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Penelope blinks. “You don’t even care about that!”
“Of course I care.” I slide down to sit beside her on the rock, my arm wrapped around her shoulders. I nuzzle her neck with my nose, breathing in her scent. “You care about it, about all the evil he’s done in this world. So I care about it, too.”
She pulls away, enough to stare down at me. I can feel what she’s doing: the straining, the concentrating. She’s trying to read me.
I mean it, I think, trying to make my emotions as big and loud as I can.
Penelope gasps and jerks back. Her heart’s racing, so loud it drowns out the rest of the sounds of the forest.
“Do this with me,” I say, drawing her in close again. “You haven’t killed anyone before, have you?”
“My sister,” she says. “In the First Death.”
“That doesn’t count.” I kiss her, slow and sweet. “Let me take you on your first kill, Penelope.” I smile against her lips. “Let me take your virginity.”
She scoffs, but I feel it, too, the way her whole body lights up.
Especially when I said her name. She likes that.
“This one thing,” I whisper. “We do it together. And then we leave together. Go anywhere in the world.”
Penelope curls her fingers around my coat’s hem, her breath warm and sweet on my face.
“Please,” I whisper. “I want to be with you, Penelope. I killed Marys because I thought that would fill the emptiness in me, but it never worked. You do.” I gather her hair up in my hand, press my mouth to hers. “Please,” I whisper between kisses. “Please. Break me out of the prison of this fucking mountain, Penelope. You’re the only one who can do it.”
Her response is a kiss, furious with heat, strong enough to nearly knock me sideways. My cock stirs, ready to be buried in her sweet cunt again. And it will be. But not until she gives me an answer.
“Tell me,” I growl, dragging her back up to sitting. “Tell me I’m right. Tell me you’ll do this with me.” I drag our foreheads together, my hands tugging hard on her hair. “I know you’ve felt the gods, too. Let me show you what you are.”
Her eyes are glassy as she stares up at me, and I can sense it all simmering beneath her surface: her lust, her exhilaration, her need.
“You’re right,” she whispers. “Fuck you, but you’re right.”
28
PENELOPE
Victor finds an empty house not far from where he intercepted me in the woods, one of those sprawling second-home cabins that’s bigger than any house I’ve lived in full time.
“We’ll get everything ready here,” he tells me as we stand in the driveway, the house rising in front of us, as dark as the surrounding woods. We spent the last fifteen minutes hiking from where he parked his car off the road, hidden behind a wall of trees. After all, we can’t just leave his vehicle parked in front of the house we’re breaking and entering into so we can plan a murder.
The thought sends a frisson of excitement worming down my spine. Excitement, or fear, or both. I can’t tell the difference anymore.
“And you know the owners won’t be coming back because—?” I look over at him pointedly. Part of me thinks I should use his answer, whatever it is, as an excuse to back out of this.
Except… I don’t really want to.
“They’ll be coming back eventually,” he says with a distressingly charming smile. “Probably in December for skiing. If they were here for Wolrath’s party, they’d be here already.”
I scowl at him. “You don’t know all that.”
“It’s a fair guess, given how much their scents have faded.” He shrugs. “Wait here. I’m going to check for security cameras.”
I sigh, but I don’t argue with him as he slips up to the front door. He moves with practiced ease, and for all his talk about being trapped on the mountain, he seems to know exactly what he’s looking for. He darts around the side of the house, disappearing into the shadows, and I just stand there out in the open, feeling exposed. My leggings and underwear are both split between my legs, exposing my pussy to the cold; my sweater is still damp from lying on the leaves. My body aches.
But I feel good. Better than I have in ages, honestly.
You aren’t human.
