Page 11 of When Death Whispers

Please, let him stay that way.

We reach the porch. I leap up the steps?—

—and freeze.

No. No, no, no.

The shadows are waiting.

They rise from the wood like smoke, slithering up my legs, cold and possessive, silk-wrapped in malice. They curl around my thighs, up over my hips, fingers made of darkness kneading into the flesh of my ass.

My breath stutters. My body betrays me.

A whimper slips past my lips, soft and high, and I hate the way it sounds—needy, like a moan. Like I want it. Heat floods my core, terrifying and shameful andwrong.

Because it feels good.

And it’s him.

Not Hudson—him.

My monster.

I stumble as the shadows tighten around me, nearly losing my balance, and catch myself against the porch railing. My hands shake as I scramble to the keypad, jabbing in the code with a frantic urgency, while the darkness slithers further up.

We burst inside. Light explodes around us—the warm, steady hum of my backup generator kicking in like clockwork. Every bulb in my entryway flickers to life, chasing shadows into corners and away from my body.

“Hudson, close the doo?—”

But then his voice spills in from behind us, smooth but soaked in venom.

“I amfamished, my sweet Snow Pea,” he rasps, voice thick with hunger. “Come out and play. The taste of yourlover’sfear as he meets his end will be absolutely exquisite.”

The color drains from my face.

Lover.

He’s not bluffing. He never bluffs.

I hiss, shoving past Hudson and slamming the door with every ounce of strength I have left. The lock clicks into place like a final nail in a coffin.

And then I collapse.

My back hits the door and I slide to the floor, my chest rising and falling in quick, panicked bursts.

Across the room, Hudson stands frozen. Disheveled. Wide-eyed. His chest heaves, each breath shallow and loud in the silence. Mud streaks his jeans, and there’s a twig caught in his hair. He looks like he’s been pulled out of a nightmare—and he has.

He doesn’t speak. Doesn’t move. Juststares.

Good. I couldn’t explain this even if I tried.

The worst part?

I can stillfeelhim. My monster’s touch lingers on my skin like heat from a brand. Possessive. Angry. Intimate in ways he’sneverbeen before.

And my body—god, mybody—responded to his touch like it belonged to him. As if itmissedhim.

I squeeze my arms tighter around my knees, trying to hold in the trembling. My mind reels, caught in a storm of panic and disgust and the undeniable flush of arousal I don’t want to acknowledge.

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