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CHAPTER EIGHT

SELENE

I rise from the dead body between my legs, my eyes searching Onyx’s as he steps out of the shadows, his cock still in his hand. My gaze drops down as he strokes himself, his cum dripping from the head of his dick. With a grunt he spills his seed onto the floor, not giving a fuck that it’s dropping onto the dirty ground without purpose.

Wiping my bloodied hand on my skirt, I walk closer to Onyx, pushing his hand from his cock as I stop in front of him. I swipe the last bit of cum from the tip with my thumb and bring it up to my mouth. Onyx’s expression is dark, his eyes filled with lust as they drop down to my lips.

I draw my finger into my mouth, my tongue swirling around it as I suck the cum off, tasting him as the saltiness coats my throat. Onyx readjusts his pants, his cock still hard as he pushes it back inside his jeans. My lips make a popping sound as I pull out my thumb.

A shiver rises along my spine as an unsettling feeling overwhelms me. It feels as though we’re being watched. My vertebrae straighten as my body falls rigid and I strain my ears against the silence, holding my breath to deter any unwanted sounds.

A soft sound comes from the distance, almost like someone missed a step and stumbled. I lift my eyes to Onyx’s, but he’s no longer looking at me. His gaze is trained on the open door behind me, staring off into the distance.

“What was tha—” I start, my voice barely audible, but Onyx shoves his hand over my mouth, silencing me.

With one hand pressed against my lips, he wraps his other hand around the back of my neck, bringing my body closer to his as his face drops down to my ears. “Don’t make a fucking sound. Make yourself invisible and wait until I get back.” His tone is low and harsh.

I swallow hard, not liking the way that Onyx has shifted. It’s as if he thinks that I’m not capable of taking care of myself, but we both know that isn’t true. I’m Selene fucking Hayes. Onyx knows how I was raised; he knows that I don’t need him. But he also knows there isn’t anyone out there like us, with the connection that we have.

Onyx and I were designed for each other, and the last thing he’d ever let happen would be something coming between us—something that would tear us apart from each other.

He feels as though it’s his duty to keep me safe, to keep me alive. What he doesn’t realize is that we keep each other alive. It’s a mutual feeling, and if he thinks that I’m going to just stand by and let him handle shit like the fucking alpha here, he has another thing coming for him.

I nod and Onyx pulls his hand away from my mouth, taking a step away from me. He brushes past me, his feet quiet, but his stride long and purposeful. I watch him as he slips out of the room and let out the breath I’ve been holding. A few moments pass and I wait, listening as he gets further away.

This asylum is too big for him to cover all the ground before whoever else is here disappears into the night. It’s like a fucking maze, and even though we know the layout like the backs of our hands, there are many places for someone to just slip away without another warning.

Adrenaline courses through my body, my senses heightened as I head out into the abandoned hallway. It sounded like Onyx went to the right, heading toward the main corridor. My eyes strain against the darkness as I search for him, but when I don’t see or hear him, I head in the opposite direction.

I do a sweep of the entire left wing of the asylum and find nothing. It leaves a restless, unsettling feeling in my bones as I head back to the room where there are now two bodies. As I round the corner, I stop short when I find Onyx standing in the middle of the hallway. He slowly brings his arms up, crossing them over his chest.

“I told you to stay in the fucking room,” he growls as he looms in the shadows.

Rolling my eyes, I walk over to him, grabbing his arm as I walk past. “Don’t act like I’m your submissive, Onyx. Plus, there’s no way that you would have been able to cover the entire building yourself and find someone.”

Onyx grunts in response, reluctantly turning with me. His footsteps are heavy as he pulls his arm from my grasp. It’s unexpected when he slips his hand into mine, his palm warming the sticky, viscous liquid that coats my hand. Instead of pulling me along with him, he falls in step and walks beside me.

“So, did you find anyone?” he asks, his voice low as we step back into the crimson-colored room.

I stop, shaking my head as I look up at him. “I’m guessing you didn’t either?”

“No.” He pauses, his eyes scanning the room for anything out of place, but the bodies are right where we left them. “It didn’t look like there was anyone here.”

“Maybe it was just the wind?” I suggest, shrugging. “Or a rat or something? I think if someone were here and left in a panic, we would have found something.”

Onyx's jaw tightens as his blue eyes burn holes through mine. “Maybe,” he muses, entertaining my idea, but his expression gives more than his words. He thinks that there was someone out there and they got away.

“Let’s get rid of the bodies before our luck runs out and the cops show up.”

Stepping closer to him, I reach out, my hand resting along the side of his neck. “There was no one here, Onyx. We’re careful, so we have nothing to worry about. We’re untouchable, remember?”

“Just like your father was too, right?”

My jaw ticks and I narrow my eyes as I slide my hand around the front of his throat, tightening my grip. “What are you getting at?”

Onyx tilts his head to the side as he wraps his hand around my wrist, pulling it away from his neck. “We’re only untouchable until we’re not.”

His words don’t bring me any comfort as they creep into the darkest corners of my mind. My father taught me his ways of how to kill and get away with it. He fucked up when my brother literally ratted him out.

Unlike most barns, ours had a basement. My father kept his victims down there, until they met their untimely death. They were all predators, like him, but he was always at the top of the food chain. Their bodies were always disposed of in the woods, where he had a large burn pile. No one had ever suspected it, especially with our two hundred acres of land that we lived on.

One night, my brother followed my father into the basement of the barn. We still don’t know how he actually got down there because my father was always diligent about keeping the doors locked to make sure that no one would find him and his extracurricular activities.

My brother watched him take another man’s life that night. I should have been there. I should have taken care of him right then and there to protect my father and his legacy. Instead, I was locked away in my room. I pulled a knife on some asshole at school and was grounded. My father was pissed about my stupidity and how I could have gotten in a lot more trouble than that.

Either way, I wasn’t there. My brother saw what he did and like a coward, he ran and called the fucking cops. He didn’t even bother to tell our mother, who honestly probably would have had the same reaction. They weren’t like my father and me. They would never understand it.

The cops showed up before my father had the chance to get the body into the woods. They scoured our entire property and ripped apart our fucking house. Of course, they found his workshop underneath the barn, along with the ashes in the woods, which they were able to test for DNA. And they found his trophies.

With every victim, my father removed the pinky finger from their left hand. After removing the flesh and bleaching the bone, he kept the middle bone from their fingers. The cops found the small tin that he kept them in, which helped them to identify his victims and sentence him to death.

I never went to see him. It was always part of our agreement. If I were to get caught, he would take the fall if he could, or I would plead insanity. If he was ever locked up, I was never to see him again. After his arrest, our family lived under constant scrutiny. We were looked at like we were fucking specimens.

The last thing I needed was to be tied to him in that way—by the invisible thread that connects us, that made us the same.

Even though my father had his trophies—a compulsion he couldn’t fight against—he encouraged me not to follow in his footsteps, but I couldn’t help myself. Instead of keeping something that had physical evidence that could help identify them, I always kept it simple.

I drop down to my knees by Ian’s dead body and push his head forward as I reach for the back of his shirt. My hand slides along his clammy skin until I feel the tag on his shirt. I pull it out, grabbing my knife with my other hand as I cut it off.

Sliding the material between my fingertips, I glance up at Onyx as he watches me. I usually keep the tags from their shirts or another article of clothing. If I can’t find a tag, I cut off a small piece of their clothing. Onyx finds it peculiar, but at least it’s not as easy to identify as a fucking body part.

“Why don’t you ever take anything of theirs?” I ask him, the thought randomly floating in my mind. I always found it strange, that he didn’t have the same compulsion that I had.

“Because I already take everything that they can give me.” He tilts his head to the side. “I take their lives.” Onyx pauses, pulling up his sleeve, revealing the one tattoo that I’ve always questioned. “I add another line as a reminder.”

Along the inside of his forearm are small black lines. They resemble a count of some sort, but he would never indulge in my curiosity until now. I never knew what they represented, and when I watched him carve the lines with black ink and a needle into his skin before, I thought it was just something he did to feel something… anything.

I was wrong.

Those are his trophies.