Page 81 of Starve
But when the words click, I reach out to place my hand on her shoulder when I realize what she’s saying to his corpse.
“How could you do this to me? You told me you loved me, you promised—you said—you swore you would always love me.”
She doesn’t respond to my touch, and I push myself to my feet, startling her. She looks up at me with a wide, doe-eyed expression and springs to her feet to bolt into the woods beyond the edges of the old logging camp. “Hattie…” With one hand out toward her, I watch her go, but I can’t bring myself to chase after her.
Not when everything I need is right behind me, bleeding, and probably about to hit the ground again.
When Cairo makes a pained noise in his throat, I’m on him instantly, smoothing my bloody hands over his face, down his neck, and hovering over his injuries. “Oh my God,” I breathe, stomach clenching around the fear that this really might be fatal, no matter what he said. “Holy shit, Cairo. You’re fucked up. How did he even do this? I thought?—”
“Fern.” He grips my wrists, his voice calm, but he willingly submits to more of my examination as I touch every bit of unmarred skin I can find, no matter if it’s stained with blood or not. His jeans remain, and his boots, but nothing can be saved. We might as well burn it on a pyre made of Tyler’s limbs for good measure.
“I thought you were dead. One of the cursed Tyler sent said that you were dead, and I was terrified. Holy fuck, are you sure you aren’t dying?” Panic makes my vision blur at the edges, and my hands shake as I touch him.
“Fern…” Cairo sighs again, waiting until I’m done talking. “I need to tell you something.” God, he sounds so calm. He shouldn’t sound this calm, and it only fuels my panic.
“Are you dying? Are you just like, dying slowly?” Moro whines, circling both of us, and noses at his leg like she’s worried about the same thing. “I’m so sorry I didn’t get here sooner. I didn’t have a plan, and I didn’t know what I was doing. Agatha told me to follow your scent, but that took me awhile, and she’s really vague and cryptic and?—”
“Little bird.” The growl that leaves him has the immediate effect of shutting me up. My fingers clench, making my claws bite into my palms, and I look up at Cairo with wide eyes and my muscles tense, waiting for him to tell me he’s dying or something equally awful.
“What?” My voice comes out as barely a whisper, and Cairo lets out a breath when he has my attention.
“I need you to stop panicking over me for maybe two seconds, all right?” A smile twitches on his lips, and I relax by degrees. Surely if he were dying?—
“Because I’m trying to tell you I love you.”
My brain takes too long to process the words. I just stare at him, mouth open slightly, as the sounds of birdsong and breeze echo in my ears along with the statement that burrows itself into my memories.
“No,” I say flatly, and Cairo looks suddenly taken aback. “No, absolutely not! I was going to say that! What thefuck, Cairo?” I smack lightly at his chest, being incredibly careful not to touch any of the ugly wounds. “I did all of this, and killed some loser for you, and you can’t even let me be the one to say ‘I love you’ first?! Way to steal my moment!”
Cairo’s laugh is sharp and clear. There’s nothing contrived or scripted, and his smile is wide enough that I’d say he’s beaming. “I am so sorry, little bird,” he apologizes, though I have a feeling he isn’t sorry at all. “But maybe you should’ve led with that, instead of panicking over my wounds.”
“You could be dying!”
“I’m not dying.” He grabs my throat and pulls me close, purring in the back of his throat as he crushes his lips to mine hungrily.
It’s nothing like his kisses before. Now I can tell just how much he was holding back, as he uses his teeth and tongue to his advantage. My inexperience with them makes me feel clumsy, and he easily has me against the wall of a cabin, breathless and gasping against his mouth.
“Wait…” I huff, palms pressed to his chest. “You’re really fucked up right now. I don’t want to hurt you—” He growls again, and a wave of submission washes over me, ending my protest. “What was that?” I ask when I can speak again.
Cairo’s grin is almost apologetic, and he sighs. “That was why Tyler wanted to get rid of me. Though he also would have had to kill Elijah and Vivienne before getting what he wanted.”
“That’s unhelpfully vague.”
His grimace is cute, and bloody, and he kisses the tip of my nose when I glower at him in reply. “It’s…dominance, I guess. Like wolves, or dogs, or any animal that lives in a group.”
“Oh.” I have to let that sink in for a minute, and my fingers trace over his chest. “That’s hot,” I admit finally, earning a snort and a shake of his head. “Are yousureyou aren’t dying?” God, I can’t help being worried for him, but I’m surprised into releasing a yelp when he suddenly grabs me, picks me up and throws me over his shoulder.
“Allow me to demonstrate how much I’mnotdying,” Cairo laughs, walking between the buildings and tossing me down on a mostly clear patch of grass. I scramble to sit up, but he’s there immediately, pinning me on my back and leaning over me with a growl that I give right back. This time I’m the one lunging upward to lick up his throat, tasting his skin under the blood and purring at the spicy-sweetness.
“Is this how I taste?” I murmur and then do it again.
“No.” He shoves me back down and rips off the remains of my shirt and bra, leaving me half naked like him. His eyes darken as he looms over me on his hands and knees, not needing to have a hand on me to keep me in place. “You taste so much better.” Leaning down, he runs his tongue up my body, from my navel, up between my breasts, and finally to the hollow of my throat. But when he tries to do it again, my control snaps, and I yank him up for a kiss that’s more snarls and teeth than actual kissing.
Judging by his reaction and the way he ruts against me, however, Cairo doesn’t mind. I help him shove off the shredded pieces of denim still covering his legs, but he doesn’t bothertrying to peel my sweatpants off of me. He simply rips the fabric at the seams, making my hips jerk with the rough, sudden movements.
“You shouldn’t have turned yourself for me,” he pants, one hand on the ground beside my head as he kisses my throat. It’s hard for me to touch him only where he isn’t wounded, but I manage to grip his hips as I arch into him.
“Agatha helped,” I admit, and that earns a growl from him. “She’s not exactly a benevolent fairy godmother, is she?”
