Page 64 of Barons of Decay (Royals of Forsyth University #10)

H unter

We don’t say much on the walk back to the house. Ares trots ahead of us, although he’s looked back at the cabin more than once. I could tell he didn’t want to leave her, sprawled across the sheets, marked and used.

Next to me, DK seems lighter, shoulders loose after getting some release. I’m the opposite. My stomach’s tight. I’m not sure how I feel.

“She’ll get used to it,” he says, suddenly, shoving his hands in his pockets. As if the statement absolves us of our actions.

“Yeah, maybe.” I pick up a stick and whistle at Ares. He perks up, tongue lolling, excited. I throw the stick, and he darts after it.

I sense DK’s eyes on me. “What?”

“You having regrets?” There’s an accusation in his tone.

I close my eyes and exhale through my nose. Not because I disagree–but because I remember it too well. The way her back arched. The way her eyes begged even as her lips said no . And the way I didn’t touch her. Not the way I wanted.

“It’s not that.”

“Then what?” He stops in the middle of the yard. “Because we’re in this together, and I need to know where your head is at.”

“I can’t just fuck her,” I blurt. “Not like you do.” It’s getting harder.

Harder not to touch. I wish I was more like DK, able to take what I want, able to do it without going too far.

She looked at me. Right before. Right after.

Eyes wide, glassy, begging for something I didn’t give her.

And I could’ve. That’s the worst part. I could’ve fucked her good.

Felt her clench around me, but I didn’t.

“Yeah, I figured. Some kind of kink, right?” He eyes me. “You like watching.”

“I...” The lump in my throat makes it painful to swallow. “I can’t help it. And it’s safer this way. For all of us.”

Every step we take toward the house requires enormous strength not to turn around and go back to the cabin to take what belongs to me. To leave her with a mark inside, not just out.

“She’s made for it,” he goes on, low now, confident. “You know that. For the pain and the pleasure. You saw it when she came apart. That wasn’t fear. That was surrender. Real, dirty surrender.”

My jaw tightens. That’s what’s eating me. Not that it happened–but that I want it again. That I want her crying, wrecked, my name in her throat. That I’m fucking mad I held back. I clench my hands.

“She’s not going anywhere,” he reminds me. “Plenty of time.”

“Ares! Komm! ” I shout as we reach the house, its colored-glass windows and peaked roof looming ahead.

Graves meets us at the doorway. “The King asked me to bring some information to your quarters. He said, and I quote, ‘Now that the wedding is over, it’s time to stop fucking around and get to work.’” His lips quirk. “Everything is on the table in the den.”

After Graves walks off, DK says, “Damn, I guess the King was right. Samhain is over.”

Inside, Ares picks up his bone and jumps up on the cracked leather couch. On the game table is the stack of paperwork Graves left us, and it only takes a moment to realize it’s information on the missing girls.

“I’ve been working on something.” I walk into our bedroom and grab the folded-up map out of my backpack.

“I took all the information I got from my radio show and started tracking it.” Spreading the map out on the table, I point out the key.

“The red dots are for hard evidence,” he says.

“The blue circles are for suspicious activity that we need to follow up on. The Xs mark every place a girl was last seen alive.”

DK flips through a file. “These have all the details on the missing girls, including things like name, date, age, class schedule, and medical records. I don’t even want to know how he got those.”

The more we study it, the more obvious it becomes that everything circles back to the same thing the Kings, the police and Feds have had all along: nothing.

“Does this look like a sort of straight line to you?” DK asks, tracing a line down the map with his finger between two of the dots. “Stella was last seen here.” He points to one spot. “And Arianette was seen here.”

I lean over and study the map. “Close enough. Except the university is in the middle.”

Something pings in my mind, and I flip through the papers, pulling out a hand-drawn schematic of the tunnel system.

It’s crudely drawn and the King implied that not all of it is on official maps.

“We’ve got the crypts, an underground rail, emergency systems and campus facilities. Some seem to connect and others don’t.”

DK sits back and runs his hand through his hair. “Nothing indicates that these are linked in any way either.”

“Since when do the powers that be cooperate in Forsyth?”

“Any word on Sofia?” he asks, toying with his eyebrow piercing.

"Last I heard the Dukes had her in a safe spot in the West End and someone goes with her back and forth to campus.” I drop a file on the table and sigh. “I can check in on her at my next class, see if anything suspicious has come up.”

DK grunts. "At the reception Sy asked me again about the hypnotism shit. I promised we’d bring her by sometime soon.”

Hunter gives me a skeptical look. "You think she's ready?"

"No," he grins, “but since when does the Baroness get to decide when she’s ready?"

“Now?” I ask, partially because I want to get back to the cabin. There’s an itch under my skin, the urge to see her and maybe finish what I didn’t earlier.

“Eh, let's give her a bit to rest and clean up,” he says, slinking back in his chair. “But after that, it’s like the King said, it’s back to business.”

Ares trots beside me as we head back through the trees. Sun’s starting to dip, slicing orange through the thinning canopy. The path is quiet. Too quiet. Even DK notices.

“Fuck, it’s kind of creepy out here.” He glances over his shoulders. “I’ve heard that bobcats live in this area.”

“You ever see one?” I ask.

“No, but I came upon a mother black bear and her cubs when I was in the wilderness program.” He zips up his jacket. “Just about shit myself.”

I laugh, thinking about him in a state of panic. He’s always so even-tempered, and fearless. But I’ve seen the scar on his throat. That shit will change a person.

“I just hope she’s cleaned up and ready to go.”

“She was barely moving,” I say, but something feels wrong. My stomach’s a knot. Not guilt–just instinct.

We climb the porch and I push open the door. The bed is stripped. Her wedding dress is gone. The air is heavy, warm and humid with sweat and sex and blood.

“Jesus Christ.”

I turn and see DK staring at the wall. Well, not just the wall.

There’s writing– everywhere.

Smeared and dripping. Thin, frenzied strokes, off the tip of a finger.

Horns and hooves. He breathes inside my head.

Monsters. Blue eyed. Devil’s hair. Shiny silver.

Shhhh. He’ll hear you.

I’m not her. I’m not her. I’m not her.

The Beast is hungry. He’ll eat the pretty girls first.

“What the fuck…” DK steps forward, turning in a slow circle. A piece of a broken teapot sits on the dresser, the sharp tip coated in red.

The letters are smeared in places like she tried to scrub them out–or clawed at them. Some of the prints are small and bloody. Her hands must have been shaking. There’s a streak leading to the door. A trail.

I step forward and swing the door shut. The back is covered, in one word, repeated over and over.

runrunrunrunRUNrunrunrunRUnRunrunrunrunrUn

runrunrunrunRUNrunrunrunRUnrunrunrunrunRUN

RunrunrunRUnRunrunrunrunrUnRunrunruNrunrUn

And at the bottom, in bold.

BURN. IT. DOWN.

“She’s fucking lost it,” he says, jaw tight. “She’s gonna hurt herself. Or someone else.”

“No,” I say, already thinking, moving. “At least not yet.”

She’s done it twice before. Once by the river.

Then in the Hunt. When Arianette feels trapped the first thing she does is figure out a way to run away.

I turn, eyes searching, then kneel beside the bed and reach under, grabbing the scrap of lace I’d seen earlier in the day–her panties.

The bloodstain from the night before is dry, but it’ll do.

Ares perks up as I hold them out.

“ Such, ” I whisper, pressing them to his nose.

He sniffs, wanders around the room, then bolts for the door.

“She’ll head for cover,” I say, following fast. “Somewhere we don’t know about.”

“We should have put her back in the cage.” DK jogs to keep up. “The King is going to fucking flip.”

After seeing the rod and the wounds on Arianette’s back, I’m not eager to see what punishment he would dole out on us for running her off. Which is why I mutter, mostly to myself, “Not if we find her first.”