Page 87 of Fighting the Darkness

As much as I want to preen under his words, the last month comes rushing back to me, and I have to take a step back.

Chapter Thirty-eight

Freya

“Freya,”hemurmurs,takinga step toward me.

I spin on my heel and take off toward my locker. I don’t know why I’m running. It’s not like he won’t catch me. The locker room is small. I just know I need to get away from him, even if it’s just for a moment.

“Freya,” he calls after me, but I’ve already turned the corner to the row that houses my locker.

I come up short when I see what’s waiting for me there, and Wilder slams into my back. He wraps his arms around me to keep us both from hitting the floor as he splutters. “What the hell, Freya?”

As soon as he has us upright once more, all I can do is point. There, sitting on the bench I always use, is another bouquet of blood-red roses—luckily missing the blood this time.

Wilder tenses, pushing me behind him. “Wait here. Let me make sure there aren’t any other surprises.”

I can’t argue with him even if I wanted to. I’m shaking from head to toe as I wrap my arms around myself, backing up until I hit the row of lockers. I slide down them until my ass hits the floor, unable to rip my eyes away from the flowers.

My stalker was here. They were probably in the audience watching me fight. They wanted me to know they were here, hence the flowers.

I don’t know if they meant to scare me, but they did. I’m petrified right now. They could have been one of the people who touched me as Wilder carried me to the locker room. It could be anyone.

“That’s the only thing I found. There’s no one else in here,” Wilder assures me. “There’s a note, but I didn’t read it.”

He offers it to me, but all I can do is stare at it like it’s going to bite me. “I don’t know if I want to know what it says.”

“I can put it away, and we can just give it to Detective Santiago. We can forget it even exists.”

I scoff, shaking my head. “If only that was how life worked. Read it to me?”

“Are you sure?”

“No, but I need to know what it says.” I wrap my arms around my legs, pulling them up to my chest, and resting my chin on my knees.

“You’re a powerful fighter. Since this one didn’t hurt you, I’ll leave him alive. But anyone who hurts you will die. Keep that in mind. Congratulations on your win.”

I’m still shaking as Wilder sits beside me. “Do they not want me to fight? Is that what this is? I’ll stop if it’ll keep him from killing anyone else.”

“Sadly, I think this is about more than just fighting, cupcake.”

“Why do you call me that?”

Wilder frowns as he turns his head to look at me. “What?”

“Why do you call me cupcake?”

Wilder flushes, ducking his head. “I don’t want to tell you.”

I turn my head, laying the side of my head on my knees. “Would you rather talk about the elephant in the room?”

“Yes, actually.” He chuckles, but there’s no humor in the sound. “At your sixteenth birthday party, your mom decided to make cupcakes instead of a cake. Watching you eat cupcakes got me so fucking hard.”

I frown, not understanding. “Why would that get you hard?”

He scoffs. “Obviously, you don’t remember how you used to eat cupcakes. You always ate the frosting first. You’d trace your tongue through the icing before licking your lips. Then you’d open your mouth wide to try to fit all the icing in at once. All I could imagine was you using your tongue and mouth on my cock like that. I just started calling you cupcake in my head. If not for your brother asking me to stay away from you, you would’ve heard it fall from my mouth long before you did. I used to get off on my memory of you eating cupcakes every day.”

Now it’s my turn to blush. “You masturbated to your memory of me eating cupcakes?”

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