Page 57 of Prey

With a quick wave, I spun around and raced toward my house. I felt my wall come down the moment I pushed through my front door. Yelling broke through the mental exhaustion and I locked the dead bolt, heading for my room.

“Love you to death, Tessa. Love you to death. Love ME to death.”

My head shook as I placed the purse on my comforter and stared at the box. Marko continued, chanting the words over and over. Letting his voice deepen, only to go back to normal. It seemed to last forever. Until…he stopped. With his eerie silence, I looked up, right to the window. In roughly three hours the sun would set.

Then, he’d come.

Chapter 26

Marko

Blood poured from my arm, the cuts already beginning to heal as I carved in new ones. Love you to death. Love you to death.

There wasn’t an available space left on my right forearm except closer to my wrist where I’d first begun. The words were fading, allowing me to go back and start all over again. Love you to death. God, I did. I loved her so much in the moment that I couldn’t think past wanting to show her just how much. To death. Yes, it was going to be glorious. The best death that could ever be done. I’d make it perfect. Slow.

The small chunk of cement tore into my skin as I began to leisurely slice the L at my wrist, engraving what I never wanted to forget.

Blood pooled just above the cut and I felt the warmth run in a river over the side of my arm. With as much as I’d lost so far, I’d be famished come time to feed. I’d take every last drop she had to give, even if it killed me. Oh, but what a sweet death it would be. To have her consume my body as much as my mind, there’d be nothing more heavenly.

The O was deep and I moved to the next, so focused on the V that I never heard the clothes hit the ground. It was the breeze that brushed against my skin that had me surging to my feet, ready to attack.

“Get dressed. It’s almost time.”

My eyes stayed narrowed as Julius crossed his arms over his chest. I didn’t break his stare as I crouched down and snatched the suit from the ground. I knew my trench and fedora was present, but I was focused on nothing but the threat that stood before me. And leader or not, Julius was my enemy. We were all against each other here.

“It’s done. I was right.”

I kept silent as I took off the pants I was wearing and exchanged them for the new pair.

“The old Marko is gone. Dead.” He smiled. “Reborn into what you need to be. This, right here. You increased your growth. Can you feel it? Try to clear your mind and let yourself realize just who you are now.”

What he spoke sent my core burning as I tapped into my powers robotically. Adrenaline spiked and I gritted my teeth at the vast sensation of pin pricks. I’d…been here before, long ago, when I’d first come into my powers. It lasted for what felt like forever, but in reality, only the first year. Then rebirths came every few hundred years and I wasn’t sure why I hadn’t connected the dots before.

“How does it feel to die?”

“I knew she wouldn’t kill me.” I somehow managed the words past the thickness in my throat.

“Oh, she very well may end your life tonight. That I can’t see.”

“You said you were going to change her.”

He laughed. “She needed confidence. We both know she doesn’t stand a chance.”

“No, she doesn’t.”

I shoved my arm in the sleeve and he tilted his head as he watched me. “You do realize that you underestimate her, correct?”

“No.” My head lowered as I began buttoning the shirt. I didn’t want to talk. I wanted to focus on killing mon chaton in my head. Julius was fucking with my concentration. I knew nothing but her, and him getting in the way, even if it was just in the way of my fantasies, was not only dangerous for him, but for me.

“You do. She’s not unprepared, Marko. This, I do know. She plans to kill you and she might just succeed. If she does, and she comes back here without you, I will turn her. Her blood may not speak to me, but I know it. I know it like my own.”

Even though his words shocked me, I barely registered them as a low rumbled vibrated my chest. “She doesn’t want this. Did you not see her fear?”

“I care not for her fear. It will fade. If anyone can stop this friend of hers, this Hunter, it will be her.”

I blinked as my mind tried to clear out Tessa, but it was almost impossible. Her name was on repeat, circling and forcing its way through so that nothing else mattered.

“Marie. She dreamed.”

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