Page 18 of Chapel at Ender’s Ridge (Ender’s Calling #1)

Laurie looked as if he didn’t want to believe it, but there was a flicker of doubt in his face as he glanced towards the destroyed pyre. Three logs still stacked neatly on the outer edge, untouched from the flames. “Did you find him?”

A squeal echoed in the distance—Sitara, on the hunt. The same way Decker hunted Elias when Safine recovered. Ruthless and enduring, until he’d caught his single misstep.

“I did.” The others, armed to the teeth and scouring the barren land for any trace of the preacher, didn’t witness his end. It was only him and Elias, and the last woman he’d tried to destroy.

The only man I never regretted putting an end to.

Decker would have killed Elias even if his blood was wasted.

Laurie’s teeth worried his bottom lip, words hesitant like they were plucked from his lips against his will. “What happened to him?”

Decker considered lying. Telling him Elias escaped, disappearing across the hills to Amaretto, never to be seen again. Decker didn’t make a habit of lying .

“I killed him.”

The confession hung between them as potent and stifling as the oily smoke that once shrouded the plateau.

Laurie stiffened, heart thudding against his ribs so viciously Decker thought they might shatter.

You wanted to know me, and here I am. Do you still want to know me, preacher? Do you want to know where I buried the broken body of your uncle? Do you wish to know the look in his eyes before I struck?

“I’ve trusted you with this. You’re different from him. Not cruel or vengeful,” he said quietly.

Laurie flinched when Decker reached for him.

His pulse fluttered like a wounded bird under his shirt cuffs. The wind curled around them, ruffling his curls over his face.

“Look at me,” Decker said.

He caught a glimpse of Elias’s last moments in his eyes. Distress. Negotiation.

Fury was absent.

Laurie was nothing like his uncle.

In the calm of the night, Decker could believe he made the right decision. Elias’s sins hadn’t crawled back to haunt him, but this preacher came as a new beginning, radiant in the moonlight.

Laurie’s lips parted, and Decker smoothed a thumb over the inside of his wrist, gentle encouragement to speak.

“Don’t kill me.” Barely a whisper. Laurie’s face was like terror etched in stone.

“Laurie.” His name slipped from him like smooth liquor with a note of admonishment. Intoxicating how his pulse jumped under his hand.

Keep your head, Decker .

The scent of blood rushed downwind with the dying screech of a rabbit.

Laurie’s hand trembled in Decker’s, hot against his cool skin. “Let go.”

Decker startled, hand falling away. Fangs pricked at his mouth.

I forget myself.

Safine tells me I’m careless.

Laurie ran. Snatching his arm away and turning on his heel, he bolted for the woods.

Stop.

Stop.

Decker didn’t realize he’d snarled until Laurie glanced back, face white as bone. A whip-thin branch slashed across his cheek, cutting a line of blood.

Decker gnashed sharpened teeth, senses honing in as Laurie darted between trees, faster, faster, but not quite fast enough.

Scuffling a wide path, clutching at bushes to regain his balance, each heaving, sobbing breath battering into Decker’s head, the preacher ran.

Decker became one with the wind, slipping under the furled trees, leaping from the rocks, the scent of blood and fear spurring him on, legs burning. His thirst snarled at him.

Few animals could match the strength and senses of a predator so ancient some cultures considered him a god.

A young man from Boston didn’t stand a chance.

Unsteady rock under him gave way and Laurie fell, a cry wrenching from his chest. Decker lunged .

Decker dragged Laurie kicking and panting against the gnarled trunk of a pine, face wild and streaked with scarlet as he twisted and fought.

A choked sob pulled out of him when Decker shook him, trying to rattle some sense into his pretty head.

“ Stop it, ” he snapped. “If I wanted you dead, I would’ve done it the first night I met you.”

Laurie went limp. Tears leaked from the edges of his eyes, tracking through the dirt on his cheek. Finally, chin quivering, his eyes flickered open.

“ Look at me,” Decker said more softly.

Laurie looked at him like he was the Devil.

Words formed and died on his lips as if he were clinging to a last hope or trying to find a reasonable explanation for catching a glimpse of scarlet eyes and sharp teeth.

“You have proven yourself,” Decker said, swallowing back the rising hunger, the gnawing urge of the vein in Laurie’s neck.

He should be revolted at his thoughts. He always was. But hungry need flared to life, rattling against his ribs like trapped bats, frantic and desperate and searching.

Laurie’s breath stuttered as Decker’s fingertips loosened in the fabric of his shirt, and Decker slowly leaned forward, his lips hovering over blood-dampened skin in the hollow of his cheek.

“You have nothing to fear from me, Laurie Lane.”

Every suppressed nerve snarled at him to take what he needed to survive. He just wanted a taste. God , he would trade eternity for a taste.

The mountain drove him to madness .

Waiting for revulsion to sour his stomach as it always did, Decker’s tongue laved across the bloodied curve of Laurie’s neck, the smallest drop of copper like saffron. Decadent, unattainable.

Laurie’s breathing changed. Fast, rapid fear trickled away and heady gulps of air pressed them closer. “This…” he shifted in Decker’s arms, head tilting back, words trembling, hushed. “I’m a man of God, this isn’t right.”

Laurie tasted like all he wanted. Decker knew his lips would be the closest to salvation a creature like him could ever deserve.

Drunk on need, he mouthed at the blood gathering in the dip of the other man’s throat like a chalice, teeth grazing over the cords of his neck, hands splayed across his back and twisting in the fabric of his shirt.

Peace .

He was at peace, loathing forgotten in the taste of Laurie on his tongue. The feel of Laurie under his hands, the catch of Laurie’s breath when Decker’s teeth nipped at his neck, bruising, not biting. Not yet.

“ Decker .” His name spilled shakily from Laurie’s lips, caught between plea and denial.

Fangs dimpled the blue-black stain bursting across Laurie’s skin.

Decker’s breath lingered.

The weight of what he’d done, what Laurie had seen and the tremor of his voice, turned the drops of blood on his tongue to ash. Decker flew back.

Laurie sagged against the tree.

He could have been a pale husk on the plateau.

And Decker enjoyed it. He’d reveled in it .

The thought repulsed him, more horrifying than the way he’d placed his life in Laurie’s hands like it was precious.

He’d confessed.

Had he meant to? If his gut was full and his mind was sound, would he have told the truth?

“I—” Laurie struggled, hands scrubbing over his face as he dragged in agonizing breaths, “Is this a trick?” A pang of hurt shot through Decker so strongly it almost brought him to his knees. “Did you lie? Was Elias trying to—”

“Elias murdered innocent people.” Decker was strangled, like Laurie’s hands were around his throat, squeezing until he was faint and breathless. “This place—it plays with your mind, Laurie, it turned Elias mad, don’t let it do the same to you.”

With each minor untruth, shallow breaths deepened and Laurie forced him back into the dim light as he straightened. He looked at him like he could peel away the layers of careful words Decker fed him. As if he looked hard enough, maybe he’d see something to justify his uncle’s sins.

Laurie would find nothing out of the ordinary now. Brown skin washed out under the moon, deep brown eyes instead of thick pools of blood.

“Maybe the West does eat at your mind,” Laurie murmured, fear and desperation edging his mounting words. “I don’t know, I don't know if you’re telling the truth, I don’t—”

Decker knew. He knew Laurie wasn’t shaken by the history of his uncle or the flash of a monster, but how he’d leaned into another man’s body, into his lips, like he’d wanted to be consumed .

“You’re safe in Ender’s Ridge, Laurie,” Decker said softly. He ached to feel his burning skin and his shallow breaths under his fingertips again.

“I don’t feel safe. I feel lost, like my path burst into flames the moment I left Boston, and you held the match.”

His quiet accusation sank in thoroughly before Decker’s lip curled. The last of their uneasy truce dashed to pieces. “You blame me?”

“You took me into the mountains, told me things about my uncle I never even considered , and when I felt like my mind was breaking, you—you did that ,” Laurie whispered, cradling his arms across his chest. “You tell me your marriage is a sham and you touch me like it’s the truth. What am I supposed to think?”

“That I hate seeing you in misery, moping around your chapel while you get doe-eyed and sweet-lipped around any man who looks at you half decent. It’s humiliating to watch.”

“So don't.”

“It’s impossible when you’re at my saloon every day. ‘How’s the weather, Decker? Can I have a spiced cider, Decker? Come look at the chapel, Decker’.”

Laurie’s eyes sparked. “I was being kind to you. I pitied you alone in your saloon, always drinking and working and never enjoying a sunny day with your neighbors.”

“Another case of charity from the humble preacher—you have my sincere gratitude,” Decker bit out.

“I was trying to be a good neighbor. I admit I crossed lines, but you moved them. ”

Near-silent hoofbeats marked Sitara’s return, melting out of the brush behind him and nudging her blood-stained muzzle into his arm.

Decker laughed, but it was a harsh sound. “If you came here wanting celibacy you have a damn poor way of showing it.”

Laurie’s lips tightened with the expression of a man not knowing what he wanted. Decker felt like he was looking in a mirror.

“I tried,” Laurie whispered. “I tried to hide it.”

“You’re doing a shit job.” Untying the reins with a jerk, Decker swung in the saddle and thrust a hand towards him.

Shaking a handkerchief from his pocket, Laurie began wiping the blood from his neck, his face, as if he could wash away his shame.

“There’s worse things than me out here, Mr. Lane.”

He folded the bloodied fabric into a neat square, staring hard at it as if he hoped Decker would disappear once he looked up. “I’ve taken care of myself just fine, Decker.”

Fine. Be stubborn.

Sitara squealed when Decker clapped his heels to her sides and pushed her into a gallop towards home. Even after Laurie was a mile behind him, he could still feel the preacher’s body pressed against his own and taste his hot breath between lips that begged to be devoured.

There was no helping a man who didn’t want it. Mired in his own guilt so deeply, he threatened to drown others with him, casting blame like rocks at a sinner.

The saloon was dark when Decker got home, but he still sat at his window and cracked open a new novel .

Damn stubborn preacher.

Pages blurred in front of him as he stared at the same chapter. He should’ve trailed Laurie back to the chapel. Even if it was just to rid himself of the irritating thought that Laurie’s blood would be wasted on another creature that wasn’t him.

He stayed at the window until dawn stretched awake and he caught a glimpse of a small figure, shoulders bowed as he trudged into town.

Decker swore Laurie hesitated at the mouth of the alley, turning towards the saloon before he seemed to make his choice, and the parsonage door creaked shut behind him.