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CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

MERCY

I don’t know why I said that to him, other than that it’s true.

As soon as the words leave my lips, blasphemous as they are, I tip over the edge I’ve been balancing on since he threw me to the ground and slid his knife inside me. I split open and scream into the night—a scream Ambrose silences when he latches his mouth against mine in a brutal, violent kiss.

And he keeps fucking me, and I keep coming for him, pulse after pulse of pleasure rocking through my body as his tongue grapples with mine, his fingers wrapped around my throat like a necklace binding us together.

Then he wrenches away, rising on his knees. He lifts my legs up so that they’re propped on his shoulders. Rests his fingers on my clit, still throbbing and sensitive.

“Say that to me again.”

I tremble, gazing up at him, his face carved out by the moonlight. He looks like a god, with me on my back in supplication.

Ambrose pushes into me with long, slow thrusts .

“Say it,” he orders, rubbing his thumb against my clit. I cry out, the intensity of his touch lighting me on fire.

“You’re the only god I need.” My voice rings out, stronger this time, and it feels good to say it. Just like it felt good to cry out that I wanted him to fuck me. It feels right .

Ambrose groans and drops his head back as he slams deep inside me, sitting there for a moment before doing it again. He fucks me with such force that I’m shoved back through the dirt, almost like he’s pushing me beneath the soil. Down into the darkness, down into the underworld.

This is who I am, that I’d let him do this to me. That I would like it, and want it, and crave it.

“You feel so fucking good,” Ambrose grunts, wrapping his fingers tight around my ankles as he slams into me and shoves me deeper into the darkness. “Human women aren’t supposed to feel this damn good.”

“Murderers—” I gasp out. “Murderers aren’t supposed to feel this good, either.”

Ambrose grins at that and rubs my clit a little faster. My arousal is soaking both of us.

“You sure about that, humanita?”

He punctuates the question with a sharp thrust, then asks,

“You going to come again for me? For your god?”

“Yes,” I moan, although I don’t know if I can. But I want to. I want to keep falling backward through this pleasure and depravity. I was harmed so badly by the light and the darkness both, but at least the darkness apologized. At least Ambrose saw that he hurt me and tried to fix it.

“Good,” he rasps, his thrusts quickening, his fingers furiously working my clit. Tension builds in my belly like a rubber band stretching to its limit. “Because I like it when you come, little human. I like it when you fall apart for me.”

I moan and let him fuck me. I let him use me just like Reverend Gunner did, like Pastor Sullivan and Deacon Price .

For three years, I was used.

But it never felt like this. It never felt like the sun was burning inside me.

“Come on, baby,” Ambrose rasps. “Come on. I’m close. I’m gonna need you to come again.”

“I don’t—” I jerk against him, desperate to chase my pleasure. But it’s not enough. The tension’s there, but it’s not ready to break. “I can’t?—”

Ambrose roars, his hips shuddering against mine, his demon seed spilling inside my womb. I suck down gulps of air, delirious with pleasure, and wait for him to pull away so it can fade.

But he doesn’t. He keeps his cock shoved inside me, his thumb on my clit. “Look at me,” he says, rubbing my clit in furious circles. “You’re gonna look at me when you come.”

He’s not stopping, I realize. “You don’t have to?—”

“Shut the fuck up.” His eyes blaze. “If I’m your god, I’ll give you pleasure if I see fit. Now lie back and come for me, my little human slut.”

His harsh words tear a fire through me. All I want in the whole world is to do what he says. To obey him. To worship him. To do the thing I was taught to do but which, until this moment, always felt wrong.

I settle into the graveyard grass, my eyes fluttering shut, and roll my hips against his hand until my pleasure throbs through my core. The rubber band stretches a little further.

“That’s it,” he breathes, lying at my side, his fingers never once leaving my clit. Warmth leaks out between my legs, and I want it to stay, desperately. It’s the same fantasy I had before, of being his— his wife and helpmeet, the supportive woman at his side. But this time, I’m not a preacher’s wife.

I’m a devil’s.

“Ambrose,” I choke out, the pleasure building to such a peak that it hurts. “Why are you?— ”

He rubs my clit harder and slides a finger easily into my cum-soaked pussy. I lose the question into a sea of moans.

“Why am I what, humanita? Why I am still fingerfucking you?”

“No.” My hips grind against his hand. “Why are you protecting me?”

“Protecting you?” He puts another finger inside me and curls them both up, making me shudder and shriek and buck against the grass. “Who am I protecting you from?”

“ You !” I scream. I’m close. I’m so, so close. He knows how to touch me. “Why don’t you want to hurt me?”

He grins, his fingers sliding in and out of my body. “You mean kill you?”

My body jerks at that, the first quake of an orgasm. I nod, breathing hard, the promise of release so close. Ambrose leans over me, still working me with his expert touch.

“Because then I wouldn’t get to see you do this,” he says?—

Right before he shifts his thumb ever-so-slightly to the left.

Every nerve in my body erupts. I feel as if I could levitate off the ground, as if I’m flooded with holy light. Not God’s light, of course. But my god’s light. This murderous, vicious, cruel god, who’s still plunging his fingers in and out of my pussy, stroking me to oblivion.

“That’s what I’m talking about,” he says softly. “That right there. You just completely fall apart for me. Gorgeous. Fucking gorgeous.” His lips brush against my forehead, my cheeks, the tip of my nose. “Killing you won’t be nearly as much fun. And I’d only get to do it once.”

His fingers are still inside me, even though he lifts his thumb off my clit. I stare up at him, wobbly, wet-eyed from pleasure. “Are you going to do it again?”

“I’ll keep doing this right here until the fucking sun comes up,” he says, fingers working inside me like a promise. “You have no idea how beautiful you look surrounded by death. ”

I push myself up enough to catch his mouth in a kiss, my fingers twined up in his hair. And he keeps touching me. It’s almost too much. It almost makes me feel like my body’s going to shred apart.

Almost.

“How many times can I make you come?” he rasps into my ear. “How many times can I make up for what that piece of shit Gunner did to you?”

I can’t answer. I can’t speak. I’m a web of ecstasy. I just stare at him with my wide eyes and moan?—

Suddenly, he stops, yanking his hand out of me. I keen at its loss, but he jerks his head around, his nose wrinkling. “Someone’s here,” he whispers. “Fuck.”

A new terror slams through me. Or maybe it’s an old one—the terror I felt before I knew what Ambrose is, when I thought Reverend Gunner might find the two of us together. The terror of getting caught.

“Come on, humanita.” Ambrose is already on his feet, and he grabs my hands and pulls me up, even though I wobble a little. “I need to get you out of here.”

“Are you sure someone’s here?” I don’t hear anything. Don’t see anything. The cemetery feels as empty as it has the last hour.

“Positive. He’s coming from the back. Probably another street entrance there.” Ambrose grabs the shovel and then takes me by the hand, his fingers braiding up in mine.

“I don’t hear anything?—”

“Because you’re human.” Ambrose jerks me up to him and kisses me with a roughness that makes my legs tremble. “I can smell him.”

He tugs me forward, weaving us between the headstones. I glance back over my shoulder for one last glimpse of Raul’s grave. I feel like I should be more ashamed of what we did. But the truth is, I just feel free. More free than I have in a long, long time.

A light dances through the trees.

“Ambrose!” I hiss, grabbing at his arm. He glances back and scowls.

“Damn, he got here fast,” Ambrose mutters. “Or I was just too distracted to notice him when I should have.”

I blush. The light bounces off the top of the gravestones.

“Who’s out here?” A man’s voice cuts through the night. “Cemetery’s closed!”

“Oh, Jesus, I really was distracted.” Ambrose laughs and pulls me forward. “Run, baby!”

The man shouts, and the lights flash, and Ambrose and I take off together through the graveyard. The wind pushes my hair back so that it streams off my shoulders, looking like moonlight. I feel like moonlight, actually, something effusive and untouchable and beautiful.

“Hey!” the man shouts. “Stop right there!”

I pump my legs faster, although I’m still not fast enough to catch up to Ambrose, who’s already shoving the entrance gate open. I glance over my shoulder at our pursuer, but all I can really see of him is the bobbing flashlight.

“Come on, humanita.” Ambrose grabs my hand and pulls me through the gate and kisses me, all in one motion. Then he’s dragging me toward his car, and I don’t know why, but I can’t stop laughing. Because I’m being chased through the night, but it’s not by the man who has killed three people that I know of. Because I just went to a funeral and had sex in a graveyard. Because if you had shown me all this a month ago, I would have never believed it.

But I feel better than I have since the day Reverend Gunner took me as his wife.

I fling open the passenger door of Ambrose’s car and leap inside just as the man slams up against the gate. “Stop!” he shouts. “You’re trespassing!”

Ambrose ducks behind the wheel, revs the engine to life, and slams backward, grinning wildly. “That was fun as hell,” he laughs, peeling out of the parking lot. “I haven’t run from a human in a long-ass time.”

A human. The word jars at me, a little, that reminder that Ambrose is a demon in a man’s skin. But I’m still smiling. Still exhilarated. Maybe I belong with the demon.

The man chases us down the road, our taillights washing him in red light. “He’ll get your license plate number,” I say.

“Let him. It’ll be a dead end.” Ambrose turns the car sharply to pull us out onto the highway. I flip back around and sink down in my seat, still giddy with excitement. Giddy with confusion, too.

“What name is the car under?” I look over at him, wondering if he trusts me enough to share it.

“Vincent Fita,” he says, his eyes fixed on the road. He’s driving too fast, the buildings and street lamps blurring beside us. Chasing death, I think idly. Just like I did when I let him throw me into the graveyard grass.

“You’re not afraid I’ll take that name to the police?”

Ambrose glances at me. “Will you?”

His question catches me off guard. Because the first answer that pops into my head, the one that feels the most right, is no.

Why would I? He just held a funeral for Raul because he thought it would make me feel better. He didn’t throw me to the cemetery caretaker so he could get away.

He’s shown me pleasure and a strange sort of a kindness and isn’t that all I’ve ever wanted but couldn’t get, not in the church?

“That quiet is making me nervous,” he says lightly. I know it’s a lie. Nothing makes him nervous.

“I want to stay with you. ”

I hadn’t realized that was how I was going to answer until I say it, the words erupting out of me. I go tense, but Ambrose seems to soften. The car slows, too, even though we’re reaching the edge of the Cocana city limits and there’s nothing but the highway from here on out.

“I really was going to let you go,” Ambrose says softly. He doesn’t look at me. “I had it all planned out—I was going to give you some money to get you started. Drive you into Dallas and leave you there. Easier to get by in a big city.”

I stare at him, at the highway shadows melting across his face. “Why?”

Ambrose frowns. “Why what?”

“Why would you do all that?”

Ambrose doesn’t answer right away. There’s just the highway and the night, the soft purr of his engine, the frantic thudding of my heart.

“Because I like you, Mercy,” he finally says. “And you deserve to be happy.”