The Princess & Her Alphaholes by Renee O’Roark

Chapter Five

Present

Azlan Deth

We drove in quiet for over an hour. Xan was staring out the window at the dark landscape as it passed. I watched her and nothing else. Every once in a while, Issy and Wade would glance back at her. But we weren’t going to force her to talk. Perhaps she just needed time to process.

At one in the morning, we stopped at a truck stop. I took my toiletry bag and headed in to finish cleaning off the rest of the face paint. I also dumped my toiletry bag with its evidence into the trash and filled it with crumpled paper towels. When I was satisfied, I loaded up a basket with junk food and drinks and headed to the cashier.

He was a strange looking man. Short with a gut and frizzy sideburns. Tall. Very tall.

“Howdy, neighbor,” he greeted me when I set the basket on the counter. I made a conscious effort to give him a human smile. It was something I had to practice, admittedly. I wasn’t good at faking it.

“Hello,” I responded.

“Got a bit of the munchies, I see.” He chuckled as he rang up my purchases.

I shook my head. “Nah. My buddies and I are taking a road trip. Less traffic at night so we drive then.” It was a rehearsed line. One Issy had me say until it sounded convincing. I swear, I repeated it like a hundred times.

“That’s smart,” the man said, finishing with the last item. “Fifty-three big ones and twenty-one pennies.”

He was the kind of man Wade’s parents would like. I handed him three twenties and dropped the change into the tip jar. He sent me off with well wishes as I exited the store. The boys had finished refueling when I climbed back in, setting the bag on Xan’s lap. She started taking items out, looking more and more amused as she did.

“Hungry, Az?” she asked. Her eyes were dark when there was no natural light. They glinted with the reflection of the parking lot lights.

I shook my head. “No but we might want a snack before we stop for breakfast. Besides, movies are better with snacks.” I pulled out the tablet from the seat pocket in front of me.

Xan grinned and I swear, it made me feel like a normal man. Not someone fucked up and twisted in some dark, terrifying ways. Smiling back, as if I couldn’t help myself, I handed her the tablet so she could choose a movie. She settled on A Cinderella Story and Swedish Fish as we headed back into the dark of the night.

She made it through a third of the movie before anyone spoke. And she was out, her head resting on my thigh, the tablet propped up on her legs where they bent up against the door. I held her wrist, the one with the metal band around it. I’d given it to her while she was attending university after the incident with her calculous teacher. She’s never taken it off, as far as I know. The thought made me smile fondly at her.

Issy turned around in the passenger seat. He’d changed places with Wade at the truck stop. “She asleep?”

I nodded.

He watched her for some time.

“I hope she doesn’t have nightmares,” Wade murmured.

“Do you have nightmares?” I asked, studying his eyes from the rearview mirror.

He glanced up as if he could meet my gaze in the darkness of the car. Maybe he could see the light from the tablet reflected in my eyes and off my face. “Only the first one.” He paused for a minute. “I always wonder if I took it too far. Maybe I overreacted and he didn’t have to die.”

“He deserved it,” Issy said.

“But did he?” Wade asked. “I think I was just being a bully.”

“Did Berta deserve to die?” I asked, tilting my head.

Wade nodded absolutely.

“Then so did Delany. He was no different.”

And he wasn’t. Second year of high school, Delany narrowed his sights on Wade. Though, unlike Berta, he never laid a hand on Wade. Instead, he attacked through social and academic means. The accusations, the taunts, the constant false reports of cheating and harassment and vandalism, hinting at sexual assault and rape though never coming outright and saying it. And Delany was always there after Wade had been reprimanded, laughing with his cruel, taunting smile.

It had come to a head when one of the accusations had somehow been proven true. Delany had managed to produce some evidence, of which we never saw, that resulted in Wade’s suspension from school for a week and a report in his permanent record.

Wade had been furious. His parents had been beside themselves, insisting that Wade hadn’t cut the chain link fence around the school. But the way they looked at Wade, I could tell that they questioned whether they believed him or not.

The second day of Wade’s suspension, I came home to find him hitting the bag in the basement. His hands were already bloody and by the looks of it, had been for a while. I watched him for some time before I decided to take matters into my own hands. He’d already said he wasn’t going to do anything about it. And his parents agreed. Perhaps if Wade didn’t acknowledge this behavior, then Delany would go away.

I knew better. Delany was a bully, and they don’t just go away.

But neither do I.

I left the house after dinner and headed across town to Delany’s rundown shack at the end of a dead-end road that was lined in trees. For half an hour, I watched it, studying every corner and every sound. Perhaps this was Delany’s issue. He lived in squalor while Wade Parker lived on the well-to-do side of town.

Whatever the reason was, no one messed with my family. That meant Wade and his parents. And, in some strange way, the girl next door and her stepbrother. I was particularly possessive and protective over these people. Every last one of them accepted me without question. They didn’t try to change me or act like I was a pariah. I had one set of foster parents that used to lock me in my room at night, afraid that I’d kill them while they slept. I might have but only because they kept trying to cage me like an animal.

The Parkers were different. From the moment I stepped foot in their house, they treated me like family. A son and brother who’d been missing. Issy was just as accepting. And Xan… for some reason, she put all her trust in me when she really shouldn’t have.

As I contemplated the possible reasons for Delany’s misdirected jealousy or whatever his problem was, my prey walked out of the house, a trash bag in his hands.

I didn’t pause to consider what I was going to do. Nor did I even think that it was possible I was going to get caught. Or what the ramifications of his later accusation might mean. I simply acted.

I stalked up behind him once he’d put the lid back on the trash can and wrapped my hand over his mouth, my second hand snaking around his neck. “You’re not going to make a sound. I’ve been dying to try my hand at killing someone.”

He swallowed but didn’t so much as whimper. I pushed him forward toward the trees at the dead end. We walked for nearly forty minutes before I allowed him to stop.

We had a little conversation. I made sure he understood very clearly where I stood on Wade Parker. He had several marks all over him to remind him. As it turned out, bark burns are hard to give without the bark peeling off or getting stuck like splinters in the skin. It took me several tries to find the right angle and pressure to make them work. As a bonus, in case he didn’t take me seriously, I broke his arm in my attempts.

Delany left Wade alone.

And two years ago, we burned him to death as our first act of retribution. It was commemorated on my right calf. A face within flames poking through a chain link fence that had been cut through.

“He deserved to die then but I wasn’t sure I could cover my tracks,” I said.

Issy sighed. He reached back and took Xan’s hand. “I just don’t want her to be upset. Maybe we shouldn’t have taken her. Maybe we should have dropped her off at her mother’s while we took care of the rest.”

“What if I want to add someone to your list?” Xan’s quiet voice told us we’d been wrong. She hadn’t quite fallen asleep yet.

“Add away,” I told her.

“What do we do when we’re done with all this?” Xan asked.

“Whatever you want,” Issy said. “We have options.”

We did. My biological parents, the ones I killed when I was three by accidentally starting the house on fire while they slept soundly in their beds – it was an accident; they’d left matches by the fireplace and I had figured out how to use them after watching them start a fire every night – had been fairly well off. When I turned eighteen, a decent sum of money was released to me. It wasn’t anything extravagant. We wouldn’t be able to live off it forever. Three quarters of a million dollars. But it was enough to allow us some freedoms for a time.

I’ve thought a lot about my fascination with fire. It probably started then. I had watched the way it consumed everything it touched. I was spellbound as a small child.

Perhaps the death of my parents had been what had broken me. Knowing that I caused it.

“What kind of options?” Xan asked, shifting so she could look at me, her neck stretched back.

I squeezed her wrist. One day, I was going to bite her neck and see what noises she made.

“We can travel. We can settle somewhere. We can move to an island or Europe or Kansas. We can do whatever,” I said.

“Just like that?” she asked.

I smiled. “Just like that. Whatever you want.”

“What about what you want?”

“I have what I want right here.”

She stared at me for a minute before nodding, a soft smile forming on those perfect lips. “Yeah,” she whispered. “This is perfect.”

Wade sighed. I glanced up to the mirror to see he was smiling, too.

Issy reached back, twirling a strand of her hair around his finger.

Perhaps we hadn’t really had the conversation in whole, but it was a start. Exactly the feelers we needed to see where Xan was. And even if we didn’t settle that she wanted us the same we wanted her, we at least knew she wanted to stay with us.

I was going to be pissed if she friend-zoned me, though.

We filled the tank once more before we stopped at a café for breakfast. Xan was in a good mood, having slept some. Issy had also managed to take a short nap while Wade drove. They’d have breakfast and take off again, Issy driving so Wade could take a nap this time.

After breakfast, we ran the car through a car wash and then another in the next town, just to be sure we got all the mud and grass from the car. Any soot or wood chips, anything that could be incriminating. At the hotel tonight, we’d check the trunk for anything Berta might have left behind.

Xan had us playing silly car games while we followed a pre-planned, heading nowhere route. It started with I Spy and morphed into Travel ABCs. Finding something that started with the first letter for each letter in the alphabet. Alphabetically. And the first to claim an object keeps it and everyone else has to find something else.

The boys and I were only slightly enjoying it. What we were enjoying was Xan’s happiness. For months, years, every time we spoke to her, she was upset. Hurt. Frightened.

But right now, she was laughing, smiling. Teasing us. Lifting that burden from her shoulders was worth every death we caused.

We picked up lunch at the next fuel stop, eating in the car as we drove.

“Where are we headed next?” Xan asked as she blew on her mac and cheese. It looked decent, with chunks of ham and onion, topped with toasted panko crumbs.

Me staring at her as she brought the forkful to her mouth must have indicated that I might want a taste. She offered me the next forkful. I couldn’t fight the grin as I leaned in to take the bite. Yeah, it was good. But I’d rather taste her.

She waited until I finished chewing to expect an answer.

“Back home,” I told her. “We’re going to see Grace Everly.”

Xan choked. She coughed, her face turning red. I moved close, anxiously waiting for her to catch her breath. How do you stop someone from choking? I knew how to end a life, not save one!

Her choking must have worried Issy, who was back in the driver seat, because he slowed down as if he were preparing to stop. Wade turned in his seat to look at her.

But she got herself under control, her face still a bright, cherry red. “I shouldn’t have asked while I was eating,” she muttered, her voice still strained as she cleared her throat again. “Isn’t she married or something?”

I shrugged.

“Yes,” Wade answered, turning back around in his seat. “She also had a kid a year or so ago. But the kid has since disappeared, as if he never existed to begin with.”

“Really?” Xan asked, pausing in bringing the next bite to her mouth. “What happened to him?”

“Dunno,” Wade said. “I didn’t care enough to look into it.”

Xan looked at me, expecting an answer. I could probably find one but as Wade said, I didn’t care enough to find out either.

“Are we going to burn her, too?” she asked after she’d swallowed.

I bit into my burger, watching her. When I had finished that bite, I answered. “I enjoy fire. It’s my preferred way, but if you have something else in mind, we can do that.”

“I don’t know how to… plan for this,” she said.

Issy chuckled. “Just tell Az what you want. We’ll make it happen.”

“I don’t have a specific death in mind,” she said. “Though, I’ll admit that there’s a sick side of me that wants some people to suffer extra.”

“Is Grace one of them?” I asked.

Xan hesitated and I decided that she was. I pulled up my list of people left and handed her the tablet to see. “Tell me which you want to suffer extra.”

“Professor Cassidy,” she answered immediately. “And Noah.”

“I think they all ought to suffer a great deal,” Issy said.

“Perhaps we can drown one. Mess with them a little. Not let them die right away,” Wade said before stuffing more of his chicken fingers in his mouth.

I smiled at both boys. Yep, no doubt about it. They were my people. The thought that they were like this because of me had me feeling a little guilty. Odd, really. It was the only thing I’d ever felt guilt over. The idea that I somehow screwed them up with how twisted and dark I am.

“Yes,” Xan agreed, handing me back my table.

“Anyone I forgot?”

She bit her lip, her mac and cheese forgotten in her lap. “I don’t want my dad to die, but I’d like him to be… I don’t know. Realize how awful a person he is.”

I nodded thoughtfully. That, I could do.

* * *

When we stopped again, it was to get fuel and find dinner. We’d select a random hotel an hour outside this sleepy little town for the night, which would put us three hours outside our hometown – our next destination. Wade and Issy were beat.

The diner we stopped at was large for the area. I got the impression that it was the only decent meal in town. I could tell by the end of our meal that Xan was ready for a rest and to stay out of the car for a while. She was restless and yet, her eyelids were heavy.

She’d also had baby back ribs and had barbeque sauce everywhere. I couldn’t remember the last time she’d enjoyed a meal so much. It truly was the little things that pleased our girl. After a lifetime of being tormented by someone new nearly every year, I supposed it was the little things she took joy in.

“I’m going to clean up,” she said, grinning. Issy let her out of the booth and the four of us watched her go. She disappeared around the corner and I turned back to Wade.

“Anything on Berta?”

Wade shook his head. He’d been watching the local news both where Berta lived and where we’d left her burning corpse. Since it was Saturday night and she wasn’t expected back at work until Monday, it would be a couple days yet before someone reported her missing.

The waiter came and took our plates. He inquired about desserts, but we opted to wait until Xan got back to see about that. Our girl didn’t have a big sweet tooth, but sometimes she liked a treat.

Five minutes went by and I tried to rationalize in my mind that the diner was busy. After eight minutes, I was staring at the corner where Xan had disappeared. When twelve minutes went by, I could no longer sit there. I had a bad feeling about this.

Before I could get to my feet, Issy was on his. “I’m going to check on her.”

At least it wasn’t just me. It was several minutes later that he came back and slapped a $100 bill on the table. “We need to go now.”

Dread grew in me, leaving a cold grip around my stomach. As soon as we got outside, I asked, “Where is she?”

Issy shook his head, looking around the parking lot. “I don’t know. There was no one in the women’s bathroom. No one in the men’s bathroom. I looked over the entire restaurant for her. She’s not here.”

The three of us searched the parking lot for anything at all. Any little thing. Could she have decided she didn’t want to stay with us? She’d said this was perfect. Had that been to placate me? Us?

Wade walked away and we followed at a slower pace, searching all the shadows and behind all the bushes. I turned to him when he was straightening from a crouch. He turned, holding a shoe. Issy took it from him, and I could see the color drain from his face even in the dimming light of twilight. As I got closer, I realized why. It was Xan’s shoe. One of the green Vans she’d been wearing this morning.

“She’s already been gone probably ten minutes. We need to go,” Wade said, heading for the car.

“But go where?” Issy asked.

There was a moment of panic where all I could think about was that someone had taken her. Stolen her right from our grasps. What could they be doing to her? What did they want? Was there a ransom?

As I pulled out my phone to see if there was a ransom, fury replaced the panic. Someone had enough balls to take my fucking girl from me! They were going to die a most painful death. I was about to find out what my limits were with fire.

“Okay, that’s not going to be helpful,” Issy said, pulling me back around to look at him.

I could barely make out his face. Literally seeing nothing but fury. It wasn’t red, like so many people say. It was dark flames and screaming faces.

“Focus, Azlan,” Issy said. “We need your plan. How do we find her?”

How do we… Right.

I didn’t answer but took off for the car, pulling my door open so roughly, it bounced back and tried to close. I was pissed enough that I’d have liked to rip it off the hinges. But we needed the car intact. I opened my tablet, scrolling through the screens until I found the app I wanted. Tracking.

It took an ungodly amount of time to load and then even longer as the little line blipped around the screen. I was going to lose my mind!

And then a little green dot appeared on my screen. A single green dot. And it was moving. “Get in,” I said, reaching for the driver door. Issy pulled me back, shaking his head.

“We need to not get arrested. That’s a delay we don’t have time for.”

His reasoning pissed me off. It irked me more since he was right. But as we stood there, the green dot kept moving.

I climbed in the back and into the middle, directing them where to go. Issy wasn’t slow about driving, though he kept his Waze app on, so we’d have a heads up about any speed traps.

We drove for an hour and couldn’t seem to catch up. We were chasing her, nearly fifteen over the speed limit, but they were moving faster. I really fucking hoped they got pulled over, but we wouldn’t get that fortunate.

It was near dawn when we finally caught up. We were approaching fast now. I split my time between looking at my screen and what was around us. Which was nothing but some old farmland. Field after field that was mostly used for growing hay.

“Stop,” I said, and Issy slammed on his brakes. The car came skidding to a halt.

Taking my tablet, I stepped out of the car and walked back a few dozen feet. Until I was literally standing over the green dot. I looked up and around. I was on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere. I searched in the hip-high, not-yet-ready hay all around. Issy and Wade joined me, though they didn’t ask what we were looking for. They didn’t need to ask. I’d only stop us for one reason.

I stepped on something hard and paused. Taking my foot back, something silver glinted at me dully. Dirty. A pit formed in my stomach. Fuck. They found the bracelet. The bracelet that I’d hidden a tracker in and wrapped around Xan’s wrist five years ago.

“We have a problem,” I said, turning to look at the road again. We were in the middle of nowhere. And the longer we stayed motionless, the further away she got. Though it wouldn’t do us any good to go if we didn’t know where we’re going. We could very well end up moving in the wrong direction.

“No, we don’t,” Wade said. “Get back in the car. I know where he’s taken her.” He took the driver’s seat and had the tires kicking dust in the air almost before I’d gotten my door shut.

It took me another ten minutes to recognize our surroundings. I’d been here before. But it wasn’t until Wade slid around the corner onto the dirt road that I realized why. And knew who’d taken her.

This time, my fury was red, but only because the fire I saw was red.

Wade did well keeping the car quiet. He didn’t kick up dirt or skid or slam on his brakes so we’d come flying in and spook our targets. He didn’t even speed down the bumpy drive so the car wouldn’t be heard until it was close. We pulled up behind an SUV and pickup truck. Wade made sure we were blocking them both by parking sideways.

I flung the door open, catching it before it swung back on me again, and stalked to the little shed. Issy caught up with me before I managed to get my hands on the handle.

“Wait,” he murmured. “We don’t know the situation we’re walking into. Or how many there are.”

It seriously didn’t matter. I’d burn the whole place down.

At Xan’s muffled cry, Issy let me go and I flung the door open.

The next several minutes were a blur. It’s possible I’d blacked out for most of it. There were half a dozen men with Noah Callan, three of which were with him when he’d kidnapped and held her captive before. But when I saw Xan on the floor, her mouth and hands wrapped with duct tape and suspended over her head by a metal chain, her naked body covered in blood and bruises, I lost my mind. Especially when I saw one of them with his hands on her.

They’d stripped her. Her clothes were in shreds all around the little shed. And they were fucking touching her!

Apparently, there’d been an axe somewhere inside the door. And I made good use of it. I remember the sick crunch when I flattened one’s skull. The one who’d been touching her lost his head completely when I used the axe like a bat, and it went right through his neck. Blood spurted everywhere.

When I came down from my rage, there were blood and body parts everywhere. I left no one alive. I didn’t even get to ask how they’d found her.

I dropped the axe, heaving for breath. It took me several minutes to blink away the blind fury and focus on my surroundings. To hear more than the spray of water hitting the walls. Looking around, I decided it must be Issy and Wade drenching the little shed, so it wouldn’t burn quite so fast. And possibly getting the water ready to get this blood off me.

Movement to my left made me spin around. Xan stared at me with wide, frightened eyes. There were tear streaks through the blood and dirt on her cheeks. And she was covered in blood. Soaked. There were pools of blood everywhere, too, as I tried to make my way to her. I slid and slipped and ended up on my knees in front of her.

Gripping the corner of the duct tape on her mouth, I looked at her, waiting to make sure she was ready for me to tear it off. I couldn’t bring myself to speak yet. There was no telling what was going to come out of my mouth right then. Because through all that mind-numbing anger that fueled the psycho in me, I was terrified.

Xan nodded and I tore the tape from her lips. She didn’t so much as whimper, though fresh tears formed in her eyes. I cut her hands down with the axe I’d dropped at my side, pulling the tape from her wrists next.

Before I knew what was happening, she was in my arms, trembling. I pulled her to me, wrapping her tightly in my embrace. Squeezing the breath out of her.

She shook for a few minutes longer. The hate inside me for the men who put her in this situation burned strong. I’d have given anything to bring them back to life so I could kill them again. One death wasn’t enough.

Xan pulled back so she could look at me. “You came for me,” she said, as if it was something surprising.

“I will always come for you. There’s nothing in the world strong enough to keep me away. No one will ever separate us, Xan. I will give my last breath to make sure you’re safe. And I swear, I’ll be quicker next time. No.” I shook my head. “There won’t be a next time. I promise.”

The reverence in her face as she looked at me was something I really didn’t deserve. I had just torn seven men apart with nothing but an axe.

When she bit her lip, my eyes darted down to it. And for some psychotic reason, I found myself kissing her. As if I didn’t have a choice. Like this, right here, bathed in blood and surrounded by death, was the only place that made sense for our first kiss.

Xan wrapped her arms around my neck. She moved to be more fully in my lap, situating herself so she could wrap her legs around my waist. I slid my hands down her back, just feeling her. Knowing she was whole.

I was surprised when she started to pull at my shirt, trying to take it off. Breaking our kiss, I looked at her, studying those ombre-esque eyes. Shifting so I could better support her, I allowed her to pull my shirt over my head.

Her bloody hands went down my chest. Though she watched me, keeping her focus on my expression, she let her hands trail over my skin. I swallowed. She couldn’t keep touching me and expect me not to respond. That’s just not the kind of man I am. And I couldn’t do that to her.

“Az,” she whispered. “I don’t want to remember their hands on me. I’d rather remember yours.”

I shivered and she bit her lip again. It must have become my new weakness because I found my mouth on hers once more. Her hands, slick and warm, ran over my shoulders, down my chest and stomach, to my pants, where she deftly undid them.

It was enough that I broke the kiss again. “We don’t have to do this here, Xan.”

She nodded. “I want to. I know there’s blood…” She looked around. “…everywhere, but I need to undo what they did to me.”

Maybe we’d taken longer than I thought we had. Maybe we’d spent so much time in the field that we were here too late. I was momentarily blinded by white hot rage until Xan’s lips found mine and her hand wrapped around my cock.

I groaned, leaning forward to lay her in the pool of blood behind her, onto my discarded shirt. Honestly, the whole place was a pool of blood and other fluids that I chose to ignore. As if the universe was confirming this, I slipped in the red liquid and we both went down with a thud.

Xan laughed, running her fingers into my hair and pulling my mouth to hers again. I smiled into her lips.

“I’ve always wanted you,” I confessed.

“Did you?” she asked as I pulled back to peel the drenched jeans from me. She watched, her attention shifting between my face and my newly revealed dick. I stroked it after wiping my hands on my boxers – the only thing in this room that hadn’t been soaked through with blood – watching her little pink tongue dart out to wet her lips.

“Yes,” I told her, making her gaze meet mine again. “Since the day you told the Parkers you trusted me.” It was right after the dog. I had been using her as an excuse to get rid of the damned thing. It was simply complete coincidence that it saved her life, too. After the dog was taken care of, I’d helped her down from the tree and cleaned her dog-given and tree-given wounds. The Parkers had come home just as I’d bandaged the last one on her arm, horrified, thinking that I’d caused it. But little eight-year-old Xan told my foster mother that I was her hero. That I saved her from the dog and that she trusted me, trusted that I’d never hurt her.

It was the beginning of my lifelong obsession with the girl. What started out as curiosity and proving to her that I could be the boy she needed – because Issy wasn’t enough to keep her safe on his own – we both grew up. My somewhat familial obsession with her turned to something else the day she called Issy from the emergency room when boyfriend number two broke her arm and gave her a hard enough hit on the head that she needed staples.

Issy hadn’t been available. He and Wade were two towns over with their university soccer team. They called me, asked me to go to her. I did. And the relief in her expression when I walked into her room inside the emergency wing was enough to change my entire life.

It took a lot of restraint not to kill the bastard who did that. But I no longer needed restraint. Easton Miank was on my list of people to die for wrecking my girl.

I was sidetracked from my thoughts when her hand covered mine. I used my boxers to wipe some of the blood from her hands and then her stomach and between her legs. This wasn’t the safest thing to do but I wasn’t about to tell her no. If she thought this would relieve her trauma, I’d do far worse.

As I wiped as much blood from her as I could, her hand stroked my shaft in exploration. Feeling the length, feeling the skin move, the two piercings. I felt her thumb trace up, following the jagged line of the ink that leads up my stomach, changing into the tongue of the devil that dominated most of my flank.

“I love your body,” she whispered.

I groaned, despite trying not to.

Xan giggled, her cheeks pinking. “I meant all the tattoos. But actually, I do love your body. You’re perfect.”

That was all I could take. I tossed the shorts away and leaned into her, taking her mouth in mine once again. I kissed her until she was pushing her body against mine. I wanted to taste her. Everywhere. Touch her. Learn her every curve. But now, here, was not the time or place. We were already playing with fate by fucking in blood.

“I’ll make this up to you later,” I told her.

Xan shook her head. “I just need to feel you in me. I need to feel that I mean something to you.”

“You mean everything to me. You and those boys are my world.”

She smiled. “Show me.”

I took her hand from my dick and started pushing my way into her. She was a tight little thing, but she was so hungry. She groaned against my lips, pushing her hips up to take more of me. Her left foot slid in the blood, causing her ass to hit the blood coated floor with a smack. I felt the cool blood splash against my thighs. She laughed.

It took a lot of effort not to kiss her anywhere else. I was dying to. But I kept my mouth on hers, teasing her tongue. Learning her kiss. Tasting her. Claiming her. Making her mine.

I moved my hand so I could get some traction, but karma was going to continue punishing us for choosing here, like this, for our first time. Even though it made some sick, twisted sense. It only seemed right that our first time together was in the blood of our enemies. Men who had hurt her. Who I had just killed for her.

But anyways, my hand slipped, making me come down on her hard. My cock buried deep, stretching her instantly to accommodate me. Xan jerked, her nails digging into my shoulders as she choked on a gasp.

“Sorry,” I murmured, trying to pull away. But my little minx wrapped her legs around my waist, dug her fingers into me harder, and kept me right where I was.

Her nails in my back sent a delicious heat cascading through me. My cock pulsed in anticipation of releasing inside her. I was going to. I really didn’t fucking care if it ended in pregnancy. I sure as balls didn’t have a condom out here. And I couldn’t recall if she was on any form of contraception. We’d raise that baby like it was a god.

Xan nodded, pulling my lips to hers again. She bit my lip, the little sting making me pumping inside her before I could think better of it. Before I could control myself and my thrust. Before I could ask her if she was okay. This girl knew innately how to drive me wild.

I wasn’t as easy as I’d always told myself it’d be when I first took her. I had always wanted to make sure she knew that it wasn’t just sex. She was mine and I was going to love her until the sun stopped burning. I was going to make love to her for hours.

But I couldn’t stop my errant thrusts. Couldn’t stop myself from kissing her breathlessly, groaning into her mouth as much as she moaned into mine. Couldn’t stop from grabbing her ass cheek, digging my fingers in, and making sure I hit every place that brought her pleasure.

It was almost an embarrassingly short time when Xan broke her lips from mine and threw her head back, crying out her orgasm. Her hips jerked under mine as I continued to feed our pleasure. The way her pussy contracted, choking my dick in a pulsing rhythm, had my head spinning. I released into her before I’d have liked to and took some sick pleasure in filling her until it was dripping down my balls, mixing with the blood on the floor.

I drew it out as much as I could, not ready for this to end. I pressed kisses to her lips, over and over and over, until we’d both stopped moving.

“Sorry,” I murmured between kisses. “I’d meant for this to be different. I will make it up to you.”

Xan smiled, shaking her head a little. Not enough to break our kisses but enough to know that she disagreed. “This was just right, Az. Just what I needed. Everything I wanted.”

“I’ll set the whole world to flames for you, Xan,” I whispered. “No one will ever touch you again.”

“What about Issy? And Wade? Can they touch me?” she asked, teasing.

“You have no idea how much I want them to touch you.”

She giggled, but I didn’t miss the relief deep in her eyes at my words.

“I meant what I said,” I told her. “This right here, there four of us, this is all I need. I don’t care where we go or what we’re doing, as long as we’re together.”

Xan sighed. “I wish we’d had this sooner,” she said on another sigh.

I nodded. “But we are now, right?”

She opened those beautiful eyes and looked at me with a soft smile. “Yes, we are.”

I kissed her again because I couldn’t help it. I’d been waiting years to kiss her.

The spray of the water beating against the side of the shed again became louder as they moved down the length of the building. Breaking our kiss, I rested my forehead against hers for a minute. “We should go get the blood sprayed off us.”

Xan nodded.

Carefully not to slip and slide, I got to my feet. She held her hands out to me so I could pull her up. But my girl is far too good to be walking in blood.

I picked her up like she was the most precious thing in the world. She was. The woman I’d love and protect over all others. The princess I’d rescue from any dragon stupid enough to take her from me. The angel that my demon would reform for but would never have to because she embraced what I am.

Placing her feet on the grass, I pulled her along to the side of the building where both boys were still spraying the sides with hoses. Issy paused when we came around the corner. The smirk on his face said he’d been ready with something snarky to say. Our girl was not quiet during orgasm. Despite myself, I grinned.

“Wow,” Wade said, looking at us. “That’s a lot of blood.”

“There were a lot of bodies filled with blood,” I said. “Unfortunately, now the blood is on the floor of the shed, ironically creating a slippery mess.”

“Made traction difficult,” Xan quipped.

Issy laughed, shaking his head. Wade’s relief overpowered his amusement.

“Well, come on. Enjoy the freezing cold water so we can get the blood off you,” Issy instructed.

It took nearly an hour for the water running off us to run clear. Although I’d been clothed, I had nearly as much blood on me as Xan had. Though, that had likely been from the activity after the massacre.

Xan and I got dressed while Issy and Wade continued to spray down the shed and wash away the bloody footprints and rivulets of blood we’d created coming out of the bloody shed. We waited until nightfall, taking naps in the car, before setting this shed on fire, too. I did it the same way as Berta’s. By dropping a palmful of fire into the middle of the shed. Except, I didn’t step back inside. I tossed three in, making sure I hit something that was pretty flammable.

I watched as it went up into flames. The heat brushed my face as I watched it burn.

Xan was already back in the car, choosing to forgo watching this one. But I needed to watch. Needed to see that their bodies were being burned so that hopefully their souls were being tortured in whatever hell is out there. It was for my own peace of mind.

This one, this time, was personal. It was no longer just to heal Xan’s past trauma. They’d created new trauma. Luckily, Xan was tough. She was resilient. She survived and had wanted me to touch her in much the same way they had. To erase the bad with something good. To remake this horror into something better.

Issy stood next to me. He didn’t speak as he watched. After a minute in which I’d begun to sweat, he knocked his shoulder into mine. I didn’t respond so he wrapped his arm around my waist, pulling me to his side.

I sighed, leaning my head against his. “It was close,” I said.

He shook his head. “She’s with us now. And we won’t let her out of our sight again.”

No. We wouldn’t. And I knew how to get the next tracker on her in such a way that no one would ever be able to remove it.

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