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HIM

I t was day five when I positioned myself in the corner of the room, crossed an ankle over a knee and watched her.It was also the final day of our little agreement. Fuck if I knew why I indulged her to begin with, other than I found this shit amusing.

Truth was, it was that cunt of hers that kept me from slitting her throat up until now. That and the fact I was a man of my word even when she wasn’t a woman of hers. But goddamn was she a good fuck. I wasn’t too proud to admit I’d miss it.

I adjusted my cock in my pants as she sipped on cold chicken broth. Her glare boring through me while she did everything she could to convey her hatred.

The feeling’s mutual, pet.

“So?” I prompted. Not because I couldn’t stand the silence but because I was irked with the mundane. With the same thing every day. “Have you figured it out?”

The clanking of her spoon in her bowl told me she hadn’t. She was buying herself time, trying to at least. Something in that twisted little brain of hers had her lips curling into a grin. I should have known better than to assume my little fighter would admit defeat so easily. It was time for whatever power play came before acceptance.

“Your name? No, I’m certain I don’t know you,” she replied, while eyeing her nail beds. Trying her best to appear nonchalant. “That’s what bothers you, isn’t it? That I mean enough to you to warrant all of this.” She gestured to each corner of the room to emphasize her point before landing her glare on me again. “And you mean nothing to me. It’s all about your wounded ego.”

“Is that your final answer?” I hissed between clenched teeth. I shouldn’t let her bait me, but the woman knew how to sink her teeth into my skin. Gnaw past flesh and get to the real meat beneath the surface. Like some sort of parasitic creature.

Emily fed off me, and I bled for her.

“You want more?” she fired back. “Fine. Beneath all that toxic masculinity is a little boy with a lot of mommy issues. Did she hurt you? Is that why you are the way you are? Is she the one who did that to your face? So now you have to take it out?—”

Before the rest of the shit she wanted to spew had the chance to fully form in her mouth, I’d crossed the room and shoved Emily against the mattress. Drew the knife from my waistband and pressed the serrated blade across her throat. A scalpel would have been more effective but I enjoyed the sensation of sawing across flesh. The push and pull and the sound of snapping tendons. It was like cutting into a taut rubber band.

“Enough about my mother, pet.” I grinned, my voice eerily calm as I hummed against her cheek.

“I’ve struck a chord, huh?” Her throat bobbed, causing the blade to bite into her skin and bright-red liquid to drip down her throat and onto my hand.

“ My mother was a saint, Emily. How was yours? Did she pass down those same nurturing instincts to you? Or are you just too goddamn selfish to ever have children of your own?”

Her eyes widened before narrowing in my direction. “FUCK YOU,” she hissed, pulling saliva between her cheeks and launching it at my face.

Obviously, she hadn’t learned after the first time. A little spilled bodily fluid was nothing to me.

“As much as I’ve enjoyed that cunt of yours, right now, I’d rather not. But if I’m careful enough, you’ll sure make for one pretty corpse.” I repositioned my knee. Dug it into the pressure point on her thigh and drew my knife back for a second time. Aimed for her cold dead heart and…

“Cohen! Wait!”

My arm stilled midair as if tethered back by some invisible force while Emily stared up at me with those goddamn doe eyes of hers. She was sobbing but she wasn’t afraid. I could tell by the way she was looking at me.

“I… I lost the baby…”