A percussion drums behind me, a metronomic thump drowned by the veil of my heartbeat ringing in my ears as I stare down into Sloane’s glassy eyes. The delicate column of her throat shifts beneath my bloody palm.

“Rowan,” she whispers.

“Mine.”

Her eyes shine in the moonlight. “Okay.” She nods in my grip. “He’s yours.”

I draw her in closer and glare into the inky abyss of her fear and fortitude, not stopping until her warm exhalations fan across my face. The slices lining my forearm burn as her chest grazes the ruined flesh with every breath. “Sloane…”

A groan of warped metal and a string of curses end the pounding behind me.

“Stay here,” I say, and with one finger at a time, I release her from my grasp.

I take one final look at her, my blood little more than a glistening black smear on her skin, before I pivot on my heel and stride away.

My pace quickens when I spot my prize as he limps from the vehicle. One foot scrapes behind him, a broken arm clutched to his chest. He turns as my footsteps draw closer, his eyes wide as they land on my wicked grin.

“I’m going to love every fucking second of this,” I say.

Francis is already begging for mercy when I grasp the back of his shirt. I clutch his hideous pink tie in my fist to strangle him with it but it pulls free of his neck.

I glare at the fabric balled in my fist. Then at Francis. Then back again. “A fucking clip-on? What are you, twelve?”

“P-please man, let me g-go,” he begs beneath me. Tears glass his eyes as I toss the tie onto the driveway and grip him with both hands.

My rage burns my throat but I swallow it down. “Tell me what you were doing in the wall.”

His eyes flick to our surroundings, maybe hunting for Sloane, maybe searching for a savior. “I wasn’t g-gonna hurt her,” he says when his attention lands on me. “I was j-just watching.”

His fear is like a drug that invades every cell in my body, every desire coursing through my veins. A slow grin creeps across my lips as he struggles when I shift my grip and catch his throat. “Two things. First, I don’t fucking believe you. I think you were going to watch her and then your plan was to kill her. Wouldn’t be the first time, would it, Francis.”

“No, I swear—”

“Second, and this is the most important part, so listen up, motherfucker.” I raise his trembling body off the asphalt until his ear is next to my lips. “That woman you were watching…?”

My fingers tighten around his throat as he desperately nods.

“She is mine.”

I’m sure he begs. But I don’t hear his pleas. They’re fucking useless words that won’t save him now.

I drop Francis on the pavement and tumble after him into madness.

My first blow hits his jaw. The next strikes his temple. One fist after the other. Jaw. Temple. Jaw. Temple. I miss and shatter his nose with a satisfying crunch and he wails. Blood spews from his nostrils to coat my knuckles. His jaw breaks next with a pop. Broken teeth slice his lips and fall to the driveway like chips of porcelain. Like memories I want to forget. So I fight them away. I grit my teeth and hit harder.

The scent of blood and piss and asphalt. The gurgle of choked breaths. The slip of his split flesh against my fists. It’s fucking fuel. I think of him watching her. I think of her face. And I keep hitting. Even when he seizes. Even when he drowns in his blood.

Even when he dies.

I’m beating on a hunk of ruined flesh when I finally stop. Breaths saw from my lungs as I place one hand on the warm asphalt and stare down at my knuckles where pain throbs with every heartbeat. It’s a welcome sensation. Not because I deserve it, but because he did, and I fucking delivered. Destruction with my bare hands. Suffering where it was meant to be found.

Only now does a sliver of fear burrow into my chest.

“Sloane,” I call to the shadows.

I’m met with only silence.

“Sloane.”

Nothing.

Shit.

Shit shit shit. 

A fresh wave of adrenaline floods the chambers of my heart as I lean back on my heels and scan every shade of darkness that surrounds me. The excitement of the kill is washed away as a tidal wave of panic rolls in.

I’ve fucking scared her off.

She probably ran back to the hotel to grab her belongings and book it out of here. The screech of car tires will likely be the next thing I hear as she leaves and never looks back.

And can I blame her?

We’re both monsters, after all.

Different monsters, thrust together in the cage I’ve created.

Sloane is calculating, methodical. She waits and weaves a web and nets her prey. And while I like to stage a scene from time to time, to display some theatrics, this kill right here? This mess of torn flesh and exposed bone? This is in my soul. I’m fucking feral at the core.

Maybe it’s best that she gets as far away from me as she can.

Even still, it burns in my chest, a hot needle that’s slipped between my ribs to lodge in the very center of my heart. It’s a place I never thought could feel pain or longing anymore. But it does.

I drive a sticky hand through my hair as my shoulders fall.

“Goddammit, Rowan, you feckin’ eejit.” My eyes press closed. “Sloane…”

“I’m here.”

My gaze meets the shadows as Sloane emerges from their grip. The breath I take feels the same as it does after you dive too deep, unsure if you’ll reach the surface in time. The relief is cellular when the air hits my lungs.

I don’t move as she comes closer, her steps tentative, her body illuminated by the dim light that spills from the ruined car, her throat still streaked with my blood. Her gaze takes in every detail, from the film of sweat on my face to the swollen flesh of my hands. Only when she’s assessed me and stopped by my side does her attention fall to the cooling body on the driveway.

“You okay?” she asks. She looks to me with a flicker of a crease between her brows.

I want to reach for her, to feel the comfort of her unfamiliar touch. But I don’t. I just watch.

“He looks like a Picasso,” she continues as she nods toward Francis’s destroyed face. Her hand flows in his direction with bird-like grace. “Eyes over here, nose over there. Very artsy, Butcher. Embracing your Cubism era. Cool.”

I still don’t answer. I don’t know what to say. Maybe it’s the mounting physical pain. Or it could be the waning adrenaline. But I think it’s just Sloane. The echo of the loss of her and the relief of her presence.

Sloane gives me a faint, lopsided smile and lowers to my level, her eyes soldered to mine. Her grin doesn’t last. Her voice is quiet, nearly a whisper when she says, “Cat got your tongue, pretty boy? Didn’t think I’d see the day.”

A breath shudders past my lips as a drop of sweat falls from my hair to slide down my cheek like a tear. “Are you okay?”

Sloane huffs a laugh and her dimple pops out next to her lip. “Yeah, of course. Why wouldn’t I be?” Her words hang unanswered in the air as my gaze drops to the body. Surprise ignites in my chest when her delicate fingers alight on the back of my hand, her touch feather-light as she traces a streak of blood that drips from a split over my knuckle. “I should be asking you that.”

“I’m fine,” I say with a shake of my head. We both know it’s a lie, just like we know her words were too. She was going to leave. I have no doubt.

But she didn’t. She’s still here. Maybe not for long, but at least for now.

“This is going to take a while to clean up,” Sloane says as her hand leaves mine and she stands. Her gaze travels the length of the corpse next to us before it flows to the battered car. “Good thing I’ve still got a few days off. We’re probably going to need it.”

Sloane extends her hand and I stare at the lines crossing her palm. Life and death. Love and loss and fate.