Page 38 of Devil’s Night (The Shadows of Darkness Universe #3)

I lower the gun slowly, the weight of it heavier now.

It doesn’t tremble in my hand. I don’t need to pretend to be strong.

I am strong. This is who I am now. Not a pawn.

Not a daughter. Not a victim. Just me, standing over the man who thought he could use me, manipulate me, sneak into my life like a parasite.

The silence that follows is deafening, not just from the shot, but from what it meant.

From the fact that Echo hasn’t moved. He stands there, just a few feet away, the same man who held a knife to Garrett’s throat minutes ago, and yet the look he gives me now is different. Measured. Quiet. Almost reverent.

He turns toward me slowly, like anything faster might break the moment.

His eyes don’t blink. They trace every inch of me, from the blood on my cheek to the gun still hanging at my side.

There’s something unreadable in his face.

Not shock. Not anger. Just… stillness. As if he’s reassessing everything he thought he knew about me and finding he’d underestimated it all.

I meet his gaze without flinching.

I want him to see me. Not the woman he fucked. Not the girl he marked. But me, this version of myself that doesn’t wait to be rescued or kissed or forgiven. The one who makes the hard decisions. The one who pulls the trigger.

For a long moment, he says nothing. Just breathes, slow, steady, reverent. His jaw tightens slightly, a flicker of something dark flashing behind his eyes. Pride. Arousal. Something hungrier than both.

His mouth parts as if to speak, but no words come. He takes a single step toward me, eyes never leaving mine, and that’s when I realize, he’s not afraid of me.

He’s falling deeper.

Into me.

And for the first time, I feel the balance shift. Not away from him. But toward something shared. Something that no one else in this world would understand except the two of us standing here, soaked in blood, with the past rotting at our feet.

We are not lovers.

We are not enemies.

We are two ends of the same weapon.

And I think he knows it now, too.

He steps closer, slow and silent, like a storm crawling toward the shore. Every inch he closes between us feels like pressure tightening around my ribs, like I’ve swallowed lightning and it’s crackling just beneath my skin.

I don’t move. I can’t. Not when his eyes pin me the way his hands used to, possessive, punishing, addictive.

There’s something volatile in the way he looks at me now, something feral simmering just beneath the surface, caged but ready to tear out the moment I give it reason.

He glances toward Garrett’s crumpled body on the floor, then back to me.

And fuck, the weight of that stare is heavier than any chain he’s ever wrapped around my wrists.

“You let him touch you.”

It’s not a question.

It’s a goddamn accusation.

A wound.

I brace myself against the way the words slice into me. There’s no room for lies, not here. Not with blood still thick in the air and the echo of a gunshot still clinging to my skin. Not when every pulse of my heart is screaming who I belong to. My jaw tightens. I don’t flinch. I don’t look away.

“I didn’t know what he was.”

Echo’s nostrils flare. His jaw ticks, that muscle twitching with a fury he’s barely holding back. “But you let him inside you.”

The shame hits harder than the recoil of the gun I just dropped.

It’s acidic. Ugly. But under it, God help me, there’s something else.

Something darker. Hungrier. Not just guilt.

Need. A need to crawl back into his grip, to be stripped bare and claimed until I remember who I am beneath it all. Who I belong to.

My breath shudders out of me as I drop the gun onto the concrete floor with a metallic clatter. The sound barely registers. That version of me, the one who needed control, who needed to feel like I had a choice, she already surrendered the second he looked at me like this.

And I follow.

I lower myself to my knees, the blood-slick ground biting into my skin as I slide toward him, slow and deliberate.

It stains my thighs, streaks across my calves, but I welcome the chill.

I want him to see the ache in my eyes, the devotion carved into my spine. I want him to know this isn’t weakness.

This is worship.

His breath catches. Just a fraction. But I see it, the flicker behind his eyes, the hunger flaring into something wilder. His fingers twitch at his sides like he’s deciding whether to thread them into my hair or simply watch me unravel beneath him.

My voice is raw, wrecked. “I need you to understand something,” I whisper. “There’s no one else. Not anymore. Not after this.”

He crouches, slow and low, until he’s eye level with me. His hand lifts, rough fingers dragging along my jaw with a touch that borders on punishment. His thumb presses beneath my lip, tilting my chin up until I have no choice but to look at him.

“I own you,” he breathes, voice thick with heat and possession. “Say it.”

The words fall from my lips like a prayer.

“I’m yours.”

Something cracks between us.

His hand tightens. And then he’s kissing me, no, devouring me, his mouth bruising, biting, claiming every inch of surrender I offered.

His other hand fists in my hair, dragging my head back so he can feast down the column of my throat.

I moan, needy and wrecked, as I press my body into his.

I want him to see what he does to me, how quickly I come undone under his touch.

He drags me to my feet only to shove me back against the wall, mouth trailing fire over my skin. “You’re mine,” he growls again, his teeth grazing my ear. “And I’m going to remind you exactly what that means.”

And God help me, I want every brutal, beautiful second of it.

He urges me back down, the pressure of his hand on my shoulder not rough, but commanding.

I sink, my knees sliding against the blood-slick concrete, still warm in places, sticky in others.

My breath trembles as I look up at him, and he doesn’t even try to hide the way his gaze shifts, first to Garrett’s crumpled, lifeless form sprawled just feet away, then back to me.

He smiles.

A cruel, delicious thing. One that makes my thighs clench and my shame coil tighter around my spine, twisting with something darker. Dirtier. Needier.

“You’re going to suck my cock,” he says, voice low and smug, like he’s daring me to flinch. “Right in front of him.”

My lips part, but no sound comes out. Not a protest. Not a plea. Nothing but the sharp inhale of someone who should be horrified, but isn’t.

He leans down slightly, fingers tangled in my hair now, forcing my head back just enough that I can’t escape the full weight of his gaze.

“And you’re going to fucking love it.”

God help me, I already do.

Heat floods my cheeks, my chest, the space between my legs. The humiliation should burn, should crawl over my skin like a rash I want to scratch away, but instead it blooms. Twisted and toxic and perfect. My breath hitches, and I nod, barely, because speaking feels too big for this moment.

Because my mouth already knows what it’s about to be used for.

He unzips slowly, deliberately, and the sound alone sends a tremor down my spine.

He strokes himself once, lazy, arrogant, already half-hard and swelling more by the second as he watches me tremble for him.

The scent of blood mixes with the ache between my legs, and I swear I could fall apart from just the way he looks at me.

“Open,” he says, voice dipped in sin.

And I do. Lips parting, tongue out, offering myself like a sacrament to the only god I’ve ever truly worshipped.

Echo.

And as the tip of him grazes my lips, as he pushes inside and his groan echoes off the walls like a death sentence and a promise in one, I know I’ll never need redemption.

Only this. Only him. Even in front of a corpse.

Maybe especially because of it.

I open my mouth for him, lips soft, tongue flat and ready, because that’s what he’s turned me into, ready. Always. Even with blood in the air and death at my feet. Especially because of it.

He groans low as he slides in, slow at first, letting the head of his cock drag across my tongue like he owns it, like he’s branding me from the inside out. And he is. Every inch he pushes into my mouth feels like a claim. A punishment. A possession.

His hand tightens in my hair, not guiding, controlling. “Look at him,” he murmurs, fucking slowly into my mouth. “Look at what happens to the men who touch what’s mine.”

I try, even as he sinks deeper, my lips stretching around him, the taste of him intoxicating, salt, musk, and something uniquely Echo. But my eyes flick to the body on the floor. Garrett’s mouth still slack. Eyes glassy. Skin pale. It should repulse me.

It doesn’t.

Because Echo is watching me now like I’m art. Filthy, ruined art he’s proud of defiling.

“Did he kiss you with this mouth?” he asks, breath ragged. “Did you let him taste what belongs to me?”

I choke a little as he thrusts deeper, spit sliding down my chin, pooling at the corners of my lips, but I nod, tears blurring the edges of my vision. I can’t speak around him, not with the way he’s holding me open, not with the brutal rhythm he’s building, but I don’t need to.

My shame is loud enough.

“Good,” he growls, fisting my hair tighter, making my eyes water as he uses my mouth like a weapon and a reward. “Then I’ll fuck it clean.”

He thrusts harder now, deeper. The sounds are obscene, wet and slick and desperate, but I take it. I want it. The burn in my throat. The stretch of my jaw. The sting of his hand tightening every time I try to pull back.

Because this? This is absolution. My penance. My worship. This is how I show him I know who I belong to.