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I shift my body around so I’m facing her. So I can look her straight on. I’m still figuring out how to respond when she says, “Why did you choose me?”

“What?”

“Fifteen years ago,” she says. “When I was at camp. Why me?” Her eyes glitter in the darkness. “Why am I your perfect prey?”

The easy answer is that I thought she was beautiful, but I know that’s not the answer she’s looking for. It’s also not the full truth of things, is it?

“You’re my perfect prey because I want to hunt you over and over.” I hope I’m explaining this right, that I don’t scare her away. “I saw you and I wanted to hunt you but I didn’t want to kill you, not really.”

Her eyes bore into mine, almost challenging me. It makes me feel stripped bare. Vulnerable.

It makes me feel almost like I’m prey myself.

“There’s something in you,” I say. “Some strength that tells meyou’re the one I chase but let go. I felt it the first time I saw you. And I feel it every time I look at you.”

It feels good saying that out loud. Feels good to see the effect it has on her, the subtle shift in temperature as her cheeks warm, as her heart rate picks up. I can’t stop myself from pressing my hand against her frantic pulse.

“I love you,” I say simply. “But I love you the way a hunter loves prey. And there’s nothing I can change about that, Edie.” I let my hand slide up to her face. I don’t want her looking away from me while I talk. “But I will protect you. That man, your ex, he caused you so much pain. And I’m going to take it away. Do you understand that? I’m going to take it away and do my best to keep you happy. But I am what I am, and nothing is going to cha?—”

She lunges at me so fast I almost think she’s attacking me. But then her lips press to mine and her tongue slides into my mouth, and then I’m attacking her, devouring her, nipping and biting at her sweet, pulsing flesh.

“Why do I want this?” she gasps between kisses, and I press her down onto her back and crawl on top of her. Not so much to fuck her but because I want to feel her body beneath me, pinned in place.

“Does it matter?”

She gazes up at me, lips swollen from my kisses. Her nightgown’s neckline is pushed down, and I can see the dark crescent of her areolas peeking out from behind the lace.

“I think I’m a bad person,” she says.

“You think you’re a killer.”

Something flickers across her face. That’s it. That’s what’s bothering her.

“You’re not going to kill anyone,” I tell her, pressing her legs open with my knee. “I’m going to do it. Because I like it. And because that’s what it’ll take to give you the life you deserve.”

Edie shivers a little. But she never turns away from me. Hereyes blaze with something as hot and bright as the sun. It’s not lust.

“Say it again,” I order, rubbing my thigh up against her pussy.

“Say what?”

“That you love me.”

Her lips curl into a faint, delicate smile. “You say it first.”

I press my head down so our foreheads touch. Grab at her wrists so I can pin her arms above her head, holding her in my Hunter’s trap.

“I love you, my perfect prey.”

Her eyes gleam. She hooks a leg around my hip, pulling me into her. I hope she knows my cock is hard from the thought of killing her ex. I hope she knows I think of death every time I fuck her. Because that’s who loves her. And I love her because she isn’t those things. I love her because she’s the moonlight in the shadows, the porch light flickering in the dark woods.

She’s the Milky Way, a band of celestial light that marks a place as safe.

“Now say it back,” I order.

And she does.

But I still don’t know if she understands.