Page 155 of His Trick

I was cold. A bone-deep chill, clawing through my every muscle and every joint. This looked like a shed. It smelled the same as my father’s, and that fucking billowing spicy tobacco. I inhaled, trying to steady my breathing. He was playing another game. This was to hurt me. And fuck with me.

It did.

Every fucking sound in this wooden hell made me shiver. A drip from the leaking ceiling as rain found its way through the cracks. The creaks in the darker parts of the area where I couldn’t see. It all slammed into me like the past hadn’t ended at all, but had waited for this moment.

Then his voice cut through the dark.

“Shiloh.”

I froze. My chest squeezed so tight I couldn’t breathe. I blinked, forcing my eyes open, trying to fight the haze.

Did he really drug me?

There he was. Carrington Harding. Beautiful and fucking dangerous. He was flipping around a knife in his hand, trembling in a way that betrayed him, even though his posture screamed control.

I wanted to run to him, to collapse into his arms, and to beg him to stop breaking me like this. I knew I hurt him, but putting me in a shed that reminded me of my father was beyond even his cruelty.

Wait, not like my father’s shed…

I looked around the area again, really looking this time, and now I couldn’t push the breath past my lips. I recoiled and sank into a corner…my name.

My name was carved into the wood.

It was a small scrawl I remembered doing as a kid. He took me to the place where my entire life changed. I swallowed the vomit bubbling up while Carrington silently watched me explore the area, twirling the knife in his hand.

“No…” I said on a sob. “Why…?”

The knife was mine.

The same handcrafted hunting knife I ended so many hearts with as a kid. The dried blood from the woman all those years ago that my father tried to force me to kill was still there.

Haunting and real.

The altar.

The woman…the ritual.

My gaze shot past Carrington, the cruel love of my life, to the slab centered at the back of the dark, small area.

There she lay.

Xanthy.

My fucking fiancée.

Helpless.

Wide-eyed.

Paralyzed.

Her eyes were expressive, but her body wouldn’t move. She was wrapped in ropes with the same yellowy liquid that burned my eyes. My breath felt like it was sawing through my insides, and I felt faint.

“Carrington…what did you do?” My voice was ragged, barely able to push past my trembling lips. “She’s your own blood.”

“I had to,” he said, stepping closer to us. “You’ve been hiding for so long, Shiloh. Clinging to her. Pretending you’re not who you know you are. Your father tried to open your eyes all those years ago, and you rejected him. It’s time now, Sunshine.”

The knife with my name twirled in the illumination of the overhead, shitty tin, hanging light.