Page 40

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

MERCY

I knew what he was going to say, but hearing it still sends frissons of fear snaking through my body. I look past the knife to Ambrose’s face, half-expecting to see a demon there, but of course I don’t.

It’s Ambrose. My protector, in his way. My savior.

My pussy throbs with a sudden, violent pulse.

“If you want me to kill those pieces of shit,” Ambrose says softly, still holding the knife. “Then I’m gonna have to use you as bait to lure them away from the compound. And I’m not doing that?—”

He steps closer to me, pushes the hair away from my face.

“—Unless I’ve claimed you as mine.”

I look Ambrose straight in the eye.“‘For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed,’” I whisper. “‘He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood abideth in me, and I in him.’”

Ambrose runs his thumb along my lips. “Exactly.” Then he steps back and orders, “On the floor. I’m going to drench that gorgeous body with my blood.”

Hearing him say it out loud makes me dizzy. Not with disgust, which is the only thing I think I should be feeling. But with desire. With—affection. Warmth.

I look at him again.

“I’m not letting you anywhere near Gunner or Sullivan otherwise,” he says.

I take a deep breath. My clit throbs again, and I drop my hand down to touch it with slow circles. Ambrose notices, because he smiles a little.

“When you do this,” I whisper, working through my thoughts, which feel thick and strange. “When you do this, it’ll bring me into a new church. A new faith.”

Ambrose’s eyes bore into me as he touches himself over his clothes. He’s getting hard again, which seems like it should be impossible, but then?—

He’s not human.

“And what faith is that, humanita?”

“You,” I whisper, still touching my clit as I slide off the bed, my movements shaky and uncertain. My behind hits the cool hardwood floor, and I scoot forward so that I’m angled toward him.

Ambrose kneels between my spread thighs. Takes my hand away from my clit. Looks me dead in the eye.

“When I do this,” he murmurs. “You’ll belong to me. Is that what you want?”

My body pulses with desire. “Why did you say you wanted to turn Reverend Gunner and Pastor Sullivan into a wedding feast?”

Ambrose tilts his head and leans closer. “Because I’ll belong to you, too.”

Then he kisses me, soft and sweet, and I melt into it, my body screaming for him. Screaming for this , this blasphemy. This darkness.

“Do it,” I whisper against his rough lips. “Baptize me. ”

Ambrose lets out a sharp, shuddering sigh. “Touch yourself,” he breathes.

Then he stands. I lift my gaze to meet his and slide my hand down to rub my clit, stoking my fire even further. Ambrose’s expression is deadly serious, and his eyes never leave mine.

“No other man will ever touch you again,” he says darkly. “Do you understand?”

Heat courses through me. “Yes, sir.”

“I’m about to mark you as mine. Do you acknowledge that? What it means?”

I swallow, my fingers rubbing even more furiously against my clit. I’m so close to coming. So close to giving myself to this monster completely. “Yes, sir.” The words come out hitched, my orgasm surging closer.

“Keep touching yourself. Do not stop. Do you understand?”

“Yes, sir.”

Ambrose nods once, satisfied, and holds one arm over me. He holds the knife in the other. I stare up at him, panting and trembling, burning up from anticipation.

Then he shoves the blade into his arm, so quickly I hardly see it. But I feel it. I feel the hot, thick blood splatter across my bare breasts and streak down over my belly. And I keep touching myself, the way Ambrose asked, because I want to obey him. Obeying him makes me feel like a treasure.

Ambrose tosses the knife aside with a clatter as his blood flows out of the long, jagged cut on his arm. It splatters over me, streaking my face and my body and pooling around my hand as I touch myself.

“Drink me.” Ambrose drops to his knees and presses his bleeding arm to my lips. I part them and lap up his blood like a cat, my eyes fluttering closed, my fingers still thrumming my clit. His blood is salty and thick and I have one quivering thought?—

I can’t come like this .

But then I do, moaning and bucking against the floor as all my pleasure surges through me, pulled forward by the baptism of Ambrose’s blood. Ambrose pulls his arm away but keeps bleeding over me, never breaking eye contact. I gaze at him, gasping and quaking, forcing myself to hold still so he can baptize me as he sees fit.

“You’re mine,” he says raggedly, pulling his arm away. “No man will ever touch you again.”

I can’t stop trembling with aftershocks. I can’t stop staring at him in adoration, his blood hot on my skin.

“Yes,” I whisper. “Yes, I’m yours.”

Ambrose grabs my shirt from where I discarded it on the floor, wraps it around his arm, and knots it off. All I can do is watch him, breathing heavily. He doesn’t seem as composed as he usually does—there’s a kind of dazed expression in his eyes, like he feels as overwhelmed by this as I do.

Then he launches himself at me, dragging my blood-soaked body up to him in a messy, frantic kiss.

“Mercy,” he breathes. “How are you fucking real?”

“How are you?” I whisper back, drawing back to look him in the eye. “Are you really going to kill them for me?”

Ambrose pushes my hair back and kisses me again, although it’s more gentle this time.

“Yes,” he whispers into my ear. “I’m going to hunt both of them through the desert until they’re nothing but blood and bone.”

I sag against him, listening to the slow, steady rhythm of his heart. My own heart is still racing, and being close to him, wrapped in his arms, doesn’t help.

“But before we talk more about that—“ Ambrose nuzzles the top of my head, breathing in deep. Then, he sweeps me up in one smooth motion, pulling me into a bridal carry despite his injured arm. I cry out and loop my arms around his shoulder for balance, but he doesn’t seem bothered. He smiles softly down at me as he carries me out of the bedroom, into the dark hallway, and into the main bathroom, with its big tiled shower.

“I guess I do need to rinse off,” I say, heat flooding into my cheeks.

Ambrose doesn’t answer except to set me down and turn the water on. Then he strips out of his own clothes, tossing them out into the hallway along with the blood-soaked T-shirt, and helps me under the hot, steaming spray. The water streams over my body in warm rivulets, and it reminds me of his blood.

“Let me wash you,” he says softly, cupping my face with his hands, giving me a soft kiss on my lips.

“What about your arm?”

“You know I don’t need to worry about that.”

I nod, breath tight in my chest.

When Ambrose starts to wash me, it’s slow and methodical, as if he’s afraid he might hurt me. He lathers up the bar of soap between his hands and then rubs it over my shoulders, my arms, my breasts, his touch gentle and lingering. The red water turns pink, and Ambrose kisses me as he moves down my body—first on my mouth, but then on the places he cleans, like he’s anointing my skin.

Eventually, the water runs clear. That’s when Ambrose kneels down in front of me and washes my sex with his hands, rubbing the soap between my legs with careful determination. “Balance yourself,” he mutters. “Against the wall.” When I do, he hoists my left leg over his shoulder and continues to clean me, the shower pounding over us.

It feels good, of course, because of where he’s touching me, but it also feels chaste somehow. Holy. I drop my head back as the shower beats across my chest, but all I can think of is Jesus washing the feet of his disciples. That is what this feels like, as Ambrose bows in front of me, worshipping me with his careful touch.

He sets my foot down on the tile and tugs me forward at the hips to wash the soap away. I lay my hand on the top of his head as he’s done to me so many times, and he tilts his gaze upward.

My monster, my demon. Kneeling before me after claiming me as his own.

No man will ever touch you again .

That’s all I want. To belong to one person who loves me?—

The thought jars me. He can’t love me, can he? Not a killer like him.

Except this feels like love.

“I’m not done, humanita,” he says, right before he kisses the damp triangle of my pubic hair, his lips too far away from my clit to do anything but make me sigh.

Then he keeps going, washing my thighs, my calves.

My feet.

He guides me backward to do that, until my back is pressed against the cool tile, and lifts up one foot to lather with soap. I stare at him through the steam, my breath shuddery.

He’s the devil.

He’s Jesus Christ.

He’s mine.

And when he finishes, he sets my foot down and rocks back on his heels. The shower pounds around us, almost uncomfortably warm. Or maybe I’m just warmed by his touch.

“There you are,” he says. “All clean.”

“Thank you,” I whisper.

Ambrose smiles, and he looks at me in a way no man has ever looked at me before.

And I know this doesn’t just feel like love.

It is love.