Page 9 of The Blood we Crave: Part Two

A mother of ravens in lace fabric that wraps so delicately around her body, framing every single inch. My lips quirk a bit, seeing the streaks of crimson on exposed skin, staining the material.

She would wear an expensive dress just to let blood and the elements ruin it. But she’s never cared for what wraps the package, only what lies beneath. The high collar bleeds with the wet, inky curls of her hair, making it impossible to tell where one ends and the other begins.

“Did you wear that pretty little dress for me, Lyra?”

My first words to her since I’d left, and they drip distaste, even though my eyes note the opposite. Rain pours across her porcelain face, the trembles of her bottom lip caught by the moonlight.

My return is a relief for her, and it severely hinders me.

“Wore it for your grandmother’s funeral,” she whispers, her voice an echo of the pain she has lived through recently. “It was my mother’s.”

I tighten my jaw, the muscle in my cheek jumping.

Quiet wrath brews in my chest.

I’ve never been one for funerals or mourning the dead. But a piece of me would have liked to see May at peace. To maybe remove my final image of her.

My whole life, I’d always thought of her as someone strong, willful, unmoving in my turmoil. Yet she couldn’t have been more different on her last day. My days as a child made me immune to all the blood. The hacked body parts and exposed bone.

I’d seen women dehumanized, brutally strung up like cows to slaughter, and was made to clean up the aftermath. In my spare time, my favorite hobby was skinning other serial killers.

There wasn’t anything that shocked me in the department of murder.

But it hadn’t been shock that rippled through me when I saw May on the floor of the kitchen. Something slippery moved across my skin—it felt like a thunderstorm inside my own body.

I’d like to think watching her be buried would have provided me an umbrella of sorts.

“Where have you been?”

It’s a valid question, one I hadn’t planned on answering until Stephen was arrested for his ties to Halo, but my hunting had been rudely interrupted by her recklessness.

I don’t give her a reply; I just continue to move forward. My legs close the gap until the only thing separating the two of us is the dead body of a man that should’ve suffered far more.

Death always seems to be that thin line cutting between Lyra and me. Always there, lingering in our space, existing between the two of us like air. Where we go, it follows.

My fingers reach out, seeking the lace fabric at her collar. When I make contact, I rub the wet material with my thumb. Her body goes soft, lax, tilting towards my touch.

The weight lifts from her shoulders, and that solid wall of iron protecting her from the world crumbles with every swipe of my finger. This only makes my job of hurting her easier. She’s so very easy to break like this, pliable beneath my hands.

I lift my pointer finger, caressing the side of her neck in comforting strokes. The softness of her skin makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up, reacting without my mind’s consent.

Those jade eyes practically glow, illuminated from whatever light still lingers inside, and she’s staring up at me like I’m her hero.

Her angel.

“Divine,” I breathe.

I’ve never meant anything more. Never been more honest.

“Thatch—”

“So much so, it almost makes up for the mess you made tonight,” I tell her calmly. “Almost.”

Her eyebrows furrow, and I press my finger against the pulse in her throat, catching the steady rhythm.

“Tell me, was it blissful ignorance, or were you looking to get caught?”

She stills, licking her upper lip, possibly sensing in the air that I’m about to remind her of who I am. That I have never been an angel, to her or anyone else.