Page 101 of Nightshades
“If you’re good, when we get home, you can have me any way you want.”
His growls shake the car, the windows vibrating from the force. I gasp, feeling the rumble in my body.
“I’m always good,” he murmurs, his lips finding the shell of my ear.
That lie causes me to laugh. I turn my head, pressing my palm against his cheek. “You areneveralways good.”
He kisses the back of my neck where my mating mark is, sending tingles down my spine.
“I know, but that’s exactly why you love me.” His fingers drop to my hip, where that dumb tattoo is hiding under my pants.
I brought up getting it removed one night, and Shade did not like that idea. He spent the entire night showing me just howmuch he loves it. I decided the tattoo stays. Shade said it was a reminder that I love a freak of nature like himself.
I suppose, in a way, he is a freak of nature.
My freak.
Who seems to get freakier as time passes. His abilities get stronger, and the King of Dreams guy, Shade calls him Dreamer, was right about his ability to give multiple people nightmares.
He does it to Creed, Rhett, and Fitz at least once a day.
I pull into the rundown motel just on the outskirts of town, parking it in a spot that is away from the door Reba Lynn was staying in. I have been hunting for Shade’s target for a few weeks now, trying to find someone that people wouldn’t miss.
The motel sign light flickers just as a rat scurries across the parking lot.
“This is where she is?” Shade asks, surveying the entire lot.
“According to one of my confidential informants. He saw her in room twelve.” I pluck the mugshot photo from the file and show it to him. “She’s a serial stalker murderer. I’ve pulled her record multiple times. She gets a restraining order against her from the men she stalks, then murders them, but she is really great at leaving no evidence behind. She’s the main suspect, but no damn evidence to tie her to the crimes.”
“And what is she doing so close to town?” Shade asks.
This is where I love doing my job. I become excited. Shade gives me his full attention, his intense black eyes watching me with a tilt of his lips. He loves it when I go down the rabbit hole of finding clues.
“Well, there is a man in town who filed a restraining order against heryesterday.”
“Yesterday? Wait, how long has she been here?”
“A few weeks. I think she is doing her own hunting and has found her target. Apparently, she broke into his house, followedhim at work, sent him notes, and when the police did a sweep of his apartment, they found cameras in his bedroom.”
“How long before she usually goes in for the kill?”
“We have about three days, give or take a few, before she loses her patience.” I gasp, gripping his arm when the door to room twelve opens. “She’s leaving! She’s leaving. Go, go get her. We can’t have her leave.”
The inside of the car darkens when his nightmare comes forward. I love the ominous, eerie creep that falls over me, a slight chill, an invisible force that I can’t see, but he can see me.
It’s exhilarating.
“Do you want to come with me?” Shade’s voice deepens with malicious intent, a sardonic grip of his vocal cords that clicks across his throat.
“Come with you? What would I do?”
“Come see what it is like to invade someone’s mind. It’s quite…exhilarating.”
I nibble on my bottom lip, watching Reba lean against the old, rusted iron railing and light a cigarette. Her hair is up in a messy bun, a few loose hairs sticking up around her hairline. She’s definitely been planning something.
“We can be a team. Like Hemlock and Water,” Shade says, and the endearment is sweet, even if he doesn’t know the names.
He thinks he isn’t smart, but I couldn’t disagree more. I think a lot got messed up within his mind when the experiments happened. I think words get confused, stories, even memories, everything has changed for him.