shoulders against the piled pillows until heâd made a comfortable hollow.
E crossed his ankles and picked up his bloodstained book of poetry, Inside the Monsterâs Heart and Other Poems by Juan Alejandro Navarro, and resumed reading. He read the same stanzas over and over without taking anything in. After a few more minutes of staring at the page without turning it, E slammed the book shut and tossed it onto the bed.
He needed sleep, but couldnât. He was too wired. He burned to create. He kept hearing her voice, begging him to keep reading to her, and he had. In a gentle voice.
â¦frost-scorched and time-withered, this heart
its black edges curling in
like a dead spiderâs legsâ¦
A ND STILL SHEâD SOBBED .
E reached into the pocket of his cords and slipped out his latest souvenir. Closing his eyes, he rubbed the silky black stocking against his face. It whispered against the beard stubble on his face. He smelled her, cherries and musky sweat. He opened his eyes and stared into a world tinted black.
Had she begged him to keep reading just to prevent him from reaching into his satchel full of sharp tricks? Or had she truly wanted the sound of his voice, the music of the written word?
Please, no, no, read to me, pleaseâ¦keep reading.
Staring into the black-smudged light, E heard her whispers again; he listened to her voiceâlow and shaky and seductive.
Read to me, pleaseâ¦pleaseâ¦
For a moment, as heâd read to Gina, heâd felt a sudden warmth in his chest. Looking up from the page, heâd seen a golden bond stretching from her heart to his own. The golden bond had shivered and shifted into a pale mist of light spilling between them, pouring like heated honey between Ginaâs lips. When sheâd opened her eyes again, they were golden.
Pleaseâ¦read to meâ¦
Be my godâ¦
Okay, maybe sheâd never said that last part. All the same, heâd seen it in her transformed eyes.
Setting the book aside, unmarked, E kneels beside the bed, and kisses her bare shoulder. She shudders, her breath hitching. And, looking in, he sees a hard, crafty smile beneath the golden light, falsely curving those honeyed lips and dimming the radiance of her gaze.
Ice hardens in his belly, frosts his guts, and quenches the fire raging in his veins.
âName the one you love,â he says, sitting back on his heels to watch her face.
Her eyes flick back and forth, searching his face for clues. He goes still and gives her nothing.
âHeâll come for me,â she finally breathes. âHeâs nightkind.â
E slides a shaking hand into his satchel; cold steel sticks to his icy skin. Wraps his fingers around the shivâs hilt.
âSay his name.â
She sobs. Closes her eyes. Knows, maybe, that he can look in and see her lies. Her betrayal. âHeâll comeââ
âFor you ?â E finishes. âNo, he wonât.â He lifts the shiv out of the satchel; dawn light sparks along the blade. âDante doesnât care about you. Why would he? Youâre just a piece of ass.â
Her eyes fly open at the sound of the name she hadnât spoken. At the same moment, E plunges the knife into her belly.
E rolled over onto his side, Ginaâs stocking locked within his hand, a rosary for meditating upon the mysteries of lying bitches.
Sheâd offered him love with her golden gaze, tempted him with adoration in the shape of her pleas. But heâd been smarter and stronger. Heâd seen the lies squirming beneath her smooth skin. And beneath her black cherry scent, heâd smelled deceit, ripe and rank.
He couldâve given her so much. He couldâve been her god.
Which brought up an interesting pointâbeing a god, why would he need a fucking bloodsucker like Ronin to guide him⦠control him?
Heâd awaken S all by himself.
T HE BULLET EXPLODED FROM the gunâs muzzle, the sharp retort