Page 16

Cat

L ong grass whipped my bare calves as I ran across the moors, the hiss of the wind battling with the roar of the sea throwing itself against the cliffs and my own panicked heartbeat in my throat.

It had been two days since the masque, and now someone was chasing me, hunting me.

They rustled the grass behind me, their steps slow and prowling, but every time I threw a frantic stare back, there was only the grass and the hill and in the distance, the two opposing manor houses.

Mist hovered in the air, turning the dark moors around me into an enchanted, spectral landscape.

There was nowhere to hide with the moon so bright, the stars dancing across the sky, but when I looked back, I was alone.

I faced forward again, and heard the rush of a body through the grass, fast in pursuit.

My heart quickened, sweat beading on my chest, my back, dripping down my spine.

The slow drip of it felt like a fingertip running over my skin and goosebumps burst to life on my arms.

Run, run… A whispering voice joined the wind, sending a visceral shudder through me.

I pushed my legs faster, whipping my head around to search the grass.

Nothing. Ghosts—was I being hunted by ghosts?

The thought made a small, frightened sound escape my lips.

I didn’t think about my creature and how the jaguar could shred a spirit apart.

Fear had its grip on me, digging skeletal hands into my body, dimpling my skin, and it refused to release me.

The sea roared louder, casting its waves against the cliffs and, oh god, I was running out of land. Running out of places to run.

Run, run…

I gasped, my whole body quivering so badly that my knees weakened. I was going to fall, either off the edge of the cliff or to the grass. I would be easy prey for the hunter, or I would be dead.

Another desperate glance showed only rolling, grassy hills that shone silver in the moonlight and the manor houses on their lofty mounts, watching impassively as I ran for my life.

Run, run, little bride…

The voice was so close, right by my ear.

I screamed and whipped around, losing my footing on the grass.

Time slowed as I fell, my heart beating like a panicked bird’s wings, my blood hot with panic, my whole body shivery and alive.

Alive with fright and survival and refusal to die quickly or easily. I was no one’s prey.

“Oh, but you are.” That voice; louder and closer and so real that my whole body jerked when I landed in the grass. A solid weight covered me, pressing me flat to my belly in the grass, and every cell came awake, every drop of blood sparked with sudden knowledge, sudden excitement. “My prey.”

Cruel fingers twisted in my hair and yanked my head back. “Aren’t you?” he demanded, lips brushing my ear.

I twisted to see his face, that cruel, beautiful, familiar face.

I didn’t care about the strands of hair that ripped out; they were willing sacrifices in my absolute need to see him.

Sharp, golden eyes narrowed in warning. His lips pressed into a dangerous line.

Flawless ivory skin clung to features so severe and devastating that I could cut myself on them.

Dark swirls of ink told stories of his history, flowing beneath his collar and down his chest, visible through the white shirt he wore unbuttoned.

My eyes stung at the same time a wildfire raged through my body, tears of relief and joy and sheer, overwhelming emotion tracing my cheeks at the same time my skin lit up and begged for touch.

“My prey,” he repeated, jump-starting my heart with eye contact, sudden and intense and all-consuming. “My little bride. My fucking universe.”

“Miz,” I sobbed.

His fingers tightened in my hair, wrenching my face close, and his kiss hit me like a fist to the chest. Claiming and punishing.

His teeth sank into my bottom lip hard enough to draw blood, and I jerked against him in response, turning liquid and pliant when I felt the demanding press of his cock against my ass.

“You ran away,” he hissed, as vicious and mean as he’d been when we first met, when he hated me but wanted me so badly he wore his dark-haired, blue-eyed disguise just to kiss me. “You saved my life and you ran away.”

“I’m coming back,” I promised, gasping when his grip tightened in my hair, bringing tears to my eyes. The sea still thrashed the cliffs, the wind still howled, but that all fell to complete silence when Miz kissed me.

“You are coming back,” he snarled between rough kisses, dragging my tongue into his mouth and scraping his teeth down it, hard enough to be a threat.

I squirmed, my clit aching, throbbing. “Even if I have to drag you, kicking and screaming. Even if I have to bind your hands and feet in my shadows and throw you over my shoulder. Even if you plead and beg and scream. Even if you cry. You are coming back to me.”

My back arched, and I panted against his lips, so turned on it hurt. “Yes,” I whispered, the stroke of the wind over my sensitised skin enough to make me shudder. “Yes.”

“Dirty fucking girl,” he muttered and released my hair, leaving my scalp pulsing with dull pain. “Getting aroused by me threatening you. I bet you were soaking wet as I chased you, weren’t you?”

I bit the inside of my lip, not wanting to answer that. I’d been afraid, but it wasn’t just fear making my heart fast. Exhilaration and dread—anticipation. I didn’t want to be caught by a vicious ghost, but being chased made me come alive. And being caught? Being caught by Misery?

I arched against him, my ass grazing his cock, and clearly that was answer enough because his low laugh rustled my hair.

Demanding hands grabbed the skirt of my nightgown, and I jumped at the sudden rip, my skin flashing red hot, a squirm in my lower belly.

That delicious mix of dread and exhilaration built again, giving me butterflies.

It made me so sensitive that I jumped when Miz’s hands met my hips.

His firm grip lifted my ass off the ground, leaving the ripped remnants of my gown in the grass as he arranged me the way he wanted and—drove into me without warning.

“Miz!”

A cool hand encircled my neck, adding enough pressure to make my back bow, my inner muscles fluttering around him in a hungry, enthusiastic plea. “Does it hurt, little bride?” he asked with soft, oozing sympathy.

I nodded, gasping as he drove deeper, giving me all of him. And fuck, it did hurt, stretching me so good, the ache, the sudden fullness emptying my mind of every fear and worry. Ghosts and courtiers and gods were all swept from my mind, leaving only gasping pleas and sobs of relief.

“Poor little bride,” he cooed, brushing my hair away from my neck so he could drag his lips down the back, kissing the first ridge of my spine. “But if it hurts, why are you so wet?”

A cry tore from my throat when he withdrew and thrust back inside so harshly that my whole body felt the impact, the ache twisting into something sharper. Discomfort into pain. Another thrust, just as ruthless, and it hurt. My mouth hung open on panting breaths.

“I think my slut wants it to hurt,” he said with a sinister laugh.

“Need,” I blurted when he thrust again, and again, his hips driving into my ass, my boobs bouncing, nipples so sensitive that even the lash of the wind made them achy and hard. “I need it to hurt.”

“That’s my fucking girl,” Miz hissed and tightened his fingers around my throat.

Oh. Desperate, shivering tingles raced down my spine. I thought he’d already been fucking me hard, but he ripped away all pretences of civility and stopped holding back.

“Oh, god.”

“Scream it. Tell everyone your god is fucking you, owning this fucking pussy, my fucking pussy. Tell the whole world who you belong to.”

My voice joined the howling of the wind as he fucked me faster, without mercy, and heat coiled inside my skin, my pussy clasping his length and ripping a groan from him, too.

The sound pushed me higher. I grasped frantically at the grass, holding on as he broke me apart, broke me down to the feral, needful creature I was at my core.

“Mine,” he said against my ear, biting the lobe and making my hips jerk back into his, sinking him so deep that I felt his cock everywhere.

“My hot, little cunt.” He quickened his pace, as feral as I was.

“My tits.” He twisted my nipples, sending a razor-edge of heat and sensation to carve me apart.

Every part of my soul was on show for him as I gasped and pleaded and offered him everything.

“My throat.” He squeezed, surrounded my fragile neck with his hand until my blood pounded faster and my head floated.

“My life I can rip away whenever I fucking want.”

His next thrust ruined me. My climax struck as hard as his thrusts, and my eyes rolled back. Bright flashes of light covered my vision. I couldn’t tell if the stars were in the sky or caused by how desperately he fucked me.

His breathing came faster, louder, his voice ragged. “Dark, twisted, fucked-up little whore,” he grunted. “Do you come harder knowing how easily I could end you right now?”

I whimpered, my eyes slamming shut. Oh, god. The pleasure never ended.

“I do,” he growled. “I fucking do. Knowing I have you at my mercy, that I could do anything to you and you’d not only enjoy it but beg me for more, harder, rougher…

” He was falling apart, his thrusts erratic, his voice a hoarse groan.

“I’m dark, twisted, and fucked up just like you.

Your darkness is the same as mine. A perfect fucking match. ”

His hand flexed on my throat, and then he was groaning, his cock wild and throbbing inside me, matching my hot, pulsing fire with his own spill of heat.

When the rush of pleasure finally ebbed away, my body exhausted and sore in the best way, I collapsed into the grass with a moan.

Miz’s hand lightened on my throat, his thumb stroking my pulse, and a deep sigh ruffled my hair. He kissed my nape and wound an arm around my waist, every part of him that had been cold and hard and razor-sharp softening to tenderness and love.

“Wherever you are,” he murmured, ruffling my hair, “you better be waiting for me. Because I will find a way to you, and I will drag you home.”

“Not yet,” I breathed, covering his hand where it wrapped around my throat. “Not until I find Death.”

He jolted against me, skin sliding over skin and sending a spark of arousal through my sore pussy. “He’s there?”

“Cruelty has him. She’s keeping him locked up somewhere, but I have a chance to find him this weekend.”

“Fuck,” Miz breathed, sagging against me.

I liked the press of his weight above me, liked the way his hand splayed across my waist. “I have no doubt you’re strong enough to do it alone, my universe, but I’ll try everything in my power to get the gates back so I can join you.

Even if I have to rip open an exit with my bare hands. Just hold on for me, Cat.”

An ache tightened my chest, but instead of anxiety it was a sweet pain for once. My eyes stung. “I love you. I miss you.”

He scattered kisses across the crown of my head. “I love you, and I miss you. We all do. Madde’s going—”

His weight vanished in an instant, and my soul bumped into the bones of my skeleton as I lurched upright in bed, not outside in the moorland, not under the stars. Not under Misery at all. A dream. Just another fucking dream.

“Madde’s going where?”

What had he been about to say? Restless panic quickened my heart, while my stomach formed a tight knot. Was Madde hurt? Was he waning and sick like Miz had been?

I covered my face as tears of frustration and deep, endless pain built in my eyes. It felt so real. I still felt Miz inside me, still felt him kissing a crown around my head, his possessive hand splayed across my stomach. I believed, deep in my bones, that it was real. That it happened.

But I was alone in my bed in Darkmore Manor.