Page 24 of Turn That River Red

We fall into step together, the dogs sniffing the path as we walk. Itishot as hell, but there’s a bit of a morning breeze. I wouldn’t call it cool, exactly, but it stirs everything around.

“This is the residential area,” Mercy says, gesturing toward the houses rising up on either side of us, all bigger and somewhat more elaborate versions of the prefab cabin they put me up in. “About 200 people live on the campus. Of course, Reverend Gunner’s followers are much more numerous than that. We have nearly 7,000 members across the United States, with satellite campuses in Florida, California, and Tenn?—”

“I don’t need the official tour,” I turn toward her, and she’s blushing again. It’s dangerous, that blush. Reminds me of the blood pumping through her body and how much I might like to see it outside of her. “I knew all that before I came here, anyway.”

Mercy’s blush deepens. “Of course, I’m sorry,” she says. “I’m just used to?—”

“No need to apologize.” I put my hand on her arm without thinking about it, and I immediately feel her muscles tense. But she doesn’t try to shrug me away. “Tell me what you think people are looking for from the prayer sessions today.”

I know I’m laying it on a little thick, but I need to make up for my serious lapse in judgment last night. Make sure she doesn’t suspect I’m anything but a horny preacher.

“Oh, any guidance you can provide would be wonderful.” She sighs and gazes blankly up ahead. The houses have given way to the administrative buildings I was trying to investigate last night before I got distracted by her scent. “And your prayers—you do have God’s touch.”

I sense the shift in her heartbeat as she realizes what she’s said. God’s touch, indeed. I certainly helped her see God last night.

“Grief is hard,” I tell her, “but it also can’t be rushed. God might work through me to help, but it is God in the end.”

She looks sideways. I wonder if she thinks my bullshit is as gibberish nonsense as I do. “Of course. I felt God working through you. I felt—” Her voice fades, and all her systems quicken. Her heart, her breath. She’s nervous. Notafraid—that has a much different rhythm to it, and one I’d like to experience from her again. But I do find her nervousness endearing.

“It felt good,” she says in a very, very low voice. “What you did to me. I felt—“ She takes a deep breath. “Thank you.”

Roxi tugs on her leash, moving to investigate something in a flowerbed beside a bland brick building. I use that as an excuse to stop, letting her leash out as I turn to Mercy. She looks up at me, her lips parted and her eyes bright.

She’sdefinitelynot talking about my prayers.

I can smell her arousal, sweet and dark and musky. The scent goes straight to my cock, which is probably why I say what I say next, even though it’s foolish as hell, given she’s a human and I’m a Hunter and it’s really not my place to fuck her kind, but to kill them.

Still, the words slip out anyway.

“If you never need release like that again—” I stop closer to her, and her eyes follow me, dark with lust. “You know where to find me.”

CHAPTER TEN

MERCY

For a long moment, all I can do is stare at him, handsome in the harsh morning sunlight.Toohandsome.Dangerouslyhandsome. When he answered his door this morning, he looked like the preacher who had been sitting in Reverend Gunner’s office yesterday. But right now, he looks like the man who set me on fire last night. Like someone I absolutely shouldn’t be alone with, even if we are out in public.

Then, quick as lightning, that shadow disappears.

“So, this bunker,” he says. “It’s nearby?”

“About five more minutes.”

The big black German shepherd mix lunges forward, her ears flattened against the back of her thread, a hint of teeth peeking from her jaws.

“Roxi,” Ambrose says sharply, and when she ignores him, he whistles three short notes. Immediately, she turns back toward us, tongue wagging.

It seems Ambrose isn’t the only one who can change personalities on a dime.

“She saw a squirrel,” he says apologetically. “Shall we?”

As if he hadn’t just said what he said. As if my body doesn’t feel like a live wire.

“R-right,” I say quickly. “This way.”

I lead him down the walking path, away from the administration center. We’re on the western side of campus now, and being here sends a sharp burst of grief twisting through my belly. It’s where the men do their training when the weather isn’t so hot, and where I used to hand out bottles of cold water. It’s where I became friends with Raul.

Of course, no one is out this morning. Reverend Gunner says that what killed Raul can’t be defeated by guns and weapons but by prayer and faith. Guns can’t kill the devil.

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