Total pages in book: 131
Estimated words: 121389 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 607(@200wpm)___ 486(@250wpm)___ 405(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 121389 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 607(@200wpm)___ 486(@250wpm)___ 405(@300wpm)
She froze. “No, God, no.” A shuddering exhale. “I just … I’m overwhelmed.” A haunted look. “I think I know who you’re meant to be for me, and I’m not ready. Not now, not when I’m already so lost and confused and screwed up.”
Leaning in, she brushed her lips over his in a jolt of pure adrenaline. “But overwhelmed or not, I’ll never run from this, from us. I’ll be back tomorrow night, and I’ll tell you about me. Promise.”
Ivan nodded. “I’ll be here.”
And he was. But Lei never came.
He waited until long after dark, through the hours of the night, all the way to daybreak, unwavering in his belief that she wasn’t a woman who broke her promises. He even came back the next night.
It took until the third dawn for him to accept that she’d decided against him after she’d had time to think about what he’d told her—about the blood that stained his hands, the lives he’d taken … and the evil that lived in his brain.
She had every right to make that decision.
He still searched for her. And only then realized how little he knew about her. He didn’t know her animal or the name of her friend, or even the city in which she made her home.
As he packed up his gear on the afternoon of the third day, having finished the first block of the course with an ease fueled by loss, he found himself staring at the little cat she’d given him.
Silly and pretty and a physical symbol of memory.
He told himself to leave it behind, that he didn’t need a reminder of rejection, yet still he wrapped it carefully in an old and soft T-shirt, then wrapped it again in his spare sweater before tucking it neatly in the center of his clothing.
A memory of her fingers against his cheek, the shine in her eyes as she’d said, It’s too late. You’re inside me already.
It had felt so real, so authentic, as had the kiss that had altered the foundations of his life. He’d never forget her, would never stop searching for her, this he knew. If only to ask why she hadn’t just told him she was walking away.
“Because you’re a killer, Ivan,” he said to himself. “She’s afraid of you.” And she was right to be afraid—because he was a killer. But he would never have hurt her. Never. He would’ve done everything in his power to protect her.
Walking out of the cabin, he put the bag in the back passenger-seat footwell of the rugged SUV he’d hired for this trip, then went back and locked up the cabin, after which he dropped the key in the lockbox secured to the outside. As the metal clanged on metal, he felt the same hollowness within himself. Foolish, it had been foolish to dare to believe he could hold a creature so lovely and bright in his blood-soaked hands.
The sound of her laughter, the feel of her lips, it haunted him as he drove through the sugary coating of snow that had fallen over the past couple of days. Snow was rare in this region, but it did happen—and the weather had turned bitter the past few days, as if his mood had thrown itself on the world.
Every flash of color was a surge of pain, every woman he glimpsed a torrent of hope. It was stupid. He was a Mercant. He knew exactly how easily a person could disappear if they wanted to disappear. Especially when they had a whole life into which to vanish. A life about which he knew nothing.
He’d done a search on her eyes after all, had come up with multiple options.
The reasoned part of him knew not to follow any of those trails. She’d made her choice. He needed to respect that or he risked becoming like some of the people he hunted, those for whom choice was a privilege they withheld from their prey.
Yet his obsessive need for her was a roar in the back of his brain.
Find her, it said. Keep her.
Neck muscles tight, he clenched his fingers on the steering wheel. “No,” he said aloud. “I will not take that which isn’t freely given.” He hadn’t needed anyone to teach him that lesson—he’d learned it as a child on the streets, had witnessed how it broke a person to have no choice but to submit.
His mother had been a slave to the drug. Others had taken advantage of that need while he watched, unable to do anything. Too small to save her. Too small to even understand what was happening.
Never would he put another woman in the same position.
He drove on, away from a broken promise that had shattered his stone-cold heart … and right into a field of death. It was late afternoon of the following day when he came upon the carnage. He could’ve driven on, had no duty to be there, but this wasn’t about duty.