Page 26 of His Trick

He knew.

Maybe not everything, but enough.

The flashlight in his grip wavered as he approached me.

I let the corner of my mouth twitch, only to watch him frown further. Confusion clouded his baby blue gaze.

“Hunting,” I replied, flatly and cold.

I didn’t offer an explanation or an apology.

Shiloh’s voice cracked like a whip in the dark, that bouncing light illuminating me and revealing all the remnants of my kills.

“Carrington Harding,” he said, his voice darker, the flashlight lowered to the ground, seeking the small grave behind me. “What the fuck is that?”

I didn’t turn right away. I wanted him to bask in this, take in the smell of my kills, even if it had been a few hours and their bodies were a bit bloated from the water. The shapes of their corpses were half-buried behind me. Thing One was deeper in the ground. Her body was sitting at the perfect decomposition height. But the other was unfinished.

I wanted to let Shiloh’s brain calculate the possibilities until it made him sick. I wanted to see how he would react when it clicked for him. I wanted to confirm he was just like me. Any normal person would have run off by now. The setting in itself was discomforting, and survival instincts flared at the worst of times.

Shiloh was making no move to leave. In fact, he was moving closer and closer to me. That fucking flashlight was getting on my nerves, and the rays made my eyes hurt. I didn’t shield them, though. I didn’t move at all.

Does your pretty mask make you feel brave enough to face me? Fucking adorable. You could try to call me out, but you know I’ll have my cock blocking your airway and tears running down your face before you can even so much as make a sound.

When I finally turned around, I didn’t hide my hands. The blood was tacky now, thick in the lines of my nylon gloves. The yellow hue of the bright light caught the flicker of crimson, and his eyes locked on it instantly, then jerked back to the ground behind me.

Now that you know, Sunshine. What will you do with the information?

“You tell me,” I said, stepping toward him. “You’re the one who wants to be a doctor, right? All that studying. All those anatomy charts. Look closely, Shiloh. What do you see?”

He didn’t answer, just stared, his Adam’s apple bobbing.

I chuckled low in my throat.

“Aw, come now. Don’t undermine your intellect just for me. I’m sure my sister can’t handle your brilliance because it would scare her, but I’m ever so curious. You’ve dissected frogs. Maybe a pig or two in a lab, yes? A cat? You know their veins, their bones, and the way their heart muscles beat in your hands. It’s all just skin, muscle, and blood.”

I lifted my hand between us, letting the red catch the moonlight, and wiggled my fingers. “What’s your diagnosis, Doctor Anderson?”

His breathing hitched.

He looked at the heap under the leaves again, his bright eyes narrowing, as if, without focusing hard enough, it might turn into something harmless—but it wouldn’t. It was still the same mess of broken bodies. His breathing escalated the longer he stared at that wobbling light, fixated on the pile of dirt.

“That’s not…that’s not a deer, Harding,” he finally muttered.

“There you go,” I murmured with mocking approval, like I was grading him on an essay. “Such a sharp, calculated eye. What gave it away? The smell? The way the joint angles don’t quite fit a deer’s?”

His nostrils flared. Anger, disgust, and maybe even fear lingered on him like the stench of death. There was another emotion he couldn’t hide, one I personally knew very well.

Arousal.

Interesting.

What emotion do you want me to see? They all taste the same when you strip them down.

“Say it,” I pressed, stepping in until my shadow swallowed his. “A diligent student such as yourself should know this one. If it’s not a deer, what is it? A wittle bunny perhaps?”

He smacked my arm away, the spark of pain making me hard.

Ah, so he wants to touch, does he?