Page 68 of Stream & Scream
Cold rage floats up my spine and sets. “Say that again.”
“You heard him,” Rory adds, the little echo with a tie. “I already have a secondary hunter ready at an undisclosed entry point. Wrap the variable or we send him in and he wraps you both.”
I stare at the door long enough to see my reflection warp in the helmet. “You try that, and I’ll crawl out of these trees and end you where you sit, Milo. Your name will be the next message I write on a lens.”
“Kill her,” Milo says. “Or we send him in. Last warn?—”
I rip the comm out of my ear, slam it under my boot, and grind until plastic screams. The crack sounds like bone. Feels like a promise.
When I look back, she’s watching me over the blanket. Wide-eyed, chewing her lip, trying to read the violence rolling off me like smoke.
I cross the room, hook two fingers under the blanket edge, and tug it higher so the draft stops hitting her collarbone. “Listen.”
Her lashes flutter. “Jaxen…” she says it soft at first, then sharper, lips curling into a smirk that doesn’t quite hide the tremble. “So that’s the big scary hunter’s real name? Jaxen. Fucking anticlimactic.”
I crouch, my shadow swallowing hers, voice low enough to crawl under her skin. “Careful, clickbait. You don’t want to find out how many ways I can make you choke on my name.”
Her chin tips up, cocky despite the shake in her hands. “Maybe I already have.”
My fingers wrap around her wrist, firm, claiming. I tilt her face toward me so she sees the truth in my eyes. “There’s another hunter out there. A replacement. He won’t hesitate. He won’t spare you. If I’m not back before sunrise, you vanish. But if I am, and I fucking will be, you don’t open this door for anyone but me. You breathe for me. You fucking bleed for me. No one else.”
She laughs, bitter and shaky. “You ruin me, use my body against my will, then give me pep talks like some fucked-up boyfriend. Which one is it, huh? Executioner or bodyguard?”
“Both,” I growl, closing in until the boards creak behind her back. “And we’re not gonna sit here and fucking act like you didn’t love it, Olivia. Don’t bother lying. I felt the way your body begged for me, the way you shook when I made you cum. Your mouth can play defiant all it wants, but your cunt already told me the truth.”
Her throat bobs. “And if I don’t stay put? If I decide I don’t wanna play your guard dog’s good little pet?”
My grip tightens. Just enough to make her gasp. “Then you die. Not by my hands. By his. And that’s the only outcome I won’t allow. You’re mine. I’ll fucking burn this game down before I let someone else put their hands on what’s mine.”
The blanket slips from her shoulder. Her eyes go glassy, defiance fighting with something hotter. She wants to bite back. She also wants to believe me.
Her lashes flutter like that word hit somewhere deep she doesn’t have language for. She swallows and nods. It’s not surrender. It’s survival. I’ll take it.
“Stay put,” I say, voice sharp. “No hero shit. You hear footsteps that aren’t mine, you bury yourself in the dark and stay quiet. Don’t even fucking breathe.”
Her throat works. She nods, but her eyes glass over, one tear sliding hot down her cheek.
I catch it with my thumb before it falls. My glove’s off now, bare skin against hers, rough but careful. I tilt her face up, make her look at me.
“Don’t worry,” I murmur, low and dangerous, the promise burning in my chest. “I’ll kill every fucking thing in this forest before I let anyone touch you. Before I let anyone take you. Believe that, if you don’t believe anything else.”
For a second, the air goes still. Her fingers tighten over my wrist like she’s holding me there, like she wants to believe. Like she’s already starting to.
Silent agreement. Good clickbait.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Olivia
Sunday
"You did so well," he says, and the praise feels invigorating. "You took every inch I gave you. Swallowed it all like the good girl I knew you would be."
Good girl. The words hit like a drug, flooding my system with endorphins that make me want to purr, to arch into his touch, to do whatever it takes to earn more ofthatapproval from him.
But even as I bask in his attention, even as I allow myself to believe that this moment feels good, I can sense change coming, hanging in the air around us like a dark mist. There's a sudden tension in his posture, urgency in the way his eyes keep checking the broken windows, an alertness that suggests the people talking in his ear don’t like what’s happening here.
He's preparing to leave.
