Undead Or Alive (Bad Things #3)(16)

In pain.

“It…hurts…” Her eyes didn’t open. She burrowed closer against him, and he liked that.

But Cass didn’t like the pain he heard in her voice.

Her head rubbed against his chest. “Make it…stop.”

Amber talked in her sleep. Interesting.

“No one will hurt you,” he said, and he found himself stroking her back. Trying to soothe her.

A Reaper, soothing. Ridiculous. Insane.

But his hand slipped over her back, rubbing up and down and gliding near her shoulder— She let out a quick, pain-filled cry. “Make it…stop,” she begged again, her voice barely a breath of sound. “Make it stop…Luke.”

Cass stiffened. Then his fingers stroked her shoulder again. Her left shoulder. And he felt the faint edge of a raised scar beneath her t-shirt.

Anger pulsed inside of him.

His fingers slid straight across her back, moving to her right shoulder. Once more, he could feel the edge of a scar pressing up through the thin t-shirt.

“Luke…” Her breathing hitched. “I’m…sorry…please…”

Cass wanted to see those scars. He wanted to see just what pain had been inflicted on her beautiful body. He wanted to rip the shirt away.

Instead, he held her against him. He kept stroking her.

Soon she stopped whispering in her sleep. She stopped begging.

But the anger in him—it grew into a twisting rage.

Luke had hurt her before? Cass was sure the Lord of the Dark had hurt many, many people. He’d never really thought about the destruction and pain that had been created by Luke Thorne.

Yet…it mattered to him that Amber had been the one to suffer at Luke’s hands.

It mattered a whole f*cking lot.





Chapter Six


Amber’s eyes flew open and she jerked up in bed. The nightmare was fading, trickling away—a warning of the danger coming.

She hadn’t been given a foreshadowing dream in a very, very long time. That meant some very serious shit was coming her way. Dammit. As if her luck wasn’t already crap.

“You talk in your sleep.”

Her jaw dropped as she swung her head toward Cass. Only Cass wasn’t in bed with her. Fully dressed, he stood beside the bed, with his gloved hands on his hips. “You should warn a guy when you’re going to get chatty in bed.”

She closed her jaw—and jumped out of bed. “Not like I had a choice on sleeping with you!” But she had to focus on what mattered. “What…exactly did I say?” Because her head was aching from all the visions she’d had. Visions from her past. Visions from her present.

And, unfortunately, visions that could be from her future.

I have to get out of here. I have to run.

“Take off your shirt.”

She huffed out a breath. “Did we not already talk about your seduction routine and how it needs way more work?”

A muscle flexed in his jaw. “I felt your scars.”

He’d…Her hand lifted and she reached behind her left shoulder. Hell, you could feel the scars through her shirt. “When did you touch me?” She didn’t remember that. They stood right beside each other and she glared up at him.

“I touched you…” And he touched her right then, reaching around to trace the scar beneath her shirt. “When you cried out in your sleep. When you pressed your body to mine and begged Luke to stop hurting you.”

Her breath caught. He had details wrong. But…His voice had roughened. Anger? No, rage was there, bubbling just beneath the surface of Cass’s words. “Let me get this straight…” She peered up at him. “You’re about to hand me over to Luke on a silver platter, but you don’t like the idea of him hurting me?”

His glittering gaze was answer enough for her.

In that case…She immediately spun around and yanked up her shirt. Amber tossed the t-shirt on the bed. “Take a good, long look.” Normally, she hid her scars. They were ugly, twisting, the edges far too rough and tattered. But this wasn’t a normal circumstance. She was fighting for her life. “See what he did to me.”

His gloved hands touched her scars and—she felt a spark. A surge of heat that lanced right over the rough ridge of scars and into her body. A tremble shook her and she whirled toward him. She grabbed the gloves. “What are these made of?”

His face was hard with rage. “What did he do to you?”

She lifted the gloves up to her eyes, staring at them as her heart raced far, far too fast. “They’re magic.”

“They have to be, in order to hold back my power.”

“Very powerful magic,” she added, not caring that she was standing in front of him with her bra exposed.

His gaze dipped to her breasts. Heated. “Very powerful.”

Dammit. “Did Luke give you those gloves?”

His gaze rose to meet hers. “Yes.”

“I hate him.”

Cass frowned. A sharp knock sounded at the door. She immediately tensed. “Leo!” Was that him at the door? He’d found them already?

“No, it’s not him. It’s room service. Or concierge—or some shit like that.” Cass turned from her and headed for the door.

“Wait—you ordered room service?” That seemed so…normal. So not Reaper-like.