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CHAPTER FIVE

JAXON

I can’t believe I got to touch her again—and while she was awake, no less, her blood coursing through her body, her eyes wild with fear and anger in equal measure. I’ve never had a woman’s breath on my skin like that, our bodies all tangled together, and me with no intention of killing her.

It made my cock hard.

That surprises me, but everything about Charlotte has been a surprise, from the moment she pulled out the picture of my sigil to the way she tried to fight me even with a chain around her ankle and no hope of escape. I keep thinking about it as I go down the hall to my bedroom, one hand listlessly rubbing my dick over my sweatpants.

When she starts up her racket again, slamming her chain around and stomping against the floor, I’m not even irritated by it. It just reminds me of how she tried to grab me. How she tried to touch me.

What woman wants to touch me?

Charlotte’s tantrum plays out in the background as I lay out on my bed, still distractedly touching myself. There are little reminders of her scattered around the room because I went through her purse earlier—not that she had much in there. Just her wallet, which I left alone, and her phone, which I took out and smashed with a hammer in my studio. The only other thing was a slim, vintage cigarette case filled with five neatly-rolled joints. Brave girl, driving that shit through Texas, which was where her rental car was from.

They’re currently sitting on the bedside table.

I fiddle with the cigarette case, but it’s too detached from her. The cold, smooth metal distracts from my memory of her hot, soft skin. So I swing myself off the bed and look over at her suitcase.

I set it in the corner of my room for safekeeping, and I study it now, my heart pounding up in my throat. Charlotte’s still clanking around down the hallway, reminding me that I’ve got a living human in the house for the first time in… months. Over a year, I think.

Before I can stop myself, I roll the suitcase over to my bed and unzip it and let it fall open like a clamshell. It’s full of hastily-packed clothes, with a Ziplock bag of toiletries and makeup lying on top. I set that aside. The clothes make my heart beat faster because they all smell like her, that sweet, sandlewoody scent that I breathed in when I had her pinned down a few minutes ago. My cock jumps at it, and I plunge my hand into the mess of fabrics, plowing through until I find the silky slip of one of her panties.

They’re black, with little lace trimmings. I press them against my nose, breathing in her scent—faint, here. They’re clean. I sit back on my heels, letting out a soft, shuddery sigh. I don’t know why I’m doing this. Why I’m letting myself get obsessed with a girl I can’t kill and therefore can’t really be with.

I lay on the bed again, clutching her black panties in my fist as I pull my cock out. Then I wrap her panties around my shaft, shuddering at the soft, silky fabric. My eyes flutter closed as I stroke, listening to Charlotte clanking her chain around. The more noise she makes, the harder I abuse myself, squeezing my dick until it’s painful. I like pain, though. Maybe I should have let her kick me in the balls the way she wanted. I stopped her because I didn’t want her to know that catching her before she fell, feeling her soft flesh and her warm living breath, had given me such a huge erection.

Down the hall, Charlotte shrieks, her voice muffled. I imagine she’s shrieking because I’m fucking her, or maybe cutting her. Putting something in her. I groan and jerk myself a little faster, strangling my cock with her satiny underwear. I realize I’m matching my strokes to the rhythm she’s using to pound the chains. That makes it even easier to imagine that I’ve got her tied up, helpless, and I’m thrusting into her over and over while she spasms around my cock.

That does it. Pleasure tears through me, and my cum floods through her panties, soaking into the fabric. I slump back against the mattress and let the mess fall on the floor beside my bed and listen to Charlotte trying to—do something. I’m actually not sure what she hopes to accomplish with all that noise. Annoy me into killing her, maybe. Although she probably thinks she can annoy me into letting her go.

Neither option’s possible, though. Fortunately, a Hunter like me doesn’t really need that much sleep even though I had been enjoying a good rest before she woke up and started her futile little campaign.

Her tantrum plays out in the background while I lay on the bed and imagine fucking her again, although this time, I imagine her the way she looked after I knocked her out, slack and unmoving, her lips parted. Shame heats my cheeks. It’s not that I prefer them when they’re dead, it’s just that it’s easier . The closest I ever came to fucking a living woman, she gazed into my face before I could slide inside her, and she saw it. The void behind my eyes. The emptiness granted to me by the Unnamed. That blackness that makes me what I am.

And then she told me to stop and shoved me off her and fled the motel half-dressed. I didn’t follow her; she didn’t know my name and she hadn’t been marked by my gods for killing. And I hadn’t done anything she could take to the police.

But she saw it. She knew. She recoiled from me like the prey she was.

The dead ones don’t do any of that.

I lean over and pick up Charlotte’s soiled panties and then toss them in my laundry hamper. They’re mine now. Then I dig around in the suitcase to pick out a new outfit for her to wear: a yellow ‘50s-looking sundress, clean underwear that I don’t let myself dwell on, and the lone bra in the suitcase, which is nowhere near as sexy as her lacy black panties.

I’ll take them to her in the morning, when the sun rises.

Charlotte’s still going at it, but at least her racket is quieter when I’m downstairs. Just a dull, rhythmic thumping overhead. Easy to ignore.

I’m antsy. Agitated. My gods are quiet, not bothering to give me any direction except the occasional sharp reminder that I can’t kill Charlotte. I pace around the downstairs rooms, weaving between the formal parlor and the dining room and the kitchen, watching the darkness outside. I just don’t know what to do.

More than once, I consider calling Sawyer and telling him everything, but something stops me. If Sawyer finds out she’s here, he’s going to tell Edie. But Edie’s human, just like Charlotte, and she’s going to want to make sure her friend is okay. And that means explaining to Charlotte that Sawyer Caldwell isn’t dead, that he’s not even human. He’s a Hunter, and I’m a Hunter: beings designed to kill for centuries at a time.

It’s a whole can of worms, and I don’t want to be the one to open it.

It would be easier to take care of this issue on my own. But I don’t want to deal with it on my own.

I decide to call Ambrose.

Of the three of us, Ambrose is the oldest. He’s been around, Hunting, since the 1800s. He found me in the ‘90s, a few years after I went MIA during my first tour of duty. Well, after I got shot in the desert and buried myself in the sand and revived eight months later and the war was over. A lifetime ago.

He’s usually got decent advice, though.

When I call him, he answers on the second ring, barking out a harsh, “I’m busy,” instead of a hello.

“I’ve got a problem,” I tell him, figuring that will get him to listen.

I can practically hear him scowling on the other end of the line. “A real problem or a Jaxon problem?”

“Asshole.”

“Seriously.” It sounds like he’s outside, the wind howling around him. “I’ve got my eye on a target. What’s going on?”

“Why the hell did you answer, then?”

A pause. The wind sounds like static. “Bored,” he finally says. “I’m just watching him. Is this a real problem?”

I take a deep breath. Charlotte’s losing some of her steam. She’s still thumping around, but the thumps are slower and quieter and more half-hearted. “Yeah,” I say, and then I tell him everything. When I finish, he’s quiet for a long time.

“Fuck,” he finally says. “You’re sure she’s looking for Edie?”

“She had her picture on her car dashboard.” And I have the picture tucked inside her cigarette case. I think she’d be mad if I destroyed it.

“You never should have painted that stupid fucking sigil.”

Anger bristles through me. I’ll paint my gods’ sigils anywhere I want. “ Sawyer shouldn’t have let a human girl wander around his place.”

“On that, we can agree.” Ambrose sighs. I can picture him in his dusty Oldsmobile, leaning back in the bucket seat. That fucking car is almost as old as I am. “But it’s too late now.”

“Think we should tell him?”

“No.” Ambrose says it fast. “He’s not thinking clearly about any of this shit.” He pauses. “Are you sure you can’t just?—”

“No.” The word explodes out of me, heat buzzing in the back of my head. “It’ll piss off the gods. And Sawyer.”

Ambrose is quiet. He’s more willing to believe in the gods than Sawyer is, even if he doesn’t pray to them the way I do. But he understands my devotion. “Sawyer wouldn’t have to know,” he finally says.

“I’m not doing it.” I squeeze the phone, my heart thudding. “And I’m not letting you do it, either.” The thought of Charlotte draws the gods out of the Abyss until they’re squirming like snakes through my thoughts, making me sick to my stomach at the idea of her death.

Ambrose sighs. “Fine,” he says. “Just—keep her there for now. Like you’re doing. Is she secure?”

“Of course. This isn’t my first time.”

“It’s your first time keeping someone around for longer than a few days before you kill them.”

I scowl.

“Let me finish this mark,” he says. “I should be done in a week or so. Then we’ll figure something out.”

He hangs up before I can respond. I throw the phone down on the sofa beside me and look up at the ceiling.

Charlotte’s finally gone quiet. If I concentrate, I can sense all her bodily functions: her heart, her breath, her scent. All those signs that point me toward my prey. In a way, it’s almost as distracting as the constant clanking.

Still, I told her I’d bring her breakfast if she stayed quiet tonight. And while she didn’t exactly obey—it is still nighttime. Won’t be morning for at least another few hours. Maybe if I bring her breakfast, she’ll see the benefit of letting me have some peace.

Plus… it’s an excuse to look at her.

And it gives me something to do with all this nervous energy. Something that isn’t killing, which I can’t do right now. Not with Charlotte in the house. I’m sure as hell not leaving her alone.

Breakfast it is, then.