Ghost (The Halloween Boys #1) (22)
I didn’t like using him to sedate her. But she was safe with me, with us, even if she didn’t know it yet. Wolf scooped her sleeping body into his arms and shouldered her purse. “Looks good on you,” Onyx jeered, crossing his arms and cocking his head at me. “Well? What now, boss?”
With Judas absent, I was the boss, and Judas was rarely here. If something involved talking, you could count him out. As much as I wanted to take her to the attic, it wasn’t the wisest choice since I’d be leaving her alone. If she woke up in a strange place all alone, it could bring on another panic attack. I also didn’t trust myself around her. She was hard enough to resist with the boys within arm’s reach. If she were in my bed . . . I may chain her there and never let her leave. The thought sent a lightning bolt to my dick and I hardened instantly. Onyx’s property was in the middle of nowhere and took forever to drive to. She’d wake up in the car and think she’d been abducted. She was being abducted, but she didn’t need to be afraid. “Wolf?” I questioned.
His eyes roamed her slowly, his grip tightening ever so slightly. Not sure how I felt about that. Or the sudden interest Onyx seemed to take in her, either. But those were thoughts to sort through at another time. “I’ll take her. She’ll be safe with the pack.”
I had no doubt that she would be. Looking to Onyx, I could hardly contain my rage. “Let’s go kill a motherfucker.”
His answering smile was pure evil, revealing a glint of those legendary fangs. “You know I’m dying to get my hands on this prick. But damn, humans die so quickly, and then you’re the only one who gets to have fun.”
He wasn’t wrong.
“Speaking of human . . .” I jerked out the letter. “. . . look at this.” Wolf raised an eyebrow and pressed in next to Onyx. They recoiled at the same moment, as if slapped. “My reaction exactly.”
“What the actual fuck?” Wolf rumbled, his voice turning straight carnivore. “How is this possible?”
“Devil was right, apparently. He’s either like us or he has help from someone like us. No one else could read this shit. No one else could see it.”
Onyx crumpled the paper and shoved it in his pocket. “She gets a letter everywhere she goes? Where are the others?”
“Her apartment is a shoebox. Shouldn’t be hard to find if she’s kept them. But I don’t care about that now. We can read them as we toss them atop his burning corpse.”
Onyx hummed. “Damn, now you’re speaking my language.”
Fucking pyro.
I helped lay Blythe gently in the back of Wolf’s Corvette, her hair soft as velvet, her dark-painted lips like a blackberry in a jar of milk. I wanted to bite them, and then I wanted to fuck her, hard. I wanted to fuck every ounce of fear out of her. I wanted to fuck her brave. Because she could be brave now because she had me, and I’d kill anyone trying to hurt her. She’d been through enough, she’d run long enough, and it was time to stay. But also? What in the ever-loving fuck was I thinking? I couldn’t get involved with her. I couldn’t live a normal life. What would she think if she knew the truth? She’d be more afraid than ever. I wouldn’t blame her. But as much as I loved the taste of her fresh fear on my tongue, to think of the source of that fear being me . . . It wasn’t something I thought I could put her through. To open someone’s eyes to the terror of our existence . . .
Blythe was running from a criminal, and possibly more. I couldn’t allow her to fall into the arms of something worse than either of them. She was a little white mouse hiding from an owl in a snake hole. And I was a whole pit of vipers. No, for once in my cursed life, I was going to do the virtuous thing and not touch her. I’d kill the asshole and send her on her way to wherever she pleased. To meet a nice guy who could give her the white picket fence life. Not the graveyard and haunted house I had to offer. This was just another obsession. I was prone to fixation which was where my proclivity for stalking originated. Blythe was prey. It was natural to want to chase prey. But I wouldn’t let myself destroy her life further. She needed freedom, a white knight, not me. Not Hell’s reject.
“Where to?” Onyx asked, cracking his knuckles once Wolf peeled out in the direction of his community. “This town’s so fucking nosy, surely someone’s seen the bastard.”
“Something tells me he’s thought of that. We need to think one step ahead and not fuck around.” I kicked at the tire of my Mustang in annoyance. I really needed to kill someone. And fuck someone. In whichever order. “You know what really pisses me off?” I shook my head. “I slept in my car outside her place last night. I was there, all night, and I didn’t sense the motherfucker. I can’t sense her. This letter didn’t come by post. It was hand-delivered. He was right outside and he’s just fucking with her. If I had been thinking with something other than my cock, I could have ended him then and there.”
Onyx’s brows rose. “Interesting. Now I want to go feel around her place, see if I pick up on any imprints left behind.” He paused, shoving his hands in his pockets and looking in the direction of Wolf’s place. “So . . . you’re into her, then?”
Anger rose in my chest at the question. The last thing I needed was the boys sniffing around her like she was a piece of meat. I shot him a warning glare. “It doesn’t matter. Stay away from her.”