Page 34 of The Wraith & Her Killer

The world narrows until all I see is the unhinged man before me. The man who stole me back. The man who chased me through the woods and showed me how to take power by surrendering my control to him. The one who killed for me and died for me. The very man who probably looked the grim reaper in the eye and laughed like a maniac for having the audacity to think he had any right to claim his life before he was damn well good and ready.

“You’ve always been mine, Odessa. You say you’re broken?” He draws me back in and I lift my head. His bright, silver eyes hold me captive. “Then give me the most jagged edges of your soul and I’ll show you the most depraved pieces of mine. I’ll fit them together so tightly that you’ll never again be capable of telling where I begin and you end.”

The distinctsnickof a blade makes me jump, but then Adris is turning my hand over and before I can say a word, he drags the blade across the scar on my palm—the same palm he cut weeks ago—and I hiss at the sting of my skin reopening. But then every part of my being is set on fire when he leans down and drags the thick pad of his tongue directly over the gash he recreated with expert precision. Imust be seriously fucked in the head, because the sight of my blood on his lips has my breaths kicking up in my chest and my thighs tightening within the confines of this dress.

“I already know the most important and most intimate parts about you. All the rest, I’ll learn along the way. You’ve got all of me, and all of my cold heart and blackened soul. I’ll slay any motherfucker who dares to threaten the heart that beats within the confines of your chest because it belongs tome. I’ll do it all with a shit-eating grin on my face, too, because you. Are. Mine. Always.” He leans in close, his bloody lips brushing against mine when he whispers, “This is my solemn vow to you, Odessa.”

He eliminates the microscopic distance between us and his lips claim mine in a brutal kiss. I don’t hesitate. I kiss him back with a sense of urgency I’ve never felt before. I cup his face with my bloody hand and hold him to me as I claim his lips, his heart, his soul. Taking and claiming every part of Adris, everything that he is, and making itmine.

“Um,” the priest sputters next to us, but Adris doesn’t dare to break the kiss. I’m held captive by his lips and surrender to his need to claim me all over again. “Th—that’s not how this wor?—”

His words are cut off when Adris’ arm swings out to the side and the priest’s body slumps to the ground in a heap, blood spraying down my dress as he goes.

Adris finally releases me when Calix pretends to gag and Rune groans.

“What the fuck, Adris?” Rune barks out, his eyes glued to the priest that is currently bleeding out at our feet.

Adris just chuckles and shrugs. “He interrupted me.” He sniffs, tucking the knife back into his pocket. “We didn’t need him anyway.”

I look at him, shaking my head. “Was that really necessary?” I ask, but his flat, unamused expression tells me that the priest interrupting had set him off more severely than I’d thought.

“This is like, so fucking sweet. Poetic, really, but we gotta get thisshow on the road before anyone else shows up,” Calix quips, adjusting his length behind his slacks and fanning his cheeks that are fully flushed and red.

Rune nods in agreement. “They’re gonna know exactly who was here, A.We’ve gotta go and regroup before we’re fucking cornered.”

“Right,” Adris agrees. A squeak pops from my lips when he picks me up and carries me back down the aisle, whistling some macabre yet jovial tune I don’t recognize, casually stepping over the dead bodies that litter the path to the doors of the house. He expertly weaves through the mansion, but before he walks out the front door, he stops and sets me down.

“What—” The question dies on my lips when he produces his knife again, and with a flick of the switch, he’s cutting through my dress like butter. I watch as Adris’ eyes dilate when the lacy material slips from my shoulders and flutters to the ground. I can tell he wants to pounce, but another rumbling growl rips from his chest before he whips off his suit jacket long enough to remove his black button down. My eyes home in on the angrily healing bullet wound that must have just barely missed his heart, and I feel the pain of that day all over again.

I shove the unwanted feeling away because we need to get the hell out of here.

A minute later, I’m back to being dressed in his shirts and I’m quickly learning that there’s no other way I want to dress around him. It’s justus.

I work with him as he loads me up onto the back of his bike that’s parked just outside of my father’s property line. He’d taken a lighter to my dress, effectively catching it on fire, which then caught the rest of the house on fire as well. Smoke billows from the windows while Adris adjusts the chin strap of my helmet before swinging his leg over and mounting his bike.

Forty minutes later, I feel like I can finally take a breath. We’re all safely boarded on the same plane that had taken us to Italy to find Santino. Part of me wants to ask what’s become of him, butthe question disappears from my mind when Adris throws me over his shoulder and takes me to the room at the back of the plane.

“Don’t reopen your fucking wound, Adris!” Calix calls from his seat next to Rune, but Adris turns, his demeanor shifting suddenly.

“Mind your fucking tongue,malenkyi diable.”

Calix visibly shudders as his cheeks pinken and it piques my growing curiosity of exactly what Adris’ relationship is or was with these two men.

He’s on me before my body can even bounce from being tossed on the mattress. He wastes no time in ripping the shirt from my body before he devours my pussy with his lips, teeth, and tongue, forcing orgasm after orgasm until I’m a boneless pile beneath him.

He crawls up my body, his pierced cock notching itself at my entrance. No time is wasted when he pushes his way in until he’s buried deep within me, all the way to the hilt.

We both release this sound that can only be described as a contented sigh when we’re finally connected this way again. I cup his face, trying to cling to these last moments of tenderness before he inevitably sets his beast loose to wreak havoc on my body.

“I need you, Adris,” I moan against his lips when he thrusts against me. “I’ve—Oh, fuck—I missed you.”

His silver eyes darken as he thrusts in again and again, pressing his forehead against mine.

“Never again will I be deprived of this. Ofyou, Wraith.It’s been too long since I’ve had a taste of you.”

“Yes,” I moan and he groans, pulling out and thrusting back in, his pierced cock hitting a spot inside me that has me seeing stars and whimpering his name over and over.

That psycho smile that I’ve come to crave spreads across his face before he dips his head and his teeth clamp down on my shoulder. I cry out as a blissful ecstasy washes over me at the sensation. “And I need to take a fucking bite,Mrs. Knox.”

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