Page 8 of The Wraith & Her Killer

My killer drops my wrist and steps back, admiring his handiwork. His eyes legitimatelytwinkleat the sight of the blood that now coats every inch of my small bed. I wish so badly that the bleeding hadn’t already stopped in my palm.

My world is flipped when he turns to me with a determined set to his brow and says, “Let’s go.”

Let’s go?“Go where?” I eye him warily. “Y-you’re not going to… kill me?” I hate the obvious disappointment that laces my question.

He stalks toward where I stand, stupefied in the middle of the room, until there’s barely an inch of space between us. I’m forced to look up until my neck is craned to meet his gaze. I knew he was tall, but standing up against him really puts into perspective that either I am extremely short, or he’s a Goliath. He lifts his hand and allows a finger to graze over the five crescent moon-shaped scars that rest over my heart. Goosebumps pebble up beneath his touch and I barely manage to suppress a full-body shiver.

Silver eyes slowly rise to mine. It’s like something clicks when they lock on me again. “Who are you?” I ask before I can stop the question from escaping my mouth, knowing I never even learned his name all those years ago, but ithasto be him.

“Don’t you know?” He leans down until his mask brushes my lips. “I’m the Cupid Killer.” The blood drains from my face at his admission, because I know I’ve heardthatname before. He tenderly brushes a strand of my hair back behind my trembling shoulders before he grabs my throat in a vise grip, stealing my breath. “And I intend to collect.”

5

My littleWraithstood in the middle of her room, shaking like a leaf, as I finished making her bed look like a true crime scene before gathering her and the rest of my shit. I’m not killing her. So why does she look like I kicked her damn puppy?

She’s like a walking ghost. A shell of herself. As if she’s truly got nothing left to live for. Odessa Kuznetsov was ready to die just moments ago, and it looks like that yearning for the afterlife has yet to go away. She’s eyeballed the arrows strapped to my back no less than a dozen times since I yanked her out of that bed. I’ve got news for her.Too fucking bad.

I told her,warned her, years ago, that every beat of her heart was mine. She doesn’t get to decide when it stops.

I do.

Odessa became the object of my every obsession, then ran from me right after I’d made it clear to her that she was—is—mine. Why did she run from me? We may have been teens, but I would’ve given her the fucking carved heart of whatever demons haunted her at night if only she’d asked.

I’m the way I am now becauseshemade me this way. And now I’m fucked in the head and fucked because this is the first hit I’ve ever accepted and not carried through on it.

This isnothow I saw tonight going, and I’m quickly approachingmy limit. I need to kill someone. Multiple someones would be nice, actually. I’m itching to sink my arrows into as many hearts as I can before my own gives out from the fucking whiplash I’m going through.

Fuck, I need to call Rune and Calix. Figure out what to do with the extra body that’s currently hugging me on the back of my bike like her life depends on it. Considering I’m pushing a hundred on the highway… it does. She’s bundled in my blood-stained jacket, because to my surprise, she had no clothes outside of a handful of t-shirts and some kind of housekeeping uniform that looked like it would fall apart if I so much as blinked at it. I didn’t like the idea of anyone getting a view of her ass on the back of my bike, and my jacket does a bang up job covering her all the way down to her knees.

Her nose crinkled when she scented and probably felt the blood that soaked through the fabric. She tried taking it off, but one look had her huffing and zipping it up to her chin.

There’s not much traffic in the middle of the night, but I bob and weave around the few cars that stand between me and my exit. Using the voice control feature inside my helmet, I call Rune.

Once again, he answers on the first ring. “You’re on a roll tonight?—”

“There’s a problem,” I deadpan, interrupting him.

“Uh, oh.” He’s got the nerve to fucking tease. “What kind of problem?”

“I couldn’t execute the contract.”

“And?” I’ve turned contracts down before, after completing my own research when the person who wanted to hire me failed to provide the proper information.

I hesitate. Rune and Calix wouldn’t hurt her, but the more people that know that she’s alive endangers not only her, but whoever holds such knowledge. I weigh the options against the feel of Odessa clinging to me as I slow and exit the highway. Rune and Calix are grown-ass men and can certainly handle any threat that comes theirway. Their body count isn’t nearly as hefty or as messy as mine, but they’re no less lethal.

Odessa’s helmet digs into my spine between my shoulder blades—I swear she’s doing that shit on purpose because I chose to keep her alive instead of giving her what she wanted— and her close proximity grates on my already frayed nerves, but I ignore it and answer. “And I have her.”

“Alive?” he asks.

“Yes, fucking alive, Rune. How the fuck could I carry a dead body across the back of my bike?”

Odessa stiffens behind me like she heard me, and maybe she did with the volume of my voice.

“You’re creative. I’m sure you would’ve found a way.”

“Rune,”I warn.

“What do you need from us?” His tone changes when he hears the severity in mine.

---