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While it didn’t work in that regard, it did throw me off my equilibrium, and it takes me a second too long to catch up before he’s darting behind another tree.
I launch the arrow just as he disappears, a startled shout piercing my ears. I don’t stop to see if I’ve hit him. Immediately, I grab an arrow from the quiver on my back and begin to reload. Heart racing, I keep my hands steady as he takes off again.
Don’t rush, Addie. Keep steady.
The second my crossbow is reloaded, I rush after him, finding a blood trail dotted in his footprints.
Desperation clouds his judgment, and he limps out from one tree toward another with a massive trunk, his leg dragging. My arrow is jutting out from his calf, blood bubbling from the wound as he runs. Taking aim once more, I breathe in deep and then release, pressing the trigger as I do.
The arrow slices through the warm, summer air and lodges in the center of his back. A piercing yelp, and he’s falling flat on his face.
My blood heats and my heart sings from his agonized groans. Nails digging into the dirt ground, he drags himself forward, attempting to escape… to where? There’s nowhere for him to go except to Hell.
“Somebody help!” he shouts from the top of his lungs, his voice breaking at the end.
“Goddamn, that’s embarrassing,” I say, approaching him. I kick his injured leg when I near, grinning when he curses at me, blood tainting his spit.
Crouching beside him, I cock my head, taking in his pitiful state. His blond hair is soaked with sweat, the beads of perspiration trailing down his red face. And those bright baby blue eyes—the very ones that watched me cry and bleed beneath him—are so full of rage and pain, they’re nearly black.
“Silly rabbit, I told you that you couldn’t escape me.”
I hear leaves crunching in the distance along with what sounds like someone cursing and struggling, slowly getting closer as Xavier spits more curses at me that would send my mother to an early grave. The insults roll off my back, despite how hard he tries to hurt me. He’s already done his worst when I was the one helpless and powerless.
Now, he’s nothing.
A deep growl sounds from behind me, drawing my attention away. Zade approaches us, dragging a spitting mad Rocco by his collar, splattered with blood from head to toe. With his black hood drawn, chin tipped low, and his yin-yang eyes locked on me, I lose all cognitive function.
A dark god that embodies destruction and death, yet I’ve never felt more in love.
Rocco is no small man, yet Zade drags him as if he weighs absolutely nothing. He drops him on the ground, earning a few nasty words, which he dutifully ignores.
“Can he run?”
“Arrow in the spine,” he clips.
My mouth dries as he nears, incapable of doing anything else but watching him bend down, seize me by the throat and crush his mouth into mine.
Milliseconds.
That’s how insignificant of a moment it takes for me to respond. He pries my lips apart with his tongue, tasting me thoroughly and drawing an embarrassing moan from my throat.
He rips himself away, only to fist my hair and yank my head back until I have no choice but to look him in the eye.
“A good man would be sorry that he corrupted something so pure.”
“You’ve never been a good man,” I whisper, reiterating the exact words he’s told me so many times before.
“No,” he agrees. “But I have always been yours.”
Swallowing, I open my mouth to reply but Zade’s hand is releasing my neck and snapping to the side before I can blink. Gasping, I turn to find Zade holding the tip of an arrow inches from my face, blood leaking down his arm.
Xavier struggles to push the arrow further toward me to no avail. My mouth opens with shock, slow to process what the hell just happened.
While I was distracted, Xavier had ripped the arrow out of his calf and attempted to stab me with it. Zade saw it coming, despite that his gaze never left mine.
“Jesus, fuck,” I breathe. “So uncool, dude.”
If Xavier would’ve killed me before I killed him, I would gladly accept death. And if Zade tried to resuscitate me, I’d put my foot down and refuse to come back. How could I look myself in the eye after that epic of a failure?
