Page 26 of Bird on a Blade (Hunter’s Heart #1)

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

SAWYER

E die’s scared.

She hides it well enough, at least in the way she acts around me. That first night—me cooking her dinner and talking with her until my voice got hoarse—she didn’t act scared at all. It’s ‘cause she ain’t scared of me , and I can’t tell you how good that makes me feel.

But she’s still scared.

It’s a little lighter now, two days after she came to stay. And don’t get me wrong: it’s not unpleasant. In fact, it’s the opposite. A fucking aphrodisiac. I have to conjure up every ounce of willpower to stop myself from throwing her over my furniture and fucking her every time she’s nearby. I can barely stop myself from touching her—grabbing her hand, pulling her up to me, running my teeth across her collarbone. It makes it hard to get any work done.

I do try, though. The cold weather’s coming in fast—faster than usual, it feels like, with the nights coating the graveyard grass in frost. Thank god for the generator. And for Edie. We fucked both nights since she got here, and both nights we fell asleep naked, our bodies warming up the space beneath the blankets .

But the early cold has me worried since I haven’t finished sealing up the church windows and patching the gaps in the slats. I need to get everything sealed up tight before the cold comes, and that’s on top of knowing I’ll have to handle Edie’s ex.

“Do you think your ex-husband’s gonna come out here himself?” I ask her one afternoon. I’m fixing the rotting sideboards and Edie’s helping, handing me tools and holding up the plywood I nicked off a construction site back when I was in Roanoke. It’s sunny but cold, and Edie shivers beneath the flannel I lent her. We’re gonna need to take care of that, too, the way she doesn’t have any winter clothes, but I don’t much like the idea of her going into town alone for shopping. She won’t let me go with her, either. Says she’s worried about the cops connecting us to the PI’s disappearance.

“I don’t know.” Her voice gets kind of small, the way it does whenever I bring him up. I know she doesn’t want to talk about him. But I need to be prepared if I’m gonna keep her safe. “He’s the kind of man to have other people do his dirty work, you know?”

I snort at that. “He tried to kill you with his bare hands.”

As soon as the words are out of my mouth, I feel bad for being so blunt about it. But Edie just sighs and says, “That’s because I was right in front of him. Now—he’s probably going to send people.”

I had a feeling that might be the case. “Good to know. I’ll get ready for them.” I tap the nail into place, then step off my ladder to admire my handiwork. The plywood looks good enough. It’ll keep the cold out, at least. I move down to the next rotting patch, and Edie follows behind me, her fear piqued. It stirs up my senses.

“What about the police?”

“What did I tell you? You don’t gotta worry about them.”

“One of them shot you. ”

I turn away from the ladder, vaguely irritated. Edie gives me a devilish grin.

“It’s true,” she says.

“That was fifteen years ago,” I say. “And I was distracted. What I’m talking about now is a plan to keep you safe.”

The devilish grin disappears, replaced by that wide-eyed look she gets when I talk about protecting her.

“Maybe I can just disappear for a while,” she says. “And he’ll give up.”

I settle the ladder down in the dirt. This patch of sideboard isn’t in as bad a shape as the others.

“Give me the hammer,” I say.

She hands it to me. “What? Don’t like that idea?”

“You know him better than me.” I use the clawed end of the hammer to scrape away the rot, half-imagining that I’m digging out the brains of Edie’s ex instead of old wood. “Do you think he’ll give up?”

Her silence tells me everything I need to know. Edie’s explained a little about her ex, and I’ll say one thing about the piece of shit—he sounds focused. Determined.

“Shit,” she says softly.

I cover up the hole in the wood with a piece of plywood, Edie handing me the nails one by one, and then hop off the ladder and cart it around the side of the church while Edie follows with the little wagon of plywood and hardware supplies. But then I immediately stop short. It’s been long enough and enough has happened that I’d forgotten about Jaxon’s handiwork from a few weeks ago. I never painted over it, and its spidery, crawling lines are emblazoned across the grimy walls. That stupid fucking sigil. The thing looks demonic at the best of times, and seeing it on the side of the church is almost embarrassing, how cliched it is.

“What is that?” Edie squints up at it. “Did you do that?”

This is really goddamn embarrassing.

“No.” I plant the ladder down. “Jaxon did it. Him and Ambrose visited me right after I woke up. It’s a symbol of one of his gods.”

Edie frowns. I don’t tell her Jaxon’s theory, about those gods drawing us together.

“I want to paint over it,” I say quickly. “It’s just not as much of a priority as patching up the sideboards.”

“I could do that for you,” she says brightly. “I can’t do much, but I can paint.”

“You can do plenty.”

Edie rolls her eyes, spins the hammer around. “Let’s be real. I’m a glorified toolbox.”

“Not true,” I say. “You’re much prettier.”

She blinks like she’s taken by surprise. I love doing that to her, especially when her cheeks turn all pink like they’re doing now.

“Speaking of which,” I say. “I’ll take that hammer again, please.”

She hands it to me, but I can tell by her frown she’s going to suggest something I don’t like.

“I could run into town for you. There’s that hardware store on Main Street. If I drive, it won’t take me long.”

I sigh and turn toward the window. “It ain’t safe. You’ve got people looking for you, Edie.”

“Yeah,” she says. “At the cabin. I haven’t checked out. As far as they know, I’m still staying there.”

I pause, looking at my reflection in the window’s glass. She has a point.

“Please?” she says. “I’ve spent the last few weeks just doing nothing. Let me be useful.”

I twist around to look at her, her eyes big and pleading. “Besides,” she says. “I don’t want to look suspicious. It would be weird if I don’t go into town, and?—”

“Stop worrying about cops. They’re fucking idiots, and I know what I’m doing. ”

She rolls her eyes again. It’s cute, not that I’m gonna tell her that.

“If I get in my car right now, are you really going to stop me?”

Her question thrums through me. My first inclination is to tell her yes, absolutely. She’s my perfect prey, and I’d truss her up and lock her in the church’s basement if I thought it would keep her safe. And while the idea does make my cock stir, I know damn well I’m not going to do it. I ain’t that kind of killer, first of all, and second of all, I want to make her happy.

“Get the paint,” I say. “Nothing else. Don’t go poking around in the shops.”

“Not even to grab myself a sweater?”

I point the hammer at her. “You can wear my flannels, and you can like it.”

She grins at that. It always gives me a thrill, when something I say makes her smile.

“I’ll be back in half an hour,” she says. “Forty-five minutes tops.”

“I’ll be timing you.” And I will. It’s almost half after ten now. The second the clock hits 11:15, I’ll be heading to Altarida, knife and mask in hand. I don’t tell her that, though.

She hugs my legs, nearly knocking me off the ladder. I pretend to shoo her away, but really I like it, this back and forth, her silly hugs.

It almost makes me feel normal.