Page 61 of Turn That River Red

He picks something up. I shiver, digging my fingers into Max’s fur. Max nudges at me with his wet nose, but I don’t dare take my eyes off Ambrose’s lean, muscular back.

When he turns around, he’s holding an enormous hunting knife. I stifle a scream.

“I’m not going to kill you,” he says calmly. “But I’ve got to show you I’m not human.”

Then he shoves the knife into his belly and drags it sideways, splitting himself open.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

MERCY

Iscream and jump to my feet as blood gushes out of the wound Ambrose just carved into himself. He looks at me with that black, glittering gaze and tosses the blood knife to the ground with a metallic clatter.

“Come here,” he growls.

“What did you do?” I can’t move. I can’t even believe what I’m seeing. His blood looks too red, too bright.Just like Burl’s blood.

I swoon in place, throwing out my hand to balance on the couch.

“Cut myself open.” Ambrose pushes one blood-soaked hand through his hair, leaving streaks of crimson in its wake. Max nudges at my hand, seemingly completely unconcerned for his person.

“But why?” I whisper, my whole body trembling. “Why did you—you’lldie.”

Ambrose grins. “No, I won’t. Now come here.” He uses that same rough, demanding voice from when we were intimate, and despite the horror of the situation, my body reacts as it didbefore, with a curl of shameful heat. However, it’s just as quickly overpowered by something like worry?—

Surely Iwanthim to die? He kidnapped me.

But no. I don’t.

“You have to stop the bleeding.” I stumble over to him, acting on some deep-rooted instinct to protect a man that I had, up until twelve hours ago, wanted to love. I press my hands against the wound, and blood seeps hot and sticky through my fingers.

Ambrose grabs my wrists and yanks my hands away. “I told you,” he murmurs, leaning in close to rasp into my ear. “I’m not going to die.”

“You disemboweled yourself!”

He cups my jaw with his blood-streaked hands, positioning my gaze on his. “I did not,” he said evenly. “I didn’t cut deeply enough.”

And then he kisses me.

I’m stunned by the fervor of the kiss, his hot and hungry mouth devouring my own. His other hand, equally blood-soaked, comes up and cups the side of my hair, holding me in place as he deepens the kiss, as I?—

As I kiss him back.

I know I shouldn’t. He’s a murderer. He killed Raul and Burl and Deacon Price. And he just sliced himself open in front of me, and now his blood is soaking through the fabric of my dress until I feel it cling to my belly. But his kiss still inflames me, and as he devours me I try to devour him back, my hands on his shoulders. I’m afraid to press into him. Afraid I’ll hurt him.

Ambrose breaks the kiss with a groan and clutches at my face, smearing my cheeks with more blood. His eyes blaze with—not lust. It can’t be lust, even though it looks like it.

It’s pain, I tell myself. “You need to go to the hospital.”

“No, I don’t.” He pushes me backward until my legs bump against the couch. “I’m proving something to you.”

“What?” I screech. “What could you possibly be proving with this?”

His only answer is a sharp, shrill whistle. There’s a jangle of dog tags as Max scrambles to the floor and out of the living room. Then Ambrose pushes me down on the couch, and I stare up at him, legs akimbo beneath my blood-soaked dress. His tank top is crimson, so drenched with blood I can’t even make out the wound.

“I’m proving to you what I am.” He runs his blood-sticky hand up the inside of my thigh, making me shiver. “A human man couldn’t survive what I’m about to do.”

“What?” I scream, scrambling backward. Ambrose grins and catches my arms, pinning me down.

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