Page 21 of The Wraith & Her Killer

“Good,” is the only response I can conjure up.

“Then why the ugly fucking tears, Wraith?” I can tell his patience is at its end, so I relent, giving him my full attention.

“When will it end, Adris?”

He stares at me like I’m speaking an unknown language. “You’re going to have to elaborate for me.”

“Anything. Everything. I don’t know.” I huff, running a hand through my tangled hair. “I’m just so tired. Ten years of captivityunder Santino’s thumb was bad enough, but half of that was spent being hisbrava ragazzasex doll.”

No sooner have the words left my mouth does Adris vacate his seat and crowd my personal space. My back presses into the window. The expression on his face looks almost painful as rage contorts his features.

11

Ibeg her finest motherfucking pardon? Hisbravafuckingragazza sex doll?My eye twitches and our breaths mingle as I invade the space around her. Odessa Kuznetsov is nobody’s fuckinganythingbut mine. I knew by the way she took my cock that she hadsomeform of a sexual experience in her life, but she was abused and assaulted for five years? Five? Fucking? Years?

The bruising on her body pisses me off even more, because Ferrero thoroughly broke her. He stole her from me and stole all that she was, all that she was meant to be at my side, from me. He cost me my fucking family. My sanity. He took what wasn’t his to take and Odessa was ready to die because of him.

“Did he…” My fingers brush over the fingerprints on her neck with a tenderness I certainly do not feel. I physically shake my head of my errant thoughts and ask again. “When he did this to you,” I brush my thumb over the scab on her lower lip, “did he?—”

“No,” she answers quickly, her eyes never wavering from mine when she speaks. Her delicate hands cup my cheeks and it’s as if her touch quells the fire burning through my veins. My stomach twists uncomfortably at the sudden change but I ignore it, redirecting my focus on her face as she explains, “With Santino, the pain always overpowered the pl?—”

“Don’t you fucking dare saypleasure,” I hiss, but she has the nerve to put a finger over my lips to silence me.

“But that’s what it was, unfortunately. It’s not something I wanted, nor did I ask for. In fact, I fought him every chance I got in the beginning, but I soon learned that he was less violent if I was less combative.” Her dark eyes pin me to the spot and I can’t look away. I welcome the feeling of her nails digging into the skin of my jaw as she continues. “He took me and broke me and turned me into this…monsterwho craved the pain. Iwantedto fight him so that he would hurt me. Because feeling the pain on the outside was better than the pain I felt in here,” she says, tapping my chest. “When I felt like the world had finally forgotten about me, I gave up. I started to hope that he’d finally take it too far. To put an end to the shame and disgust I felt when my body would react against my will to his touch. I hated—hatehim, but I hate me more.”

She tries to curl back into herself at her admission, but I’ll be having none of that. Gripping her hips, I pull her into my lap until her small, lithe body is straddling my thighs. I revel in the fact that she comes willingly. A quick hiss bursts from my lips when her knee brushes the spot on my side where she stabbed me earlier, and the zap of pain hardens my dick because like her, I crave and get off on it. The only difference is that mine came with the experience of willingly testing my limits. Her choice was stolen from her.

I cup her ass and scoot her closer to me until we’re nose to nose. “I’m not going to promise you a life of sunshine and rainbows and peace on earth. What Icanpromise you, though, is to bathe the world in the blood of whoever dares to try taking your power from you.”

“But you took?—”

“Control,” I interject, leaning in to nip at her neck before whispering against the shell of her ear, “because you’ve always had power over me.”

Her body tenses over my words, and I can tell by her silence that she doesn’t believe me. That’s fine. It doesn’t change the truth that’s plagued me for years.

I look up through my lashes over her shoulder to findCalix and Rune watching me with rapt attention. I ponder how well Odessa would respond to the four of us together, but I file it away for later because now isn’t the time and I don’t trust myself not to hurt anyone who comes near her that isn’t me.

I shift Odessa in my lap until she’s sideways, but of course she fights me and my “manhandling,”as she so lovingly labeled it.

“Adris, I can sit on my own.”

“Shhh-ut the fuck up and just rest, littleWraith.” I lay my head back against the headrest, watching as Calix lays his head in Rune’s lap so he can rub his fingers through his curly hair. I smirk. “Murdering a man is no walk in the park, and you’re going to need your energy. Otherwise the arrow can get stuck in the squishy, fleshy part of the?—”

“Ew, Adris,okay.Stop talking,” she snaps while simultaneously settling into my chest. Just before her breathing evens out, her last words force a silent, yet equally unhinged chuckle to barrel through my chest. “Fucking psychopath.”

No lies detected there.

“I’myourpsychopath, baby. And now there’s nowhere you could go that could keep me from finding you. Even if it’s right into a goddamned grave.”

A whole-ass eternity later,we touched down in Italy and had to pay an old fisherman to discreetly drop us off on the far side of the island where Santino was spotted docking the previous night. It took a few hours to trek through the island to get just beyond the perimeter of Ferrero’s property. We couldn’t risk a vehicle being seen or heard. It fucking sucked, but we survived.

Once we were about a mile out, Rune had done a thorough scan for security and hacked their entire system to get a headcount on security detail which is… not a lot of men. Santino has an entire horde of enemies six miles long and he’s only got barely more than two dozen men stationed outside of his hideaway? Dumbfuck thinks he’s so untouchable. But hey, his loss, our win.

Hours later, I’m feeling ragey and ready to fucking drive my arrows not just through some hearts, but I’m about to start cracking skulls open at the sight of Odessa after having to look at every mark on her body in all shades of daylight. Her bruising is so much worse, but the determined set of her jaw makes the marring spots look like fucking war paint. It’s hot. Like, I’ve been trekking through the fucking forest with a semi rubbing against my zipper for hours, hot.

She’s still wearing my black button down top with the sleeves rolled up and one of my belts cinched around her waist. Her tan legs are still bare, save for the scrunched-up socks and combat boots that were waiting for her when we deboarded the plane.

Courtesy of Calix “Tenderheart”Sterling.

---