Page 3 of Your Devoted Monster

Three years, two months, and sixteen days since Ezra Monroe had ruined Gabriel's life by saving his own.

Gabriel had killed five men before Ezra.

Each one had been a masterpiece of planning and execution, bodies arranged like classical paintings, death elevated to art.

He'd thought himself above base desires—sex was messy, unpredictable, full of disappointment and fluids and the grotesque sounds people made when they lost control.

Death was cleaner. More pure. A transformation from chaos into stillness, from motion into something perfected.

Then Ezra had grabbed his knife and shoved it between his ribs, and Gabriel had come in his pants like a fucking teenager.

The humiliation of it should have made him angry. Should have made him hunt Ezra down that same night and finish what he'd started. Instead, standing here now with Ezra's back pressed to his chest, his hand around that perfect throat, Gabriel felt something far more dangerous than anger.

He felt alive.

For the first time since his first kill, Gabriel's heart was racing not from adrenaline but from something else. Something he didn't have a name for. Something that made his carefully constructed control feel paper-thin.

"This time," he murmured directly into Ezra's ear, feeling the full-body shiver that ran through him, "you're going to beg for it."

Ezra made a sound that might have been a laugh if it wasn't so broken. "You think pretty highly of yourself."

The defiance sent a spike of heat through Gabriel's chest. Still fighting. After everything, still fighting. Perfect.

Gabriel tightened his grip just slightly, feeling Ezra's pulse rabbit-fast against his palm.

His other arm wrapped around Ezra's waist, keeping him trapped, back to chest, no escape.

This close, he could smell everything—cheap soap from Ezra's apartment (the same brand for three years, Gabriel had memorized it), the lingering scent of tonight's disappointment (cologne and desperation), and underneath it all, that specific cocktail of fear and arousal that Gabriel knew he could pick out in a crowded room.

Ezra's scent. The one Gabriel had cataloged obsessively, the one he dreamed of, the one that had made every other potential victim irrelevant for three years.

It has been worth the wait. Three years ago, Ezra had fought like he wanted to live. Now he'd walked to his killer. The difference thrilled Gabriel more than any successful hunt ever had.

"You're different now," Gabriel murmured into his ear, unable to stop himself from pressing closer. "Better."

"Better at what?" Ezra's voice was breathless, bitter. "Being fucked up? Broken?"

The self-loathing in those words made Gabriel's chest tight. Everyone else tried to fix Ezra, to medicate him, to convince him his damage was something to heal. But Gabriel saw the truth—the damage was what made him perfect.

"At being honest," Gabriel corrected, his hand tightening slightly on Ezra's throat. "Everyone else wants you to pretend you're healing. I want you exactly as you are."

"And what's that?" The words came out strangled, challenging even now. "A fucking mess who gets hard thinking about dying?"

"Mine," Gabriel said simply, and felt the word settle in his chest like truth.

He'd watched it happen—every disappointing hookup, every failed attempt to recreate that night.

Had stood in Ezra's closet while some random meathead fumbled through the world's most pathetic attempts at domination.

Had lain under Ezra's bed last month while a tattooed tryhard grunted away on top of him, and Gabriel had wanted to reach up through the mattress and snap the man's neck just for being so inadequate.

He’d nearly broken cover a dozen times when Ezra's hookups failed to give him what he so obviously needed.

But patience was Gabriel's greatest skill. Patience and observation. He'd learned everything about Ezra in those three years. What he needed. What he craved. What no one else could give him.

Gabriel ran his thumb over Ezra's pulse point, feeling it hammer. "Every man you brought home. Every dangerous stranger. You were looking for me."

Ezra's whole body tensed in defiance. "Maybe I just have a death wish."

"No." Gabriel pressed closer, caging him in completely, letting Ezra feel exactly how hard he was. "You don't want endings. You want the moment right before. The edge. The almost."

He punctuated each word with increasing pressure on Ezra's throat, watching the side of Ezra's face—the way it flushed, lips parting, hips twitching back against Gabriel involuntarily. Everything about him was alive in ways those other men could never appreciate.

Because other men would never see the other possibility. They’d never appreciate how bright Ezra shone, because they’d never think about snuffing that light out. Pleasure and death, inextricably linked.

Gabriel's control slipped slightly, his grip tightening more than he'd intended.

Ezra's breath hitched, turning to a wheeze, and Gabriel felt that familiar rush—the power of holding a life in his hands.

But this time it was different. This time he didn't want the stillness that came after.

He wanted this—the gasping, the fighting, the living.

He forced himself to ease up slightly. Not yet. Not when there was so much more to explore.

"You know what I wanted to do every time I watched you with them?" Gabriel asked, keeping his voice conversational even as his hand stayed wrapped around Ezra's throat.

Gabriel pulled Ezra harder against him, forcing his head back against Gabriel's shoulder. From this angle he could see Ezra's throat working, trying to swallow, could feel the desperate rise and fall of his chest.

"I wanted to kill them." The admission came out rougher than Gabriel intended. "Not artfully. Just ended. Throats slit, erased, forgotten." His hand tightened with each word, feeling Ezra's pulse hammer against his palm like a trapped bird. "They didn't deserve to touch you."

The possessiveness in his own voice startled him. Gabriel didn't get possessive. Gabriel collected, arranged, moved on.

But Ezra wasn't a collection piece. Ezra was—

He released Ezra's throat suddenly, and Ezra gasped, sucking in air in great heaving gulps.

Gabriel kept him pressed back against his chest deliberately, refusing to let him turn around.

Not yet. He wasn't ready to look Ezra in the face.

Like staring directly into the sun. Gabriel had waited three years; he could pace himself, build to that moment of full contact.

Besides, having Ezra unable to see him, unable to predict what was coming, only able to feel… That had its own appeal.

"But more than that," Gabriel said directly into Ezra's ear, letting his lips brush the shell of it, "I wanted you to see what you were missing. Someone who understands what you need."

"Fuck," Ezra breathed, and his hands came up to clutch at Gabriel's wrists. Not to pull him away. To anchor himself there.

The gesture made something in Gabriel's chest constrict. “And you know it too, don’t you?”

“I know that you’re obsessed with me.” Ezra's fear was transforming into something else, something reckless and beautiful.

That defiance Gabriel craved. “You've been stalking me for months, watching me through windows, hiding under my bed like the fucking boogeyman?

You want me so bad it made you desperate.

So prove it. Prove you're better than all of them. "

The challenge in his voice made Gabriel's control slip—just for a second, just enough.

Made him grab a fistful of Ezra's hair and yank his head back hard, exposing the long line of his throat.

Made him slam Ezra forward against the wall, keeping that brutal grip, forcing Ezra to arch back at an angle that had to hurt.

The size difference was obvious like this—Gabriel looming over him, Ezra bent back and pinned, completely at his mercy.

Ezra could talk all the shit he wanted, but his body told the truth.

That racing pulse, the quick shallow breaths, the way his hands came up instinctively to grab at Gabriel's wrist but didn't pull away.

"Careful," Gabriel warned, his voice rough. He could feel Ezra's heartbeat under his hand where it pressed against his throat. "You have no idea what I'm capable of."

"Sure I do." Ezra was grinning now, defiant and reckless, looking exactly like he had three years ago when he'd driven that knife home.

Lit up. Alive. Matching Gabriel's energy.

"You're capable of watching. Of wanting.

Of waiting. But doing? That's different, isn't it?

It's been three years and you haven't touched anyone. Not once."

Gabriel went still. Perfectly, dangerously still.

Because Ezra was right.

Three years of watching Ezra through windows. Three years of standing in closets and lying under beds while other men touched what was his. Three years of opportunities—he could have killed dozens, more. Could have continued his work, his art.

But he hadn't. Hadn't been able to. Because after Ezra, after that one perfect moment of pain and arousal and connection, everything else felt hollow.

Every potential victim he'd stalked had felt like a pale imitation.

So he'd stopped hunting. Stopped killing.

Stopped everything except watching Ezra.

He'd told himself it was focus. Dedication to the craft. Patience.

But standing here now with Ezra warm and defiant in his arms, Gabriel could admit the truth.

He'd been afraid. Afraid that touching anyone—killing anyone, fucking anyone, anything—would be disappointing after that one perfect moment when Ezra had stabbed him and rewired his entire understanding of pleasure.

"The question is," Ezra continued, pressing his advantage like the survivor he was, "can you handle someone who's awake for it? Someone who might fight back? Or do you need me unconscious to perform?"

The implication—that Gabriel couldn't, that he was afraid, that three years of obsessive watching meant he was incapable of doing—made something snap in his chest. Made the careful control he'd been maintaining for three years crack and splinter.

"Ezra," he said softly, the voice he used right before he killed. "You're going to regret that."

Gabriel's hand stayed on Ezra's throat. A collar. A promise. A claim.

With his other hand, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a knife.

Not just any knife—the knife.

The one Ezra had stabbed him with three years ago.

Ezra's eyes went wide when he saw it, pupils dilating until the black nearly swallowed the brown. Recognition and arousal and fear all tangled together in an expression Gabriel wanted to photograph, to paint, to preserve forever.

"Remember this?" Gabriel asked, pressing down on Ezra's throat to keep him still. "You were the last one to use it. Your blood and mine, mixed on the blade."

He'd never cleaned it. Had kept that dried mixture of their blood like a relic. Like proof that this thing between them was real.

He brought the knife to Ezra's collar, slipped it under the fabric of his shirt.

The sound of tearing cloth filled the warehouse as Gabriel cut downward in one smooth motion, splitting the shirt open from neck to hem.

The blade was sharp enough—Gabriel kept it that way, obsessively—that it barely grazed skin, just enough for Ezra to feel the cold metal, the threat, the memory.

Gabriel could feel Ezra's pulse hammering where his hand rested on his throat. Could see goosebumps rise on newly exposed skin. Could hear the sharp intake of breath when the blade's edge kissed his stomach.

Perfect. Every reaction was perfect.

Gabriel cut the sleeves next, methodical, taking his time. Then the knife moved lower, to Ezra's jeans. The tip traced along the waistband, making Ezra's stomach muscles jump, making him suck in a breath that Gabriel felt against his palm.

"Don't move," Gabriel warned, and sliced through denim like butter—down one leg, then the other.

He pulled the destroyed jeans away, then did the same to Ezra's boxers, leaving him completely exposed.

The whole time, Ezra's eyes stayed locked on the knife, breathing shallow, cock hardening despite—or because of—the danger.

Getting hard from a knife at his throat. From the memory of violence. From Gabriel's hands on him.

"There," Gabriel said, putting the knife aside carefully. Still within view. Within reach. A promise for later. "Now we can begin."