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CHAPTER SIX

AMbrOSE

I jump the fence surrounding Gunner’s well-manicured backyard and crouch down behind a trash can, breathing heavily and waiting—for screams, shouts, a slamming door. Anything. Some hint as to what’s going to happen next.

There’s only silence.

I sit back on my haunches and let my senses go wide. Those senses are what got me into this stupid fucking mess in the first place; I was headed to the administrative office with every intention of breaking in to see if I could find the church’s adoption records. But then the wind stirred up and I caught Mercy’s scent, as sweet as night-blooming jasmine. I should have ignored it, but the memory of her pretty, wide eyes gazing up at me while I pretended to pray over her was too much.

I wanted to see her again.

So I did what I’m designed to do, and stalked her from the shadows. I watched her go through the fence gate, then did the same thing I’m doing now, which is listening and smelling and sensing to get a feel for my surroundings. But what I mostly felt was Mercy: her trepidation, her disgust.

And that intrigued a monster like me .

Should I have hopped the fence into what I realized quickly enough was Gunner’s backyard? No.

Should I have crept up to the window when I realized what was happening in the little suite growing off the side of his oversized house like a barnacle? When I felt Mercy’s quickened heartbeat and smelled the faint pungent undertones of sex? Absolutely not.

But I did it anyway. I told myself I could use it, somehow—blackmail Gunner or something—and that might have been true until I let myself get caught like a goddamn fool. But I’ll admit I was intrigued by the thought of the lush, curvaceous body hiding beneath that baggy cotton dress.

Of course, what I wound up seeing?—

Mercy didn’t want to be there, poor thing. She clearly wasn’t enjoying herself at all. Any arousal I sensed was a bodily response, protecting her from Gunner’s fumbling incursions. I haven’t fucked a woman in a while, but I know what it looks like when you’re fucking them properly.

And Gunner certainly wasn’t.

That’s what got me caught, ultimately. My desire, however stupid, to kick the door down, slash Gunner’s throat, and show Mercy what a good fucking is supposed to look like. What’s it’s supposed to feel like.

In fact, I was fantasizing about it in rather embarrassing detail when Mercy turned her head and spotted me, and for a few bizarre seconds, it was like I was a deer caught in headlights, blinded by the unknowable.

The way she looked at me—with confusion, desperation, sadness—I felt something I hadn’t felt in a long, long time, which is pity. Genuine pity. I couldn’t help but tell her I was sorry.

Now, crouched behind this filthy trash can, I try to find her again. She’s still inside, along with Gunner, and I don’t think she’s told him anything. Because I can sense both of their heartbeats: hers is still quick and frantic, but his is calm. Steady. I keep waiting for the spike of his rage or fear or both, but it doesn’t come.

She’s kept her mouth shut.

That intrigues me even more, which I dislike. I’m at the Church of the Well for a reason, and it’s not to pursue this bizarre fascination for a human woman.

I slip out from behind the trash can, keeping my senses alert. It’s easy out here in the west Texas flatlands, which is why I’ve always hunted in the western half of the state. The emptiness. The enormity. It’s not just sound that carries for miles, but everything, all the traces humans make without realizing it.

And although the compound is full of people, most of them are asleep right now, their bodies a quiet susurration in the background, not quite as loud as the electricity humming through the wires stretching between buildings.

I move along the fence, away from Gunner’s house. The administration building is to my left, and I know that’s where I should go. I need to find a way in, then figure out where they’re keeping the adoption records. They have to be here somewhere.

But then a click ricochets through the night. I freeze, melting into the shadows. It’s the gate on Gunner’s fence latching shut, and in the middle of the night, it’s as loud as a gunshot.

So are the footsteps. Light. Quick. Feminine.

Mercy .

I turn around, away from the administrative building and toward her. My thoughts hum. Intellectually, I know I should just leave her alone. But I’m curious—curious as to why Gunner’s backup wife is walking through the compound at one in the morning instead of curling up beside him in that big bed where he fucked her so poorly.

Mercy helped me get into the compound, even if she didn’t realize it. Maybe she can help me get to the adoption records, too.

It’s a lie I tell myself. Really I want to follow her fear like rabbit tracks. I want to feel her terror spike when I let her hear my footsteps in the dark, a sweet memory I can take home with me when I’m done with this ridiculous place.

So I go back the way I came, following her scent until I can see her, walking at the brisk pace of someone desperate to be where they’re going. She has her arms wrapped around her chest, her head dropped low.

Pity flares through me again.

I’m getting soft. Sawyer and Jaxon are rubbing off on me.

Mercy’s footsteps thud against the dusty foot trail. I slip behind her, as silent as a mountain lion. She senses me; I can tell by the way her shoulders stiffen, by the intoxicating eruption of fear that floods into her sweetness.

Her head swings, hair gleaming in the moonlight. I slip sideways and out of her line of sight.

She keeps walking, quickening her pace. I follow, slow and steady and silent. It’s not enough, following her. I want to touch her. Taste her.

Maybe she can help me find the adoption records. It would certainly be so much easier if I have her telling me where they are.

Maybe I’m deluding myself. But still, before I can convince myself otherwise, I glide up behind her, sliding between the shadows. She hears me just as I wrap my hand around her mouth, and she unleashes a small, startled gasp right before I silence her. I drag her off the walking path and into the gap between two of the industrial-looking houses that wrap around Sterling Gunner’s mansion like guards.

“Mmph!” Mercy cries, her breath warming my palm. Her plush body squirms against mine, and I wrap my free arm around her waist to still her .

“I’m not going to hurt you,” I rasp into her ear.

She freezes. I actually feel her muscles snap into place.

She tries to twist her head toward me, but I hold her firm.

“I’m taking you back to my cabin,” I whisper, nudging her along, keeping my senses open for anyone moving through the compound. There’s nothing. Just insects. A few flapping bats. Night birds. “I want to talk.”

Mercy whimpers and her tears bead along the top of my hand. It’s been so long since I’ve licked tears off someone’s skin, and the urge to do so now soars inside me. I promised I wouldn’t hurt her, but fuck, I want to. Not in a way that would kill her. Just in a way that would make her scream—that gorgeous, melodic scream I heard nearly two nights ago on the river.

“Plhmph,” she says into my hand. I’ve done this enough times in my two hundred years to know she’s saying Please .

“I said I’m not going to hurt you.” I drag her along with me, keeping to the narrow paths formed between the compound’s prefab houses. My temporary cabin is maybe a two-minute walk from here, and I move quickly. I make Mercy move quickly.

Her tears flow faster, but she doesn’t fight back. I suppose even she knows how dangerous men can be.

I’m not exactly a man, though. Not in the way she’s thinking.

My cabin appears up ahead, and relief surges through me even though I take pains not to let Mercy know. I left the porch light on, the only light in the ring of cabins. Mercy sniffles.

“Almost there,” I tell her, and now she does try to fight back, although she does so half-heartedly, squirming against my grasp. It does little but send blood shooting down to my cock, another fact I try to conceal from her.

“Mmmphhnn!” she shrieks, and I tighten my hand around her mouth, squeezing her face perhaps a little too hard. As I drag her up to the door, Max lets out an excited bark from inside. Mercy keens.

“Don’t be scared of him.” I shove the key into the lock and turn it and push the door open at the same time, then heave Mercy into the cabin, tossing her onto the couch while I lock the door. She scrambles to her feet as both dogs run up to investigate—although she takes their appearance as a threat and screams and tries to bolt forward. I catch her around the waist, slap my hand over her mouth.

“Don’t do that again.” I put my lips on her ear, and she shivers against me. “Do not scream. Do you understand?”

“Nmn!” Her tongue licks my palm.

“No, you don’t understand?” I drag her back over to the couch, pressing her body up against mine. I need to play this carefully. I don’t want her thinking I’m anything but a preacher.

Her only answer is a kind of choking sob. Her face is drenched in tears, and so is my hand, and I’m enjoying this far more than I should.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” I tell her. It’s good to tell them that, even when it’s a lie—which, here, it isn’t. Not really. I certainly don’t intend to hurt her, anyway. “I just want to talk about what I saw.” I pause, then add, “And come clean about something.”

Mercy jerks her head in something close to a nod, and I slowly move my hand away from her mouth. She doesn’t move, doesn’t scream. She blinks at me with tear-damp eyes.

“Who are you?” she asks, voice trembling. “Why are you doing this?”

For a fraction of a second, I consider telling her the truth, that the devil really has come to the Church of the Well. That I am, in fact, the closest thing to Satan she’ll ever meet. It would be worth it to drown in the miasma of her terror.

But I refrain. I’m not Sawyer, making decisions with my dick .

“I’m Ambrose Echeverría,” I say smoothly. “And I am a traveling preacher, and God did call me here. He works in mysterious ways, as the saying goes.”

Mercy twists her head toward me, her brown eyes big and glossy and bloodshot from crying. Her cheeks are ruddy. I will not be forgetting this pretty picture anytime soon.

“Why are you here?” she snarls, with more vehemence than I’d expect.

I give a hapless sort of sigh and rearrange my features into an expression of sheepishness, as if I’m not used to doing this sort of thing. “I originally thought God brought me here for one reason?—”

“You’re taking advantage of us,” she snarls. “Our grief?—”

“No,” I interrupt. “I came here for one thing, yes. But when I arrived, I knew my presence was needed for other reasons as well. My desire to see the church through their grief is genuine.”

All lies, of course. But ones she wants to believe, given the way her eyes soften.

“I’m not supposed to be alone in a man’s home,” she snaps. “And you dragged me here against your will.”

“I apologize for that.” I hold my hands up, trying to look as hapless as possible. “Truly. But I wanted to speak to you privately. About what I—” I swallow as if this topic upsets me. “Saw.”

Mercy’s eyes darken. “You were spying on me and my husband.”

There’s the slightest pause before she says husband , a small quiver of hesitation. I make myself look hapless again.

“We all have our vices,” I say, channeling every disgraced preacher I’ve ever seen—and I’ve seen a lot of them. “I’ll admit the sins of the flesh are something I struggle with.”

Mercy’s fear flickers like a candle. Just for a moment, it turns to lust .

Interesting.

“There’s something I need,” I continue. “And with what I saw—well, Sterling Gunner is still married to his first wife, isn’t he? It would do some damage to his reputation if his arrangement with you were to become public knowledge.”

Blackmail, the last refuge of a coward. But if it’ll get me those adoption records so I can move on with my life?—

Mercy lets out a sharp, bitter laugh. “I should have known.” Her fear has subsided somehow, giving way to a kind of darkness I don’t know how to read. “You want to fuck me, don’t you?”

It is utterly bizarre hearing this woman of God say the word fuck. So bizarre, in fact, that I don’t even register what she’s getting at until she says, “You don’t need to threaten me. Just ask Reverend Gunner. He’s willing to share if you give him something.”

“What?” I didn’t expect to be surprised tonight, but Mercy just pulled it off. “You think I brought you here to rape you?”

I’m almost offended. I’m a murderer and a cannibal. I hunt humans the way humans hunt deer.

I’m not a fucking rapist .

Mercy’s brows draw together. “What do you want, then?”

I tilt my head toward the couch. “Sit.”

Mercy stares at me in defiance.

“Do it,” I say, and I let just enough of my true self through that this time, she listens.