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He inhales sharply, and then he’s flinging the knife across the room, the sound of it cracking against my vanity mirror swallowed by my sharp cries.

His hand comes around my throat, mouth still pressed into my ear.

“Say it again,” he demands, quickening his pace.

I bite my lip until I taste copper, struggling to hold on—to keep from exploding around him. I’m in a losing battle, and I am a fucking liar. I’m terrified of what Zade will do—enough to keep grappling at that control. Yet I know if I let go, I’ll welcome his punishment as chaotically as I did the tip of his knife.

“I love you,” I choke out, the words scarcely leaving my tongue before his hand is clamping down, arresting the oxygen in my lungs.

“Such a good girl. I want you to soak these sheets with your cum as deeply as your blood, do you understand me?”

My mouth opens, but no sound escapes. He’s gripping my throat too tightly to allow a single decibel to slip through.

Blackness licks at the edges of my vision, taunting me as it creeps in slowly. The pressure in my head heightens, and I feel how bright red my face is. Panic unfurls in my stomach, into the whirlpool of bliss and agony. It’s a battle of needing him to stop and preferring he snap my neck if he does.

I’m clawing at his arm, and when my eyes begin to roll, he releases my throat right as a tidal wave crashes through me.

The combination of the blood draining from my head at a dizzying speed and the earth-shattering orgasm reduces me to delirium. My pussy clenches around him so tightly, I feel him strain to sink into me.

“Zade!” I scream through a ravaged throat, hoarse and cracked, my arms looping around his neck, desperate to hold on to something, and needing it to ground me as I’m shredded into pieces.

My ears ring as my body bows completely off the bed, the euphoria clawing at my insides too intense for me to process.

He refuses to stop, fucking me harder even as I thrash in his hold. His hands clutch my hips with a bruising force, and if I could see past the image of God staring in my eyes, asking me if I’m ready to come home, I’d find an unhinged man on his knees asking if he can come, too.

Tears spring to my eyes, and my face contorts with a helpless cry as my body is ravaged. All of the sensations—it’s too much.

“Oh my God, please, I can’t anymore!”

I feel his fist slam into the mattress beside my head with a guttural growl, and his tongue slides along my cheekbone, lapping up the teardrops.

“Eyes on me when you’re praying to me,” he snaps. I shake my head, more tears spilling over. “Fuck, you’re so beautiful when you cry for me. Do you think I’ll ever stop now? I want to drink your fucking tears like they’re the blood of Christ.”

I shake my head again, a silent plea for him to stop. But he refuses, and I

wonder how much longer I can take it before I black out.

“Am I your salvation, too?” I choke out, barely getting the words out before a sob breaks free.

“You were always going to be the one that saved me, little mouse.” He shudders, and I feel his body tightening as he nears his end. It’s coming for me, too, and I’m scared what will become of me once it hits.

He fucks me faster, slipping his hand between our bodies and sliding his fingers against my clit, and this time, I don’t see anything at all. My mouth opens on a near-silent scream, and he roars, supplying the sound of us breaking apart, adrift in our own decimation.

He stills, but my hips have a mind of their own, rolling against him as we’re both reduced to ash.

You are dust, and unto dust you shall return.

Time ceases to exist, and by the time we both regain clarity, we’re panting and trembling with aftershocks. My cheeks are wet with tears, still leaking from my eyes as I attempt to catch my breath. But I can’t. Not with the sobs racking my bruised throat.

Zade loops his arm around my neck, holding me to him tightly as we both try to come back down from… whatever the fuck that was.

“I love you, too,” he rasps.

Every day, we come a little closer to death—our bodies deteriorating just a little more. And if this is what dying feels like, then I never want to feel anything else.

Chapter 38

The Hunter