Page 27 of Hunting Gianna (Stalkers in the Woods #3)

He yanks me up by the shoulders and kisses me, hard, tasting himself on my tongue.

The move is so sudden it knocks the wind out of me, but I don’t resist. I kiss him back, biting at his lip, digging my nails into his arms. His hand pushes down, pulling up his boxers before coming up to wipe the tears that are drying on my cheeks.

He laughs, the sound vibrating in my chest, then pulls away and hoists me into his arms.

“What are you—” I start, but he’s already moving, carrying me toward the door, one hand under my ass, the other braced around my shoulders.

He doesn’t answer, just kicks the door open with his foot and steps into the cold.

The night air is brutal, sharp enough to make my lungs ache.

The world outside the cabin is blue-black, the sky a sheet of ice, eerie, but beautiful nonetheless.

He carries me down the steps, not slowing, not speaking, just walking for a while.

I wrap my arms around his neck, fingers digging into the muscle, trying to figure out if I’m scared or excited or both.

He sets me on my feet in the middle of the yard, the cold biting through my bare skin, my nipples going hard in an instant. He stands behind me, wrapping both arms around my waist, pinning me in place.

I shiver, not just from the cold. “What are we doing?” I ask, voice small.

He leans in, lips against my ear, breath hot. “Burning everything down,” he says. “So we can start again.”

He turns me to face him, and for a moment, his eyes catch the last light from the cabin. They look gold, inhuman. I don’t know if I want to run or fall to my knees again.

“Burning what?” I whisper.

He smiles, and it’s the saddest, wildest thing I’ve ever seen. “Whatever’s left of the old world,” he says. “Yours, mine, all of it. You ready?”

I nod, because what else is there to do? I came here to survive, but what I really want is to be transformed. If he needs to set me on fire to do it, I’ll fucking light the match myself.

He drags me deeper into the woods, feet crunching over brittle needles and old snow. My skin goes numb from the cold, but I barely notice. All I can feel is his hand, warm and sure, pulling me through the dark.

We walk until the cabin is a dim memory behind us, and the sky above is a riot of stars. He stops in a small clearing, ringed by birch and pine, the ground dead and silent. He lets go of my hand and turns in a slow circle, surveying the space like a general before a battle.

“This is where I found you. Watched you. Destroyed your ability to escape. I’m not sorry. I’d do it all again. But this… I want to burn this spot so we can watch the flames devour any trace of life before you were mine.”

“I should hate you,” I say, but my voice breaks on the words.

He moves closer, hands on my hips. “You don’t,” he says, and I know he’s right.

I reach for him, pulling him down to my level, kissing him with everything I have left. He responds in kind, grinding his mouth over mine, teeth and tongue and shared blood. I want to crawl inside him, tear my way through skin and bone until I’m safe in the hollow of his chest.

He breaks away, searching my face. “You ready?” he asks again.

“Yes,” I whisper.

He kisses me again, gentler this time, then steps back and lets the cold swallow me whole.

“Wait here,” he says, and disappears into the trees.

I hug myself, rocking on my heels, the adrenaline turning to a sick, sweet ache in my gut. I hear him rummaging in the dark, then the sharp metallic scrape of something heavy against stone. He returns, arms loaded with firewood and something else—an old gas can, battered and dented.

He stacks the wood in a heap at the center of the clearing, douses it with gasoline, then leans down and grabs a box of matches. The sulfur stings my nose as he strikes the first one, the tiny flare of yellow like a promise.

He drops the match, and the pile erupts, a tower of flame shooting into the air. The heat hits my face, driving back the cold in an instant. I step closer, mesmerized by the way the fire eats everything in its path, turning solid wood to ash and memory.

He stands next to me, shoulder to shoulder, watching the blaze with a solemnity that makes my chest ache. I wonder if he’s thinking of his dead parents, his wasted childhood, all the things he had to burn just to survive. I wonder if he’s thinking of me, of what I am now, and what I might become.

I wonder if he’s thinking the same thing I am.

The old Gianna is dead and gone. And I like that more than I care to admit.

I reach for his hand, lacing my fingers through his. He squeezes back, so tight it almost hurts.

We watch the fire together, not speaking, not moving, until the last log collapses in on itself and the world goes quiet again.

He turns to me, eyes shining in the dark.

“We start over now,” he says.

I nod, knowing that whatever happens, I’ll let him set me on fire again and again.

Because this is what it means to be alive. Because this is what it means to be his.

Because after everything, I’d rather burn than be alone.

He takes my hand and leads me back into the dark. My breath mists out, and I try to keep pace, but his stride is longer, driven. My bare feet slap against the pine-needle carpet, gritty and cold.

He picks me up, a clean jerk under my arms, and slings me over his shoulder like I weigh nothing. I squeal, more surprised than scared, and his palm comes down on my ass, leaving heat in the shape of his hand.

“You like it rough,” I say, muffled against his back.

He grunts, “I like it real.”

It’s with startling clarity I realize… he’s the most real thing I’ve ever experienced, and that’s the moment when I finally understand. My world was different shades of gray until he cracked me open and poured himself into the spaces where I didn’t exist.

The world tilts, branches whipping past my face, the scent of moss and rain and something wild underneath.

I let him carry me, let myself be transported without resistance, because I trust him more than I’ve ever trusted anyone.

Even if it’s only because I know how easily he could end me. Maybe that’s what trust is.

“You’re not the little bird I watched anymore,” he says. “You’re my phoenix. My pretty little girl.”

And somehow, everything shitty that’s ever happened to me disappears and all I see is him.