Page 14 of Turn That River Red

I’m getting soft. Sawyer and Jaxon are rubbing off on me.

Mercy’s footsteps thud against the dusty foot trail. I slip behind her, as silent as a mountain lion. She senses me; I can tell by the way her shoulders stiffen, by the intoxicating eruption of fear that floods into her sweetness.

Her head swings, hair gleaming in the moonlight. I slip sideways and out of her line of sight.

She keeps walking, quickening her pace. I follow, slow and steady and silent. It’s not enough, following her. I want to touch her. Taste her.

Maybe shecanhelp me find the adoption records. It would certainly be so much easier if I have her telling me where they are.

Maybe I’m deluding myself. But still, before I can convince myself otherwise, I glide up behind her, sliding between the shadows. She hears me just as I wrap my hand around her mouth, and she unleashes a small, startled gasp right before I silence her. I drag her off the walking path and into the gap between two of the industrial-looking houses that wrap around Sterling Gunner’s mansion like guards.

“Mmph!” Mercy cries, her breath warming my palm. Her plush body squirms against mine, and I wrap my free arm around her waist to still her.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” I rasp into her ear.

She freezes. I actually feel her muscles snap into place.

She tries to twist her head toward me, but I hold her firm.

“I’m taking you back to my cabin,” I whisper, nudging her along, keeping my senses open for anyone moving through the compound. There’s nothing. Just insects. A few flapping bats. Night birds. “I want to talk.”

Mercy whimpers and her tears bead along the top of my hand. It’s been so long since I’ve licked tears off someone’s skin, and the urge to do so now soars inside me. I promised I wouldn’t hurt her, but fuck, I want to. Not in a way that would kill her. Just in a way that would make her scream—that gorgeous, melodic scream I heard nearly two nights ago on the river.

“Plhmph,” she says into my hand. I’ve done this enough times in my two hundred years to know she’s sayingPlease.

“I said I’m not going to hurt you.” I drag her along with me, keeping to the narrow paths formed between the compound’s prefab houses. My temporary cabin is maybe a two-minute walk from here, and I move quickly. I make Mercy move quickly.

Her tears flow faster, but she doesn’t fight back. I suppose even she knows how dangerous men can be.

I’m not exactly a man, though. Not in the way she’s thinking.

My cabin appears up ahead, and relief surges through me even though I take pains not to let Mercy know. I left the porch light on, the only light in the ring of cabins. Mercy sniffles.

“Almost there,” I tell her, and now she does try to fight back, although she does so half-heartedly, squirming against my grasp. It does little but send blood shooting down to my cock, another fact I try to conceal from her.

“Mmmphhnn!” she shrieks, and I tighten my hand around her mouth, squeezing her face perhaps a little too hard. As Idrag her up to the door, Max lets out an excited bark from inside. Mercy keens.

“Don’t be scared of him.” I shove the key into the lock and turn it and push the door open at the same time, then heave Mercy into the cabin, tossing her onto the couch while I lock the door. She scrambles to her feet as both dogs run up to investigate—although she takes their appearance as a threat and screams and tries to bolt forward. I catch her around the waist, slap my hand over her mouth.

“Don’t do that again.” I put my lips on her ear, and she shivers against me. “Do not scream. Do you understand?”

“Nmn!” Her tongue licks my palm.

“No, you don’t understand?” I drag her back over to the couch, pressing her body up against mine. I need to play this carefully. I don’t want her thinking I’m anything but a preacher.

Her only answer is a kind of choking sob. Her face is drenched in tears, and so is my hand, and I’m enjoying this far more than I should.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” I tell her. It’s good to tell them that, even when it’s a lie—which, here, it isn’t. Not really. I certainly don’tintendto hurt her, anyway. “I just want to talk about what I saw.” I pause, then add, “And come clean about something.”

Mercy jerks her head in something close to a nod, and I slowly move my hand away from her mouth. She doesn’t move, doesn’t scream. She blinks at me with tear-damp eyes.

“Who are you?” she asks, voice trembling. “Why are you doing this?”

For a fraction of a second, I consider telling her the truth, that the devil really has come to the Church of the Well. That I am, in fact, the closest thing to Satan she’ll ever meet. It would be worth it to drown in the miasma of her terror.

But I refrain. I’m not Sawyer, making decisions with my dick.

“I’m Ambrose Echeverría,” I say smoothly. “And I am a traveling preacher, and God did call me here. He works in mysterious ways, as the saying goes.”

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