Page 45 of This Haunted Heart

“Do you know what else is easy to find near ash trees?” sheasked a while later. I could hear her voice but couldn’t see her in all the brush.

“What’s that?” I spotted a mushroom. I plucked up the bulbous blonde fungus, opened my basket . . . and immediately shut it again after spotting theotherthing that liked ash trees. “Rynn,” I growled.

She popped out from behind the greenery where she’d been hunting, her own basket tucked under her arm. “Is there a problem?” Based on her villainous expression, it looked very much like she wanted there to be a problem.

“Did you put a weaver snake in my basket?” I ground out.

Her lips curled, and her big doe eyes sparkled with vengeance. “That’s not the only place I put one.”

Bile rising in the back of my throat, I followed her eyes down to my right trouser pocket. With great reluctance, I pulled it open and felt something slither. “Goddamn it . . .”

Pulse pounding, I ripped straight down the seam, cursing the ground blue.

The copper serpent sprang toward the base of the ash tree, shooting around the trunk.

“They’re venomous!” I roared.

“And not one of the serpents bit you. How frustrating.” Her chin lifted in defiance, and her lips quirked. “Perhaps they were reluctant to strike down one of their own.”

A chuckle rumbled out of her at her own quip, but I felt my face hardening. My teeth ground together audibly, and the change in me killed the laughter in her throat. Eyes rounding, Rynn dropped her basket and sprinted off through the trees.

“Oh, you had better run, hellcat,” I said through clenched teeth, rolling up my sleeves one at a time. Unfastening my waistcoat, I shouldered out of it and let it drop on the groundamongst the spilled mushrooms. I gave chase.

It would have been easier to catch her if she’d stayed on the path, but she kept diving behind foliage and changing direction, throwing me off. I jumped over roots and plodded down wild brush. Stray limbs slapped me in the face and caught in my clothing. Her smaller body navigated the thickets more easily than mine. Rynn’s hat was knocked from her head.

I was gaining on her. “Just wait until I get my hands on you!”

“It’s not as though they would have killed you!” she shouted over her shoulder.

“When I catch you, hellcat, oh, just you wait!”

Weaver venom wouldn’t have killed me, but it would have paralyzed me for a good long while, depending on how many times I’d been bitten. I’d have been stuck out in the woods, vulnerable while she stole the keys I kept chained to my pocket, helped herself to the contents of my house, and made her escape.

I’d have been less offended if she’d tried to kill me with a viper. Hurt me, kill me—fine. I’d haunt her heart for the rest of her days.

But how dare she try to leave me.

Just the thought of her abandoning me to the abyss again was enough to fuel my steps despite the stitch growing in my side. I wasn’t just angry; I was in agony, picturing her vanishing from my life. Leaving me to the ghosts and the misery she’d caused. Alone in hellfire once more.

I caught up to her at the gates. She tried to climb them, flinging herself at the wrought iron bars, but she was winded and didn’t make it far. Reaching with her sore arm, she wasn’t able to climb any higher. I plucked her off easily and forced her to the ground. She kicked at me, but her efforts seemedhalf-hearted at best. I knocked the blow away, letting it glance off my arm.

Shoving her legs down, I straddled her waist. Her skin was flushed. Her nipples pressed against the fabric of her thin shirtwaist, begging to be touched. She lay there, arms limp over her head in surrender, chest heaving, sweat beading her brow as my cock hardened against her belly.

She glanced at the bulge growing in my trousers, and her smile was ferocious. “After all I’ve done, you still want me terribly. I bet you hate that, don’t you?”

“I hate it,” I breathed. “I hate wanting you. I want to ruin you. I want to break your heart and carry around the shattered remains inside my breast pocket forevermore. I don’t want to long for your body another moment. It’s a baneful way to exist, wanting you. I wish Ihatedyou.”

“Well, so do I! I hate wanting you even more,” she hissed. “This would all be over if I could just hate you enough to see you dead. Don’t you deserve what’s coming to you after all you’ve done to me? But why can’t I convince my heart of it? Why can’t I end you or let someone else do that and then be free? I can barely bring myself to hurt you, and it torments me so!”

“Hearts can’t be reasoned with,” I groused. “They chase blindly after the things that break them.”

“It’s such a nuisance organ.” Her eyes closed briefly. She flexed her hips, testing the heavy stiffness in my trousers. When her gaze reopened, it was dreamy, the pupils large. “Are you finally going to do something about wanting me so badly?”

“Oh yes,” I said, and I rose up and rolled her under me onto her stomach. Scooting down her body so I could sit my weight on her thighs, I swatted her ass so hard she yelped. “I’m going to do something, all right.”

Rynn chuckled, and her breath stirred the dirt under her face. “If you’re trying to teach me a lesson, you’re going to have to spank me much harder than that.”

I slapped her ass. The crack of it echoed. “That’s for the snake in my basket,” I said. I struck her again. “That’s for the one in my pocket.” My next slap stung my palm and made her moan. I fisted a hand in her hair and pulled, treating her roughly, aching to watch her come apart for me again. “That’s for trying to leave me!”

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