“Cam.” Her voice is much more insistent this time, and as I look into her eyes, dilated with adrenaline, I notice how dull they look. They’ve always reminded me of the sky after a thunderstorm—electric and energized—but right now they’re hollow and listless, like everything that made Hadley, Hadley, has been sucked right out of her.
Running my hands down her arms, I feel numerous lacerations, and tearing my gaze from hers, there’s more cuts than I can count, littering her skin. Some are shallow and partially healed, while others look fresh, from the last couple of days. Dropping my gaze to where her thighs straddle mine, I notice the same slashes across her legs. One particularly savage-looking gash running up the side of her thigh has me gritting my teeth as I struggle to contain my anger.
Placing her hand under my chin, she forces my gaze back to hers. Her small fist wraps around the front of my top, pulling me into her, and she kisses me deeply until I get lost in the feel of her. “Please,” she murmurs. “I need to know this is real.”
Those words threaten to break me, and the desperate, vacant look in her eyes is my undoing. Even though I don’t understand, I can tell this is what she needs right now.
Beck’s going to cut my fucking balls off if he comes in and catches me taking advantage of her in her vulnerable state, but fuck me if I’m going to let her down.
I surge forward, returning her kiss with a fierce passion. I let her taste every part of the panic and desperate longing I have felt since I discovered she was missing; let her see how much she’s been missed, how much she’s needed, wanted, and loved.
Holding her against me, I get to my feet, noting how light she feels in my arms as I set her on the small table. She never lets our kiss break, clinging to me like she’s scared if she lets go, I’ll disappear, but she should know I’m not fucking going anywhere. I’m never letting her out of my sight again. I’ve been such a fucking idiot, wasting so much time being pissed at her and angry with myself, when all along, I should have been doing this—showing her exactly what she means to me. She’s had me captivated since I first saw her in the quad in her combat boots, with her hair whipping wildly around her face. In the last two weeks I have come to realize, the way she makes me feel, it’s so much stronger than lust, more powerful than like. I love her, in an all-consuming, dark, possessive way, that means I’ll always fight to get to her. I’ll slay whoever I need to, conquer whatever obstacle is in my way. I don’t want to control her the way my father did. I don’t need to dictate every part of her life. I want to watch her fly free, to see her vanquish her enemies, and become the formidable queen she was born to be.
Our teeth clash as my hands run down her sides. My skin tingles under her touch as she slips her hand under my top, and I groan at the contact. Kissing her passionately, I stroke along her inner thighs, hesitant to go further as her words echo in my mind.
My body tenses at the spark of anger. Questions swim in my head as I wonder, not for the first time, what she’s had to endure the last two weeks. She must pick up on my distracted train of thought as she pulls me further into her, leaning back on the table until I’m hovering over her. Her legs wrap around my waist, causing the god-awful dress that asshole has dressed her in to slide up. Running my hand along her thigh, I push it higher and slip my hand between her legs, gritting my teeth at the absence of her underwear.
Breaking the kiss, her head falls back and she moans as I circle her clit. I dip my head, kissing along her neck, uncaring of the blood coating her skin, as her needy moans spur me on. When I sink two fingers into her, her face falls slack, and her eyes become hooded. She tugs me up to kiss her as I push her closer to oblivion.
Gazing into her eyes while I give her what she needs, I murmur, “You deserve to feel nothing but pleasure.”
Her eyes bore into mine and her fingers dig into my skin as she comes apart. A single tear escapes and runs into her hairline before I can wipe it away, and she begins to tremble in my arms. Her hand shakes as she places it on my chest, over my rapidly beating heart.
“I didn’t think I’d get to feel this again.”
The sound of footsteps coming toward us has me spinning around, ensuring Hadley’s hidden behind me. I move to grab my gun, but my fingers wrap around nothing but air, and I curse myself for being so stupid when I notice the gun lying uselessly on the floor beside my very dead dad.
Lowering into a crouch instead, I ready myself to fight my way out of here as the footsteps draw closer.
“Jesus, you scared the shit out of me,” I huff out, sagging and dropping my arms as Beck comes storming into the room. His shirt is torn, and he’s got a nasty gash on his arm, but otherwise he looks relatively unscathed.
His eyes drift behind me, and they flare when he spots Hadley. I move to the side as he takes a step forward, his gaze roaming over her, most likely noting the same physical changes I did.
Tears now stream continuously down her face, and as she pushes herself off the table in a bid to get to Beck, her legs give way beneath her.
Beck and I dive for her at the same time, but he gets there first, wrapping her in his arms, and I hear her sob into his chest. Now that the adrenaline is wearing off, she’s starting to crash—hard.
Giving them a moment, I move to the sink and wash the blood off my hands and face. Finding a worn looking dishcloth beneath the sink, I wet it under the tap and turn to move back to Hadley, wanting to clean my father’s disgusting blood off of her, but I pause when my gaze lands on his unmoving body. Stepping closer, I take in his blood-soaked shirt, the shocked look frozen on his face, and the numerous stab wounds that speak of all the pent-up aggression Hadley had toward him. The lack of emotion I feel, or rather the absence of the grief I should probably be feeling, is unnerving, yet it seems appropriate. He was my father in name only. We shared DNA, but that was it. I won’t mourn his absence, or wonder what could have been. In fact, knowing Hadley will no longer have to fear him makes a sadistic grin brighten my face, and looking away from his rotting corpse, I focus on my girl, still held safely in Beck’s comforting arms. I step over my father and, without a backward glance, I move to clean her up, wiping the damp cloth over her face, neck, chest, and arms. All the while, she leans against Beck’s chest, watching me. The deadened look in her eyes worries me as she stares blankly back at me, and I stroke my hand over her hair.
“You ready to get out of here, baby?”
She sighs, and her eyes drift shut. “You have no idea.”
“You need me to carry you?”