Page 26

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

MERCY

I scream and jump to my feet as blood gushes out of the wound Ambrose just carved into himself. He looks at me with that black, glittering gaze and tosses the blood knife to the ground with a metallic clatter.

“Come here,” he growls.

“What did you do?” I can’t move. I can’t even believe what I’m seeing. His blood looks too red, too bright. Just like Burl’s blood.

I swoon in place, throwing out my hand to balance on the couch.

“Cut myself open.” Ambrose pushes one blood-soaked hand through his hair, leaving streaks of crimson in its wake. Max nudges at my hand, seemingly completely unconcerned for his person.

“But why?” I whisper, my whole body trembling. “Why did you—you’ll die.”

Ambrose grins. “No, I won’t. Now come here.” He uses that same rough, demanding voice from when we were intimate, and despite the horror of the situation, my body reacts as it did before, with a curl of shameful heat. However, it’s just as quickly overpowered by something like worry?—

Surely I want him to die? He kidnapped me.

But no. I don’t.

“You have to stop the bleeding.” I stumble over to him, acting on some deep-rooted instinct to protect a man that I had, up until twelve hours ago, wanted to love. I press my hands against the wound, and blood seeps hot and sticky through my fingers.

Ambrose grabs my wrists and yanks my hands away. “I told you,” he murmurs, leaning in close to rasp into my ear. “I’m not going to die.”

“You disemboweled yourself!”

He cups my jaw with his blood-streaked hands, positioning my gaze on his. “I did not,” he said evenly. “I didn’t cut deeply enough.”

And then he kisses me.

I’m stunned by the fervor of the kiss, his hot and hungry mouth devouring my own. His other hand, equally blood-soaked, comes up and cups the side of my hair, holding me in place as he deepens the kiss, as I?—

As I kiss him back.

I know I shouldn’t. He’s a murderer. He killed Raul and Burl and Deacon Price. And he just sliced himself open in front of me, and now his blood is soaking through the fabric of my dress until I feel it cling to my belly. But his kiss still inflames me, and as he devours me I try to devour him back, my hands on his shoulders. I’m afraid to press into him. Afraid I’ll hurt him.

Ambrose breaks the kiss with a groan and clutches at my face, smearing my cheeks with more blood. His eyes blaze with—not lust. It can’t be lust, even though it looks like it.

It’s pain, I tell myself. “You need to go to the hospital.”

“No, I don’t.” He pushes me backward until my legs bump against the couch. “I’m proving something to you. ”

“What?” I screech. “What could you possibly be proving with this?”

His only answer is a sharp, shrill whistle. There’s a jangle of dog tags as Max scrambles to the floor and out of the living room. Then Ambrose pushes me down on the couch, and I stare up at him, legs akimbo beneath my blood-soaked dress. His tank top is crimson, so drenched with blood I can’t even make out the wound.

“I’m proving to you what I am.” He runs his blood-sticky hand up the inside of my thigh, making me shiver. “A human man couldn’t survive what I’m about to do.”

“What?” I scream, scrambling backward. Ambrose grins and catches my arms, pinning me down.

“I’m not human,” he purrs. “I’m the boogeyman. But I’m not going to hurt you. I’m going to make you feel good.”

I swoon, my eyes rolling back in my head as he presses his lips to my neck and licks the blood away. I can smell it everywhere, coppery and pungent.

“You’re the devil,” I gasp out, terror coiling around me.

“A devil,” he says into the hollow of my throat, his breath making me shiver. “More or less.” He pulls away, eyes blazing with a madness that makes lust flare deep in my belly. He never looks away from me as he reaches down and pulls out his erection, as covered in gore as the rest of him.

“You can’t,” I gasp.

“Why not?” He pushes his hand up along the inside of my thigh again, and despite my best intentions not to, I still moan with pleasure as his fingers find my clit. “Because you don’t want me?”

“Because you’re hurt,” I gasp out, trying not to think about the blood on his fingers as he parts my folds to gather the wetness between my legs—a wetness I can’t deny as he swipes it around my clit, making me moan.

“So you do want me? ”

“You’re a killer!” I scream, and Ambrose pulls his hand away from my clit and presses it against my thigh.

“That didn’t answer the question,” he says.

I stare at him, sucking down breaths. He looks like a nightmare towering over me, his entire midsection drenched in blood.

“Why are you doing this?” I whisper.

Something flickers across his expression. His fingers drift up into my folds again, and he slides two fingers inside me, making me gasp and squirm with pleasure. I try not to think about the blood on them. About the blood on his thumb as he circles it around my clit.

“I don’t know,” he says. “There’s something special about you.”

“You’re hurt,” I whimper, squirming beneath his touch. “You’re a killer. You’re?—“

“Let me fuck you.” Ambrose shifts forward, his blood-sticky erection pressing into my thigh as he continues to touch me in that way that makes me feel like I’m falling apart. “One last time. I want to remember how good this fucking pussy feels around my cock.”

I moan at his filthy words, at his filthy touch. His rubs me faster, and to my horror, I buck into his hands, groaning and arching my back.

“Well?” He crawls on top of me, shoving my bloody skirt up around my waist until I’m exposed for him.

Waiting for him.

“If I say no, will you even stop?”

A dark cloud crosses Ambrose’s face. “Yes. But you’re not going to say no.”

He’s right. I hate that he’s right. I hate that I like what he’s doing to me, our bodies both drenched in blood. I hate that I don’t understand how he’s even doing all of this, that his belly is gaping open and still his eyes are bright and his touch is firm .

He really is the boogeyman. He really is the devil.

“What’ll it be, Mercy?” He slides another finger inside me, and I quake with pleasure. He’s the only man who knows how to touch me. The only man who knows how to make me feel pleasure.

“Yes,” I scream. “Take me, you damned monster!”

Ambrose breaks into a manic, terrifying grin. He doesn’t look human at all.

He’s not human. That’s what he said.

A devil. More or less.

“ That’s what I’ve been waiting to hear,” he growls, and I know I’m damning myself for moaning beneath his pliable fingers, for spreading my legs for this abomination.

But I don’t care.

I don’t care when he grabs hold of his bloody cock and presses it against my entrance, his eyes fluttering closed and his lips parting. I hold my breath, squeezing my hands into fists, and when Ambrose slides his full length inside me, I sob with pleasure, all the nerves in my body on fire.

“I thought I’d never get to feel this again,” he sighs, rolling his hips against me. His belly presses against mine, the blood hot and slippery between us. “This perfect human cunt.”

“You’re not human,” I gasp. “You’re the Deceiver.”

“Well, I’m a deceiver, certainly.” His mouth latches onto mine, pulling me into another hungry, desperate kiss as he rolls his hips against me to fill me over and over with his hardness. “And a killer. A monster. I don’t deny any of those things.”

“You lied to me,” I moan, clutching at his hips. His wound doesn’t seem to slow him down at all. He thrusts into me as hard as he did last night in the bunker, striking so deep inside my body that I see dots of light in my vision.

“I know. But I’m not lying now.” He kisses down my chin to bite and suck at my neck—it hurts, a little, but it feels good, too. Just like everything about him. He plunged a knife into my heart as surely as he did his own belly, but I can’t feel it anymore. All I feel is the pleasure of his cock inside me, of his bloody skin grinding against my clit, his teeth sinking into the delicate skin of my throat.

I’m going to come for him. I feel the certainty of it building into a pressure in my core, and I grind up against him, desperate for my release.

He doesn’t give it to me, though. Instead, he pulls back and gives me another terrible, manic grin. And still he’s thrusting into me, the muscles in his body tensing beneath his tattooed skin. He looks exactly like the devil of my nightmares, the devil that Madelyn said would devour me if I disobeyed Reverend Gunner.

And he is devouring me.

But it isn’t the horror I thought it would be.

“I’m showing you exactly what I am,” Ambrose says softly, sliding his fingers up through my hair. “And you like it, don’t you? You like what you see?”

I moan because he’s right and because I’m on the precipice of my orgasm.

“Answer me.” He pulls hard on my hair, and I don’t have to answer with words because my body does it for me. My orgasm explodes outward in a rush of feverish pleasure, and all I can do is let out a string of whimpering, desperate moans. Ambrose never stops fucking me, even when the heat of his cock almost feels too much to bear. His face twists up, and he bares his teeth and rasps, “Was that a yes? You like what you see?”

He’s fucking me harder than should be possible with the wound in his belly. We’re both drenched in blood. But all that seems to matter to him is drawing a single word from my lips.

I stare at him, my gaze unfocused: this monster who destroyed my life. He’s the most beautiful man I’ve ever seen, and the most terrible.

“Yes,” I whisper .

Ambrose roars and slams so deeply inside me that pain bursts in my core, just for a second, like a kind of dessert after the dinner of my orgasm. Then he draws back, pulling out of me completely. I feel his seed leaking out between my thighs, as thick and hot as his spilled blood.

For a moment he stays like that, his arms braced against the couch, his sweat- and blood-soaked hair falling into his eyes. I’m too afraid to move. But then he lifts his gaze to meet mine, his expression unreadable.

“Give me your hand.”

“What? Why?” My fear brightens, and Ambrose runs his tongue over his lips, his eyes boring down into me.

“Told you I’m not going to hurt you.” He grabs me by the wrist and pulls my hand up to him?—

Up to the bloody patch on his belly.

“No!” I cry out instinctively, afraid he’s going to make me hurt him more somehow. Ambrose laughs, hard and cruel, and presses my hand to his stomach.

At first, I don’t understand what I’m feeling. His shirt is soaked with blood, and I can feel the slow rise and fall of his breath and the faint ripple of his muscles contracting beneath his belly’s softness. But then I realize something’s missing.

He isn’t cut.

I gasp and jerk my hand away. Ambrose grins and slumps back on the sofa, his arms draped over his knees. He looks like the demon he said he was—a vile, gore-soaked monster.

“You were cut,” I whisper.

“I was.” He shifts around, stretching out beside me, and pushes up the ruin of his tank top. “But I healed up fast.”

“That’s impossible.” I shake my head, my fear sparking through me. “That’s—I saw it. I saw the knife go into—” I gag on the words, and Ambrose reaches over and tucks my hair behind my hair, leaving blood streaked across my cheek.

“It did. Hurt like shit, too.” He runs his fingers down my arm to circle them around my wrist again. I’m too confused, too frightened, to try and fight when he pulls my hand forward and presses it once again to his belly. “There’ll be a scar. Feel it.”

I don’t feel anything but blood and firm, warm skin. But then he slides my hand a little lower, and my fingers graze across a ridge of scar tissue. Trembling, I let my hands trace along the scar as it runs from one side of his torso to the other.

“I sliced eight inches into myself to show you what I am,” Ambrose says softly.

I yank my hand away. “A demon.”

But he shakes his head. “No. A Hunter.”