Page 9 of Saint

“I gave you a gift. Don’t you want to thank me for it?”

His fingers lace tighter. He pulls hard, tipping my head back, zipping our bodies together. Forcing me to face him.

“Please don’t.” A tear trickles down my cheek.

“Now isn’t the time for begging.” He traces a finger up and down the column of my neck, not letting go of my hair as my scalp starts to sting. “But we’ll get to that.”

“Then what—” His fingers pull my strands, and I bite back tears. “What is it time for?”

He releases my hair and traces the pads of his fingers over my scalp, my shoulder, my arm. “Now you’re asking the right questions.”

Saint steps back an inch and then another. Stealing his heat and leaving me with the cool chill of the forest at night.

“What I want...”—he takes another step back, amusement ghosting his tone—“is for you torun.”

4

Kitten

Saint

Violet’s pulse flickers atmy touch. It gives her away; even if she tries to fight it, she can’t hide from me.

Fear cloaks her true desires.

She could have run. Sheshouldhave.

Instead, she bowed at my feet. Bathed in my present while her tears streamed down her cheeks.

She might not understand why, but I killed himfor her.To save her from the worse things that awaited her tonight.

I might have agreed to Liam’s plan initially, but the moment she recoiled with him snapping at her in the car—it changed. When he told me why we were really out here—I snapped.

What she needed was a savior.

A Saint.

It doesn’t matter who I was before that moment; she split me in two. And now the pitter-patter of her frantic heartbeat is the only thing tethering my sanity to this earth.

“Run, Violet,” I repeat when she freezes at my command. “You know you want to.Iknow you want to.”

“I don’t.”

But her voice quivers, and her body shakes.

Stepping to her once more, I sweep her long black hair off her shoulder, trailing the path of it down her spine. Her white sweater is splattered with blood, painting a beautiful picture of my rage. And when my fingers pause on her lower back, she dares to turn her face to me. Those sapphire eyes strike through the night, peeking up at me over her shoulder.

“I’m going to set you free.”

“What if I don’t want that?” She pulls her bottom lip between her teeth as her nerves skitter to the surface.

I want to pin her down and strangle that fear out of her.

“You don’t have a choice.” Once more, I wrap my hand around her throat, and I’m tempted to rip my mask off just so I can drink the choked gurgle that escapes when I steal her breath. “You will run for me. And you will show me what you’ve always wanted.”

“You don’t know what I want.” She can barely get the words out with my grip on her neck, and I can’t help tightening it.

Making her choke for it.

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