Dead Man Walking (The Fallen Men, #6)

by Darling, Giana

  My kinky little thing.

  She sat almost primly between my spread legs, tongue tucked between her teeth as she bent to tie that girly ribbon in a tight bow around my cock and balls. Immediately, the shaft surged with blood, the veins popping out in stark relief. Bea traced one with her fingertips, fascination rife on her face.

  “Does it hurt?” she asked, so innocent it made my balls ache.

  “Feels good,” I grunted, watching as she knelt up and hovered over me with that candle. “You gonna drop hot wax on me?”

  “Yes,” she admitted in that contradictorily modest and lustful tone. “If you’ll let me.”

  I rucked up the bottom of my shirt, watching her carefully to see how she’d react to the sight of my torso. Her eyes went wide as twin coins with shock as I unveiled the scars on my belly, the knife wounds and burns that mottled my skin so it was a patchwork of waxy whites, puckered pinks, and raised ridges as dark as plums.

  “No sympathy,” I ordered so briskly, she flinched. “You promised me pain. If you don’t have the stomach for it, I’ll make sure you get what you promised me.”

  She shivered delicately, liking the idea, but there was a little furrow of determination between her pale brows that spoke of her resolve. Slowly, she tipped the pillar candle, the pastel pink wax streaming down to paint my abs in livid heat.

  I hissed, cock jumping, mind fizzing.

  “Fuck, yeah,” I encouraged. “Jack me off.”

  Her little hand wrapped around my tied-off cock.

  “Harder,” I barked, torso bowing as more wax splashed hot pain onto the thin skin between my belly and groin.

  She clenched so hard it burned, the friction exquisite as she pumped my dick with one hand and spilled that heat with the other. There was a high flush on her cheeks, curls falling forward to cast her face in shadow. She looked like some dark nymph, some creature of the night come out from under the bed to play.

  She. Was. Fucking. Gorgeous.

  My cock was spitting precum into her hand, lubing her stranglehold on my cock. She watched my thick head move through her fist, moaning softly at the wet schtick of skin on skin.

  “Climb on my thigh,” I told her through gritted teeth. “Grind against me until you drench the denim. When I come, Bea, I want you to drink it down for me.”

  “Oh, my God,” she moaned as if I’d just given her some heavenly dessert.

  “Candle’s not enough,” I panted as she jerked me harder and started to thrust her wet cunt against my leg, tossing her head back on a groan. “There’s a switchblade in my pocket.”

  “I don’t want to hurt you too badly,” she protested even as she shuddered at the pleasure of riding me. She liked the shame, the darkness of doing as I said. Even though she hesitated, she blew the candle out and set it at the end of the bed out of our way.

  “I’m hurtin’ just watchin’ you move on me like that. Just lookin’ at you, I fuckin’ ache, Bea. Take the damn knife and carve your name into my hip. Wanna feel you there.”

  “You’re so sexy,” she confessed. “You make me do things I only ever dreamed about.”

  “You dreamt of this? Of hurting me while you hump my leg ’cause you’ve got such a pretty, greedy pussy?”

  She shivered again, bending to grab the knife from my left pocket. The snap of the blade extending was a tangible caress for both of us. We groaned together. When she doubled over to press the tip to my hip, I snatched her wrist and lifted it higher. Wielding her hand, I cut into the collar of my shirt to rip it down to my sternum and then pressed the sharp tip to the top of my right pec.

  “Here,” I ground out as her fist spasmed around me. “Want you here.”

  She didn’t hesitate. The pain was a sharp ache slicing my past to ribbons. If asked, I wouldn’t have remembered the name of my town in Ireland, the colours in that stained-glass window I’d looked through for seven years, the feel of a whip on my flesh or a branding iron inside me.

  All I knew was this moment, Bea carving her name into my flesh to give me the pain she knew I needed. All I knew was this vivid, overwhelming sense of acceptance. This was me, scarred and monstrous, pain filled and pain giving, yet this woman with sunshine hair and a smile that lit up the dark thought I was worthy of her love.

  There was cracking in my ribs, a yawning open of bones, and then with a brutal thud that robbed me of breath, I felt her there, my girl, my heart, slotted into my chest. I was destroyed by her love, the dead man murdered by sweet hands.

  The flourish of the “A” in her name cut too deep, blood pooling around the knife, drenching my dark shirt. Bea dipped further, her tongue poking out to lap at the spill. Simultaneously, she undid the ribbon around my cock with a swift tug and then pulled hard at my shaft.

  Dead, I thought madly as a climax ripped me to fucking shreds, and I began to spill hotly all over Bea’s hand, and reborn by her love.

  “Mo cuishle,” I grunted as I came and came. “My heartbeat.”

  My words triggered her own orgasm, her hips churning hard against my thigh, her bloody lips pressed in a grimace, then falling open in a cry to the heavens as she unraveled on top of me. Finally, she slumped against my torso, knife in one hand, ribbon curled through the fingers of the other. She blinked sleepily up at me, nose brushing the scarred skin beside my newly carved scar.

  “Better?” she asked, mischief in her little grin.

  Emotions were roiling inside me, stemming from that organ I’d never felt so keenly in my chest. Unable to voice them, I reached down to thread my fingers in the hair over either ear so I could lift her heart-shaped face to my own.

  “A rún mo chroí,” I muttered in Gaelic, then hesitated in my translation. “Secret of my heart. My secret heart living outside of my chest.”

  Instantly, tears pooled in her eyes, glittering like diamonds in the sheen from the strand of Christmas lights.

  “I love you,” she almost sobbed, clutching at my hands on her hair, pushing her forehead hard into mine. “I love you, Priest. Thank you for letting me.”

  “I’m not easy.”

  Her laugh was wet, but the smile that broke over her face was pure, unadulterated joy. “Oh, yes, but I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

  I didn’t have more words for her, exhaustion more emotional than physical darkened the edges of my vision and blurred my thoughts.

  “Sleepy,” she murmured as if reading my mind, nuzzling into my neck with a soft sigh.

  “Gonna get up,” I told her even though every bone in me ached to stay in bed draped with her warm, sex-scented body.

  “Stay,” she said, squeezing me.

  “Don’t sleep well with others,” I said, when I meant I’d never slept beside a soul in my life, and I wasn’t sure I could start now.

  “Try?” she begged with the prettiest damn pout I’d ever seen. Her hair shifted over her shoulder as she lifted up to aim that expression at me, the scent of peaches wafting over me.

  “I’ll stay,” I granted, “until you fall asleep.”

  Her sigh was tinged with sadness, but she conceded without protest, already half-asleep on top of me. I stroked her hair back, the silk tinged pink because I hadn’t washed my bloody hands, and hummed one of the songs my mam had sang to me deep in my throat. Bea hummed in pleasure, squirmed a little, then settled into a dead sleep on my chest. The beauty of her trust felt like a black satin bow wrapped too tight around my fucking heart, but I welcomed the ache and held her well into the night.

  * * *

  * * *

  I wasn’t sleeping. It was deep night, closer to morning hours than evening, but the sky outside Bea’s window was dark as anti-matter, not a cloud in the sky. Too dark to see anyone. But something alerted me to a presence, some faint sound or shift in black on black outside the window.

  Someone was there.

  Instantly, cold calm descended on me. I shifted out carefully and efficiently from under the weight of my sleeping shadow, did up my jeans, and slunk in
to the living room to reclaim my cut and weapons. Armed to the teeth, dangerous with protective, possessive rage, I moved to the window at the side of the house to peer outside.

  Nothing.

  I went to the front door, knowing any intruder worth his salt wouldn’t be near it, and slipped into the cold night. My boots were by the door, but I didn’t put them on. My bare feet would be nearly silent in the fresh, deep snow layering the garden, and I needed the element of surprise.

  It was only when I rounded the house that I heard it, the shush and drag of something heavy through the snow. Peering out from around the side of the shingled house, I saw a blot of black in the grey light labouring over something on the ground, tugging it to the back porch.

  I knew it was a body. Call it a premonition, experience, whatever the fuck, I knew that weight in the snow was a dead body being set out on the porch for Bea to find in the morning. Like a cat bringing its beloved owner a dead mouse, the killer had brought his obsession––my obsession––a gift.

  I moved, cold and inhumane as the snow beneath my feet. The intruder was lingering over the body at the base of the stairs, arranging it, probably planting one of those sick as fuck religious quotes somewhere on their person.

  They were too busy to notice a shift in the shadows, too narrowly obsessed to realize that the woman he lusted after already had a psychopath in her life.

  I was just behind him, knife raised, a second away from striking when the light flicked on in Bea’s room. The disturbance brought the man back to himself. Startled, he squatted to take off in a sprint.

  I tackled him hard to the ground, his skull hitting the iced-over cobblestones on the backyard path.

  He didn’t pause to recover, already fighting viciously, rolling in the slippery snow so that he was on his back, a better position in any fight. There was a gun in one hand I hadn’t seen in the dark. He swung it up, but I blocked it with my forearm so the shot he fired blew past my left ear and knocked out my hearing.

  Vaguely, I was aware of the lights going on in the rest of the house, of Bea yelling behind the locked back door, hopefully calling the cops.

  Or not hopefully, because I was going to slash this motherfucker to ribbons.

  He grunted hard, bringing his knee up into my groin, connecting with my balls in a way that ripped my breath from my lungs. Taking advantage of my momentary weakness, he shoved me and scuttled out from my hold, the snow easing his way. He gained his feet quickly, taller and more agile than I’d given him credit for.

  He took off.

  I followed, swallowing that bile that rose in my throat.

  He was a fast motherfucker, supple on his feet as he charged into the street, zipping through parked cars, hurtling over trash cans, and sliding over windshields.

  A grin worked its way onto my face as I gave chase. It had been so long since I had a real challenge. I knew I would catch him the way a lion knows it will get the gazelle. It was just a matter of when.

  He turned the corner onto Main Street, and I knew it was over. Even at four in the morning, the street was too crowded with cars, mailboxes, and holiday decorations. There were even vehicles on the road from early deliveries and night workers.

  He was fucked.

  My mouth watered as I saw my opening. I had a gun and throwing knives, but I didn’t use them. Why use an inanimate object when I was such a well-honed weapon?

  He tripped over a crack in the sidewalk and stumbled.

  I pounced, taking him to the ground so hard I heard the crack of breaking bone in his arm as we landed. He howled with pain as I turned him over and dragged off his hood.

  I blinked down at the stranger, mildly surprised I didn’t recognize him. Bea wasn’t famous, despite the success of her podcast, and usually, stalkers were people known by their obsession.

  I didn’t care that he didn’t fit the bill. I didn’t care about anything except discovering why he was targeting my girl, and then killing him.

  I’d rip him open, cut him, bleed him dry.

  My knife was in my hand, the blade digging into his throat so hard it punctured the flesh and blood leaked out like sap.

  “Stop, stop, stop,” he begged, thrashing in my iron hold. “It wasn’t me.”

  I ignored him.

  “It wasn’t me,” he chanted again and again as I tipped the knife deeper into his flesh. “It was the Prophet.”

  The idiotic moniker for the serial killer.

  “If it wasn’t you, what the fuck were you doin’ at Bea Lafayette’s house in the middle of the fuckin’ night with a dead body?” I demanded, lifting him up by the throat just to crash his skull back into the pavement.

  There were enough lampposts on Main Street to illuminate him now. A large cross fell out of his hoodie as I throttled him, the ornate gold glinting.

  “A gift from the Prophet,” he insisted. “‘As each one has received a special gift, employ it in serving one another as good stewards of the manifold grace of God.’”

  I knew the quote was from Peter 4:10 because it had been a favourite of Father O’Neal, a way for him to explain he was a messenger of God, and through him, we could receive His holy gifts.

  “A dead body is hardly a gift from fuckin’ God,” I ground out, deciding that the man didn’t need his left ear. I began to slice through it methodically, knowing the cartilage took time to rend free of the skull.

  He screamed manically. “Stop!”

  “I’ll stop when you tell me who the fuck sent you if you aren’t the murderer yourself.” His ear was slippery with blood, the top gaping from the scalp.

  “No,” he whimpered. “For He is divine, and He must be protected.”

  “Fuckin’ crazy arsehole,” I muttered, tired of the religious babble.

  I sliced his ear clean off.

  Another magnificent scream.

  “Why the fuck is he so fixated on Bea?” I ordered over his sobs.

  “H-he thinks she is his holy wife,” he cried. “God s-sent him a vision.”

  Fucking lunacy.

  “Who is he?” I demanded, then when he didn’t answer, I slapped my open palm over his butchered ear.

  His screams echoed in my blood, making it sing. I could do this all night long.

  Caught up in the violence, I hadn’t noticed a few people trickle into the streets, including Stella from the diner with her phone pressed to her ear. As if on cue, the bleep of a police car sounded, dragging my gaze over my shoulder to see the vehicle pulling up.

  “Put your hands up,” the voice demanded over the loudspeaker. “And step away.”

  I didn’t.

  The car doors opened, a gun cocked.

  “Put your fucking hands up and step away!” someone shouted.

  My knife was so close to his jugular, I could’ve swiped it cleanly across his neck without worry of reprisal until it was too late. But this motherfucker might have information I needed to keep Bea safe, so I growled and moved the fuck back.

  “It’s fuckin’ Priest McKenna,” Officer Travers shouted as someone shined a flashlight in my face.

  There was a chorus of swearing from the other three cops.

  “I got a man here might be the serial killer,” I shouted to be heard over their idiocy.

  They ignored me, too spooked by the idea of trying to arrest a man like me to do their damn jobs.

  And the man I’d chased took advantage.

  He staggered to his feet, holding his bleeding neck, and looked frantically around the street. I shouted at him, lunging to keep him still, but he was just too far. One moment, he was at the curb, and the next, he was throwing himself into the street.

  In the path of an oncoming car.

  I watched the impact as he cracked against the windshield, then bounced hard into the street, twitching but otherwise immobile.

  “Fuck,” I growled, moving even though the cops were yelling at me to freeze.

  His legs were broken badly, one so mangled it made an “S” on the conc
rete, and blood pooled from his cracked skull. He stared almost dreamily into the lightening sky and blinked as he lay there dying.

  I rucked him up with two hands in his collar and snarled in his face, “Tell me who the fuck the Prophet is.”

  Blood gurgled in his throat, choking him so that he coughed in my face and red spittle flew onto my cut, dirtying The Fallen MC patch.

  “‘Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever receives the one I send receives me, and whoever receives me receives the one who sent me.’” He sputtered the verse from the Bible and then promptly, as if with the grace of his fucked-up God, he passed out.

  Seconds later, I was tackled to the ground and arrested for the second time, for something I had no part in.

  Bea

  It was Margaret Huxley.

  The body laid to rest carefully at the base of my back porch had her hands over her chest, eyes closed, and mouth painted a harlot red. She could have almost been sleeping there, but for the tent peg stabbed through her right temple.

  It was a tent spike from my own set, the one I kept in the shed in my backyard. Which, of course, meant that the killer had been in my yard before, perhaps watching me while he concocted his mad plans of murder.

  She had been killed the way Jael had murdered the turncoat General Sisera in the Bible. The message couldn’t have been clearer. In insulting me, she had insulted the killer, who felt we were somehow linked.

  “As for a person who stirs up division, after warning him once and then twice, have nothing more to do with him,” from Titus 3:10 was typed out on the note she clutched in one hand.

  I told the police who littered my house that entire Monday morning that the murderer might have killed her as a gift to me, but he would’ve had to know we’d had an altercation just the night before.

  It made sense, maybe, that the man Priest had hunted down on Main Street was Owen Burns, the same young man I’d seen Brett give drugs to what seemed like years ago on Halloween at the college party.

  Apparently, Owen Burns was the estranged son of Opal Burns, one of my mother’s old friends who had distanced herself after our fall from grace. She didn’t even attend church with my Grandpa anymore, though she’d always been a devout Christian. Though she was very good friends with Tabitha Linley, who was known to be a bit of a friendly gossip.