Page 65 of Turn That River Red

“The coconuts?” Mercy says flatly.

I bite back a smile—she’s terrified, my pretty blood-soaked human, but she still has some fight in her.

“No,” I say. “El Coco is an old name for the boogeyman in Spanish.”

Mercy studies me. I risk snaking my arm around her waist to pull her a little closer. She frowns.

“You’re the boogeyman.”

“Sí.” I trail my fingers along her arm so that the delicate hair there stands on end.

“Why did your cut heal so fast?”

“Why can I hear your heart beating, pretty human?”

She scowls when I saypretty human.

“Why can I smell your fear?” I tuck my fingers under her chin and force her to look at me. “Your arousal?”

Her eyes widen and she squeezes her legs shut. I laugh.

“I’m designed to hunt humans like you,” I tell her. “I can sniff your kind out in the dark. I’m stronger and faster.” I lean close, tilting my head like I’m going to kiss her. And although I had been teasing earlier, now Idocatch a whiff of her arousal, faint beneath the coppery tang of blood and the maelstrom of her emotions. “But most importantly, I’m impossible to kill.”

Mercy’s eyes are enormous as she stares up at me. And I take a deep breath. Because this is it. This is the part my mother told me I should never tell another human.Es nuestro vantaja mejor, mi cielito, she would say, her long fingers stroking through my hair.Nunca deberías regalarlo.

“That cut I gave myself,” I say. “If I were a human man, I would be bleeding out right now. I certainly wouldn’t have been able to fuck you.”

Mercy’s cheeks turn crimson.

“I healed quickly because I was—” I grin devilishly. “Engaging in vigorous activity, shall we say? If you had been fighting me, you might have thought you had the upper hand. But the harder I fight, the faster I heal.”

“We weren’t fighting,” she mutters.

“Fighting and fucking are the same as far as the boogeyman’s concerned.”

Thatscares her. I breathe the scent in deep. “Now, if I had cut deeper,” I continue. “If I had sliced through my organs, I unfortunately wouldnothave been able to fuck you. And you would have thought I was dead.”

Mercy watches me warily. When I run my hand up her leg, she jolts a little.

“Remember,” I purr. “I can smell your arousal.”

“You w-wouldn’t have really been dead?” she stammers out, my fingers slipping between the thick press of her thighs.

“Not in the way you’ll die someday.” I stop and look her straight in the eye. “Which won’t be anytime soon, by the way. Not for decades.”

Mercy doesn’t say anything. I keep going.

“But I would have appeared dead.” I gently pry her legs open. “My heart would have stopped, I wouldn’t be breathing, all that shit. But I would have been able to drag myself outside and burrow in the dirt like a cicada. Then I would have revived.”

I stop, my hand nearly to Mercy’s softly throbbing clit—I can feel it, undeniable to my Hunter’s senses. She’s still draped across my lap and my head’s still bowed over hers. We’re like a bloody pieta. Except she’s not dead, and I meant it when I said she won’t be.

“Revived?” she whispers.

“Come back from the sort-of-dead,” I say. ‘That’s what I am, humanita. A nightmare. And you can’t kill nightmares.”

I wait, unmoving. Whatever we do next, it’ll be up to her. If she wants to try and test if I’m telling the truth—well, the knife is still lying in my blood a few feet away. I won’t let her do any real damage, of course, but I also hope she at least tries it. It’ll be fun to let her sink my own blade into my skin, let her know what it’s like to be a killer.

But Mercy doesn’t go for the knife. She shifts in my lap, rubbing her plump ass against my semi-stiff cock. When she feels it, she bites her lip and presses her thighs around my hand. But she doesn’t say anything. Instead, she slides her hand over my belly, feeling once again for my wound.

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