I move outside, stumbling into the night as my body tears itself apart from the inside out.
I watch as it happens. One by one, the streetlights sputter and die. A wave of blackness rolls through Tar City, block by block, until the entire city is plunged into a sudden, absolute darkness. The only light left in the entire place is the furious, crimson glow of my eyes, burning like twin embers in the endless dark.
Good.A cold, vicious calm settles over me.Now we’re playing on my field.
Seventy-Two
THEN | SISK
“What if someone walks by?” I ask, a shiver racing down my spine that’s half terror and half something hotter due to the way he’s cornered me.
“Only two options,” he growls, slamming me back against the alley wall. “I invite them to join us, or they watch because I’m not stopping.”
“Would you?” I breathe, the words trembling out of me.
“What?” His hands are a vice, tearing at the denim of my jeans, dragging it down with an urgency that leaves my skin burning.
“Let someone else… touch me while you…?”
He stops and stares at me, his glowing red eyes wide with a sudden, terrifying stillness.
“Is that something you want? Or are you just provoking me?”
“It’s probably just the drugs,” I whisper, feeling small and exposed.
“The idea of you… belonging to someone else… knowing you are not mine to keep. It makes me so fucking angry I can’t see straight. It makes me want to rip this whole city apart.”
He grabs my face, fingers digging hard. As he speaks, a sickening groan echoes through the alley. The old steel light polebeside us buckles, the metal warping and twisting like it’s been caught in an invisible fist, the bulb shattering with a loud pop that plunges us into deeper shadows.
“So no, I wouldn’t allow another fucking hand to touch you while I fuck you, Sisk. That line is drawn.” He kisses me quickly then pulls back, giving my cheek a sharp, stinging slap that leaves my head spinning. I don’t even get a chance to gasp, he’s kissing me again, softer this time, but no less possessive. A confusing storm of anger and ownership. “Don’t fucking play with me tonight, okay? Do you see the fucking full moon?”
He forces my head up, my neck straining.
“Yeah?”
“It makes it harder to control, the… monster, okay? Be good tonight,” his voice is a rough warning.
“Why don’t you keep me?” I ask, my head spinning from the slap and the impossible sight of the bent metal. “Is it because I’m too broken for you?”
“Broken? Rabbit, you’re the only thing in this city that isn’t.” His grip in my hair tightens, yanking my head back so he can look me in the eyes. “There’s nothing I want more in this world, and that is exactly why I can’t. You’d end up paying for this curse.”
My hand slides up his chest, under his shirt. My fingers catch on something raised and uneven. “What’s this?” I ask, pushing his shirt aside to get a better look.
It’s not a tattoo.The lines are too dark, too alive, a swirling, pulsating black pattern that seems to shift and writhe in the dim streetlight. It looks like veins of ink pumping under his skin.
“This isn’t a tattoo, is it?” I ask, tracing the edge.
He doesn’t answer.
I lean down and press my lips to the mark, right over his ribs. His whole body shudders violently, and the streetlights across on the entire block flicker and die.
“Do it again,” he commands, his voice strained, rough with a power I’ve never felt before.
“What if I say no?” I tease, my heart hammering.
“I’m not asking.”
“Make me.”
