Page 72 of Creeping Lily
“You can disobey me if you want,” he says. “But we both know this ends with you choosing me anyway.”
The door shuts with a soft click, but the echo of his words lingers—heavy, unsettling, and impossible to ignore.
I stand there for a long moment, wrists tingling where the cuffs had been, breath shallow in my chest. The room feels too big without him in it, too quiet—like the walls are holding their breath, waiting for him to return.
My legs move without thinking, carrying me to the door. I press my palm flat against the wood, half-expecting to feel the echo of his presence through it. Nothing. Just the cool, lifeless surface.
I flex my fingers, the faint marks from the cuffs still ghosting my skin. My heart is a mess in my chest—part pounding with relief, part aching with something that feels too much like loss.
The scent of him still clings to the air—leather, oud, smoke—wrapping around me like invisible hands. I close my eyes, and for a moment I’m back there, feeling the scrape of his mask, the warmth of his breath, the weight of his hand on my neck. My body remembers, even if my mind tries to fight it.
I should be angry. I should be terrified. And I am. But it’s not enough to stop the other thing thrumming beneath it—the pull.
I sink onto my bed, knees drawn up, my mind looping his warning over and over until it blurs into something else entirely. The edges of his voice are still sharp in my ear.
Stay away from them.
Stay away.
I don’t know if I can.
And that might be exactly what he’s counting on.
36
TITAN
Iwatch her on the app, jaw grinding as her little dot moves across the map.
Lily Snow. Out alone. Again.
You’d think by now she’d have learned. You’d think she’d know this campus after dark isn’t empty—it’s crawling. With men who wait for shadows to cover their sins. With monsters who see a girl walking alone as an open invitation.
The school pretends otherwise, of course. The Dean signs checks. Victims disappear from reports. Families are paid to keep their mouths shut. But you can’t smother the smell of rot forever.
That’s why Colt University brought in Goliath.
We aren’t cops. We aren’t security. We don’t wear uniforms. We clean. We hunt. We make problems disappear—permanently.
And for me, there’s only one reason I’m here.Her.
She’s wearing jeans, a Henley, and a jacket too thin for the bite in the air. I track her leaving the library—too late for her to be out. Anything after nine is a bad idea. She knows that. Hell, she’s had close calls before. But she just keeps pushing her luck.
Her pace quickens. She looks over her shoulder. And like an idiot, she cuts through the park.
“Don’t,” I mutter.
But she does. The short cut. The trap. Once you’re in that park at night, you’re invisible. No one sees you. No one hears you scream.
That’s when I see him. A dark figure trailing her. Big. Moving with intent.
I flick my cigarette to the ground and start walking along the opposite path. I already know how this ends.
They come into view. His hand hits her shoulder and spins her, slamming her into a tree so hard I hear the bark splinter. She fights, small hands clawing at him, kneeing at air. He dwarfs her, his bulk pressing her into the trunk. He’s wearing a ski mask—coward. Nothing I hate more than a man who takes from a woman while hiding his face.
The sound of denim rasping against her skin grinds through my brain, tearing at something deep.
I cross the distance slow, deliberate, letting the rage coil tight inside me. When I’m close enough, I tear him off her as though I’m ripping a weed from the ground and throw him across the grass.
