Page 20 of Bloodween

“Thanks,” I said, reaching for it. As soon as I pressed the side button, the time glared at me: 5:11 a.m.

Six hours and eighteen minutes.

I pulled down my notification bar and saw a text from Master Vale:

CMV

Status?

“Has she called or texted you again?”

“Who?” I asked, blanking as I tried to think of a response. I hadn’t expected her to check in.

“Ren.” The bed dipped as he sat beside me.

I closed out of the message and thumbed through my notifications again. “Last one was a little before two. She just thinks I’m mad at her for taking too long to come back.”

“Guess that’s good,” he muttered. “Mine was right after that.”

“What lie are you going to tell her?”

He ran a hand down his face. “That I got tired of her giving me the silent treatment, so I did the same. Left. Went to an afterparty.”

“And why didn’t you go home?” I asked the question I knew Renna would ask.

“Figured she’d be there, so I stayed the night at my homeboy’s place.”

“You clearly have done this before.” I set my phone back on the table, expecting him to huff at the jab. But this time he didn’t. “How come she doesn’t know about this cabin?” I asked, draping the covers around me.

“I rented it for the night. The original plan was to ‘kidnap’ her when y’all got back from that haunted house thing. But because she was acting like a brat…”

“You ended up with me instead. Lucky you.”

“Can’t say I’m too mad about that now.”

I shook my head. “Renna deserves better.”

He let out a dark laugh. “You’re probably right. Especially because Varek needs someone like you.”

He pulled me onto his lap, and I rolled my eyes—disgusted at how my body still simmered at his touch almost forty-five minutes later. I had no remorse about sleeping with my best friend’s man.

Maybe I was a terrible friend, and that’s why she never told me her secret.

Actually, no. I was a great friend.

I listened to all her problems, gave her advice, showed up when she needed me, catered to her love language. I was the ultimate bestie—right down to this very moment.

I decided to kill her man instead of her. How much more amazing of a friend could I be?

And planning to kill her aside, at least I could say I’d committed to finding out if he was a cheater. It just so happened that, along the way, I started to understand why she’d been so toxic and obsessed with snooping through his things—he was sin wrapped in skin.

I could literally go for another round of him.

Get it together, ‘little witch.’ He is prey, and we are running out of time.

I trailed my fingers down his chest, watching goosebumps rise in their wake. “I want to see him.”

“Who?”