Page 9 of The Stalker (Ashburne Chronicles #2)

I Will Always Find You

G riffin

I could break her door.

One shove, and I’d be inside again, pressing her down on the floor where she’s curled up right now, trembling and crying. I can see it—the way her hands shake, the way her shoulders hitch with every silent sob.

It would be easy.

It would be so damn easy.

But I don’t. Not yet. Because I want her to understand. I want her to feel the truth deep in her bones, that there’s no escape, no hiding from me, no pretending I’m not the only one who’s ever loved her the way she deserves.

So I stand in the dark, just beyond her window, and I watch . Like I’ve watched every night since she came home.

She still doesn’t know all of it. How many nights I’ve slipped into this house, stood in this very room while she slept, her breath soft and shallow, her scars glowing faintly in the moonlight. How many mornings she woke up thinking she was safe, never realizing I’d been inches away.

The memory makes my cock ache, a sharp pulse of need that has me curling my hand into a fist.

“You should’ve taken her then,” Thomas snarls inside me. “ She was laid out, defenseless, already yours. You’re weak, Griffin. Pathetic.”

I grit my teeth. “I wanted her to be ready.”

“She’ll never be ready. You have to make her ready.”

The voice pounds through my skull, hot and insistent, and for a second my vision flickers. The reflection in the glass isn’t just me anymore. It’s darker and sharper, my eyes glowing faintly with something not human.

Thomas.

He’s not just whispering now. He’s bleeding into me, into my body, until I can’t tell where he ends and I begin. And the truth? I don’t want to tell anymore.

Because he’s right.

Bianka isn’t ready. She’ll never say yes, not with her mouth. But her body already has. The way she arched against me when I pressed her to the church wall, the sound she made when my thigh nudged between hers...

That wasn’t fear. That was surrender.

“She wants me,” I whisper into the glass. “She’s always wanted me.”

“Then claim her. Tonight. Before she slips through your fingers again.”

My hand presses against the window, fingers splaying over the faint fog of her breath on the other side. I could break it, reach in and drag her out.

Instead, I pull back. Not yet.

Because I want her to run again. I want her to feel the chase, to feel me breathing down her neck, to know with every step she takes that I’m right behind her.

The hunt is what binds us. And I’ll hunt her until she breaks.

I step away from the window, slipping back into the shadows. The night air clings cold and damp to my skin, but inside I’m burning. My veins hum with Thomas’s voice, urging, demanding, promising.

I know what I’ll do.

I need to drive her out of the house she uses as both her sanctuary and her prison. I need to force her into the open, into the woods where there’s nowhere to hide, no doors to lock, and no walls to save her.

And then ... I’ll take what’s mine.