Page 41 of Hunted by the Headless Horseman (Roars and Romances #5)

QUINTESSA

When my sister’s betrothed is rutting me from behind in a cemetery with the dead rising from the graves, I’d say I’ve officially hit rock bottom.

Darya despises the flouncy fool.

Almost as much as she despises me, which she’s done since I was born—unrelated to the present.

After all, it’s not like I planned an early morning walk around the cemetery near our house just so I could run into him.

Van Wetterton’s hot breath that smells of bacon grease and onions curls toward my ear.

He pounds harder, but I only get a vague sense of pressure as he says, “You feel this, don’t you, Quinn? You’ll come for me, won’t you, little gray bitch?”

A bitterness burns the back of my throat.

Gray bitch, gray whore, gray girl, they call me.

My smoky gray hair flings down my chest, thwacks against my cheeks, and fractures my vision.

One nail breaks.

And bleeds.

I wish I could feel the pain.

Not even letting my sister’s fiancé fuck me in a cemetery on Hollow Day can make me feel something.

My body doesn’t silence pain, but it hushes it along with all other touch.

Even the worst pain is numb. That is the price to pay when you’re half-ghost, half-blessed, half-cursed.

And numb inside.

I fake a long moan, smirking at the thought of Van bragging to his Brotherhood about how he was the first to make a ghost climax.

Regardless, he and the other Brothers who’ve fucked me will have a good row over it.

I’ve had them going in circles since I was sixteen and gave my “maidenhood”

to Fynne Hawksburne in the woods behind my family’s home.

The abandoned shed was as good a place as any.

The stalkers advance toward us, their guttural rasps growing louder. Some fall over headstones and into open graves from where others have risen. It’s Hollow Night. More will rise by nightfall.

“Nothing beats this rush in your blood, does it?”

asks Van with a deep groan. I wouldn’t know. My blood is an icy, slow river.

As he jerks one last time, the momentum propels me forward.

I don’t feel Van’s cum trickling down my thighs when he pulls out and shoves his unimpressive dick back into his breeches. Guess I can mark him off the list. I’ve kept a ledger of names—both male and female—hoping someone in these blasted Borderlands might help me feel something.

He slams his palms together, commanding a wind to gust and push the dead back. Everyone in the God Eater’s Five Realms has some form of binding magic. If only I had a normal one.

“Give my best to your sister,”

Wetterton snickers cruelly after the stalkers have toppled into a pile of rotting corpses.

“I’d say we look forward to having you at the wedding tomorrow, but everyone knows you won’t be there.”

“My deepest congratulations on your impending lifetime of marital bliss,”

I sweetly proclaim and pick up my skirts, turning to hurry away before he can see my grin.

Tonight is the Sacrifice. The monsters will come out to play.

Maybe one will oblige me with a fuck I can actually feel before it slaughters me. I laugh at the notion and sneak into the manor through the servant’s entrance. They’re too busy preparing for the wedding and the Sacrifice to notice me.

So, I retreat to my room for an hour’s peace at best before my sisters prepare me. But as soon as the dark, clawed fingers coil around my throat, I know peace won’t come.

Last but not least: for the truly dark romance book girlies, check out the book Amazon dubs my “Most Popular”. An erotic horror romance called The Art of Obsession

Acheron, world famous masked artist, stalks shy historian Everleigh and leaves her beautiful nude sketches of her on her pillow. He chooses her, kidnapping her and locking her in an underground exhibit where rich clients will come and pay for a truly dark, X-rated show.

EXCERPT:

They’re everywhere. Sketches. Hundreds of them. Me. Nude.