so are you.

I drag on the joint, hoping the weed will drown that voice out instead of amplifying it.

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