“What!”
Mordecai cracked the metal bat against his kneecap, bringing him down to a crouch.
“You can’t actually believe that, Haley.”
Lifting the baseball bat high, Mordecai brought it down against the back of his head, winding up for another hit, and Damian gripped his knees in preparation for it. “I love you, Haley.”
She gasped sharply as he fell to the ground. “No!” Breaking free from her uncle’s iron hold, she bolted toward the half-blind attacker, focusing a ripple of light through the rigid metal, and Mordecai dropped the smoldering bat. In one fluid motion, she picked it up, throwing every ounce of strength she had into a forceful swing at his head, connecting with a satisfying crack, repeating the motion in a frenzied rage, hearing a dull, splattering thud, striking the soft tissue until the scorched head was nearly severed from his body.
“You little fucking whore!”
Snatched backward by a fistful of her hair, Haley let out a scream at the shocking pain as her uncle ripped out a chunk of it by the roots at the base of her scalp, causing her to fall awkwardly onto her back on the hard ground.
“Fuck persuading you to come willingly.” Eli angrily straightened his tie, smoothing out his jacket and pocket square. “I’ll just knock you the fuck out like they did last time. You’re going to wake up in Hell again, sweetheart.”
Consumed with heartbroken terror at his words, Haley tried to scramble to her feet, but he stomped down onto her neck with a sadistic grin, closing off her airway.
“I’ve grown tired of feeling remorseful about selling you to Raden in the first place. I’ve been the one paying good fucking money to keep you protected all these years after you went and fucking escaped. And you repaid me by running off to suck the devil’s dick. Didn’t even give me a proper good-bye did you, you dirty cunt… Just like your mother. Always teasing me with your short skirts and skimpy little dresses, thinking those gold powers make you better than everyone—”
Burning tears poured from her eyes as Damian tackled Eli, freeing her from his crushing stance on her throat, and she sputtered and coughed on the ground.
Damian’s teeth sharpened into elongated fangs as a foreign sounding growl roared from his chest, and he pinned Eli down. Haley gasped for breath on the ground beside him, choking on her own heartsick sobs.
Like a primitive beast, he found Eli’s throat with his deadly jaws, clamping down to cut off the panic-stricken squeal, and spit out a gush of blood before using his hands to twist his terrified expression around to face the dirt, snapping his spine in the process.
“Daddy!” The shrill, deranged voice came from Ginger as she darted toward the contorted heap on the ground, and she surrounded Damian with a whirling black cloud, murderously hurling him against a tree.
She grasped the unnaturally turned head, rotating it to see her father’s vacant blue eyes staring up at her. With a chilling scream, she directed her crazed glare to Damian, summoning her dark powers to violently fling his strained body into another solid tree trunk.
“Ginger, no!” Haley screeched hoarsely from her knees, swaying toward her.
Stringing a stream of black smoke spun with glittering green sparks around Damian’s throat, Ginger dragged him by it to his knees, cinching it deathly tight to strangle him.
“Yes, baby girl, kill him for daddy.” Ginger gasped at Eli’s wheezing voice at her ear, and her mutilated father affectionately swept a wave of blond hair behind her shoulder with bloody fingers.
Pleading in protest, Haley found her voice had gone raw, and she hurtled past them toward the cloud of darkness, falling into Damian, clinging to him with a desperate embrace. Gold and white warmth spread through her and into his beaten body, radiating outward to envelop them in a blur of iridescent light.
As her black powers grew obsolete, Ginger turned to Eli, a grotesque sight with his gaping throat and oddly bent neck. “Daddy?” She inched backward. “What’s going on?” Her whimper changed to a sharp cry as Eli lunged at her with a snarl.
“Daddy’s disa-fucking-pointed in you, pumpkin.” He cruelly seized her by the hair.
Eli’s front teeth shattered as Noah buried a strange, bone-colored knife into his face. Swiftly stabbing him again, he sliced through his nasal passage, and then sunk the blade to the hilt in Eli’s forehead.
Flecks of gold fluttered all through the grove, and Haley lowered Damian’s slumping body to lie down on the grass. Tenderly taking his face in her hands, she hovered over him, pressing her lips against his motionless mouth. “Come back to me, baby.” Her muttering whisper cracked as she broke into a sob, realizing she couldn’t feel his energy anymore. “Wake up…”
Noah crouched at his other side, briskly snapping his fingers in front of Damian’s closed eyes. “Come on, Pierce.” He grabbed his shoulders, catching him by the chin. “Come on…” He slapped his fingers against the side of his face, and Damian’s eyes shuddered open, falling to Haley’s distraught expression beside him. Noah looked him over.
“You OK?”
“Did you get him?” Damian went to sit up, but felt shocks of pain in his torso when he tried to move.
With a somber nod, Noah drew his attention to Ginger’s quivering form and hustled to her side, hooking his arm around her shoulders, guiding her away from her father’s mangled form.
Haley tumbled on top of her boyfriend’s battered body, settling spread-legged over his middle, and Damian made a low noise at the sudden pressure on his cracked ribs.
She swung her arms around his bruised and bloodied throat. “I thought you were gone for a second…”
“Did you really believe my brother’s mindfuck?” Hurt that he wasn’t sure of her answer, Damian couldn’t keep the pained ache from his voice. “I know you said you couldn’t trust me… You had to know it was an illusion.”
“Y-you mean the vision?” Her high-strung tone was muffled against his shoulder.
“It’s not a vision. Mordecai can project any scenario he wants into your mind. He preys on your weak points.”
Haley perched on his chest, searching his face, and the sudden movement made him wince.
She gasped and rushed to get off him. “Am I hurting you?”
“No.” He grabbed her and tugged her back to him. “Come on, Haley, answer the question.”
“I can’t remember a question.” She lowered her gaze.
He took a deep, weighted breath, trying not to cringe at the rippling pain from his injuries. “I hate that you can’t trust me.”
“I do trust you. I mean, I know you care about me.” She pursed her lips, dipping her chin down.
Damian waited in hellish anticipation of what she would say next. He’d laid his emotions bare for her in the heat of the attack and was desperate to hear her say it back. She seemed lost inside her own head.
“Mordecai is connected to you now.” He moved the subject forward, his tone stiffening at the ache in his heart. “Once he’s been in your thoughts, he can read them from anywhere.”
“He’s not…” She met his gaze, tensely biting her lip. “I…killed him.”
She sat up, pointing to a bloody heap on the grass before turning her face away from the near-decapitated remains of his brother.
Damian pushed himself upright. “You…did that?” His broken bones had already begun to heal, and he got to his feet, inspecting his brother’s fatal wounds from a distance. They would still need to destroy the body, but she’d certainly neutralized him. “Nice work, baby.” Extending his hand to help her up, he found her staring blankly at her uncle’s shredded face nearby. “Hey.” Capturing her attention, he grasped her shaking hand. “You don’t need to see that, come on.”
She followed with a nod and let him take her under his arm, falling against him.
As they traipsed through the dense green grass toward the house, a bevy of uniformed men marched in their direction. Victor Harris was among them, an older gentleman in khakis with white, thinning hair.
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“Well, it looks like you had a change of heart and decided to do your job after all.” He gave Damian a good-hearted smile before settling his kind blue eyes on Haley. “Although I can see now why you might have had second thoughts. I’m Damian’s boss, Victor.” He offered his hand to her, and she timidly reached forward to shake it. “It’s too bad we don’t have any female Adversus soldiers. From what I hear, you could put some of my men to shame with those powers of yours.”
“Maybe you should consider allowing females to join.” She gave a tiny shrug with a soft-spoken voice.
Damian snapped his head toward her. “You’re an accountant.” Self-defense training was one thing, the most important key to her survival in his opinion, but he couldn’t deal with her going on missions, seeking out the danger the way he did. “It’s a fucking warzone.”
“In any case, you’ll have to bring that suggestion to your brother, Adam. He’ll be taking over my position when I retire in a few short months.” Victor looked past them to the blood-spattered tree grove. “The job begins to take its toll on a man after so many years.” He pulled in the corners of his mouth with a grievous expression. “Anyway, well done, Damian, and it was good to meet you, Haley, I hope to see you again sometime.”
She watched him stroll away before dropping her head back to Damian’s body.
He led her in the direction of his house. “You are never joining Adversus.”
She shivered a little. “I like your ‘Master’ voice.” Haley closed her eyes with a hint of a smile on her lips, instinctively matching his stride while he guided her along.
Damian sparked at her remark, ready to take her deadly little ass behind a toolshed and have some raunchy sex in the dirt. He hadn’t touched her intimately since they’d fooled around in the shower the morning before he left for Nebraska, and his dick had been throbbing for days. “Don’t torment him.” He pushed the insistent thoughts to the back of his mind.
“Who?” She slid her arms around his middle as they approached the front of his bustling house.
“My dick is very demanding when it comes to you.”
Her eyes flickered, and a blush flooded her ghostly pale skin.
“Don’t worry, angel, I’m not asking you to fuck me in a closet right now.” Though the memory of it had him growing between his legs.
She looked thoughtful as they climbed the steps to the open front door and tilted her face toward him with a hushed voice. “Maybe in the bedroom?”
Damian detected a vulnerable glint in her weary eyes and nodded, scanning his crowded living room. “I’ll make you feel better, baby, I promise.”
It seemed as if every living member of the Hawthorne family was congregating in his house, and he veered Haley toward the stairs, slipping past them unnoticed. She quietly picked up her pace on the carpeted steps, and he did the same, leaning toward her ear with a husky whisper.
“We’re starting in the shower and moving to the bathtub.”
A genuine smile graced her features for the first time since he’d been home, and she turned to clasp his hand with a warm squeeze as they crept up the staircase.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
One Week Later
Haley woke in the rustic bedroom of a hunting lodge, tucked away deep in the mountains of Eastern Washington, and rubbed her sleepy eyes, feeling unmistakably offbeat. The private getaway was an unfamiliar setting, but she sensed another kind of abnormality in the air, though she couldn’t pinpoint what it was.
The back of her neck prickled as her mind ran through the frightening possibilities, and she left Damian sleeping in the bed, padding naked to her suitcase to shrug into a short silk nightgown. He’d persuaded her the day before to go away with him for the weekend, and they’d spent the next several hours driving to their destination, arriving at the dark cabin just before midnight.
Walking through to the kitchen, she scrutinized her surroundings for the first time, liking the homey vibe of the place. The decor felt comfortable with soft fabrics and warm colors, but she still couldn’t shake the strange feeling in the atmosphere.
As she filled the glass coffee pot at the kitchen sink, her gaze was drawn to the window in front of her. The blinds were closed, but the curious light on the other side of the dark wooden slats had her reaching for the string with an uncertain hand. She battled a surge of anxiety and jerked the slats open.
Almost dropping the glass in her grip, she turned off the water, setting down the carafe in slow motion, staring at the scene in front of her with a slack jaw. Her stomach flip-flopped as she dashed back to the bedroom, bounding onto the bed, and draped herself over Damian’s sleeping form.
“Hey,” Haley whispered into his ear, and he flinched in his sleep, slowly waking at her excited energy. She flicked the tip of her tongue across his ear until he opened his eyes with a sensual groan. Taking hold of his warm hand, she tugged at it. “Come here.”
“You come here.” He closed his eyes again.
Rolling her eyes in frustration, she reached down, grabbing his jeans from the floor, and playfully pushed the ball of denim into his abdomen. “Come on!”
With a little smile, Damian compelled himself to move, climbing out of bed and stepping into the jeans she’d shoved at him. He adjusted his morning wood before buttoning and zipping over his naked groin. Already at his side, Haley dragged him to the front door with a widening smile.
“You’re not gonna believe this, baby.” She swung the door open, pulling him outside. “Look what happened overnight!”
Damian stood on the porch, shoving his hands in his front pockets while she pounced into the deep blanket of powdery snow, bounding barefoot through her own personal winter wonderland. Falling snowflakes stuck to her hair as she leaped back up the wooden stairs to the dry porch. “Can you believe this?!” She gripped his sides, drawing him out. “Come play with me.”
“You’re supposed to be wearing more than a piece of silk.” He gave her a halfhearted frown.
Haley stopped in her tracks. She gaped at him in wonder at the prospect that the change in weather had been planned, blinking while she took a moment to fathom it. “Did you do this for me?”
Damian shrugged at her with a half-smile. “It’s nice to see you so happy.”
“But you said you don’t mess with the weather…”
“I thought you deserved something special.”
Yeah, I’ve definitely got something special. “Come get in the snow with me.” She grabbed his arm, hauling him down the steps to the open clearing where thick flurries fell from the sky and trudged through several feet of soft powder. The magnitude of his thoughtful gift, combined with the way his jeans hung far below the deep V at his naked abdomen, brought Haley to push her tiny straps off her shoulders, lightly pulling at the silky hem of her nightgown until it slid to the white-covered ground, leaving her totally nude.
Too hyped by their enchanted setting to notice the icy sensation of the snow, she dropped down to the fluffy layers, rolling around naked in the featherlike clouds, and ended up on her back at his feet, luxuriating in the tiny falling flakes that kissed her bared skin as they touched down.
“You must be freezing.”
She shook her head to disagree with him, deciding to give him a show since she had his full attention, and ran her fingers over her blushing skin, trailing them down to play with her heated sex, provocatively opening her knees to reveal herself to him. “All right.” He shook his head with a grumble, sinking down to cover her with his warm body, and Haley smiled in delight.
After a few minutes of frisking with her in the pillow of snow, Damian stood up, yanking her by the wrist while he dropped his zipper. “Come fuck me by the fireplace.”
Excited by the thought, Haley let him usher her inside the warm cabin, lowering to her knees on the plush rug in the living room, and waved her fingers at the stacked dry wood, igniting the fireplace with crackling golden flames. She impatiently hooked her fingers into his open zipper,
giving him a magnetic stare, and Damian removed his constraining jeans.
Overflowing with a pressing hunger, Haley begged under her breath. “I want to fucking devour you right now.”
He toppled her to the fleecy rug, all at once penetrating her with his heavy cock, moving her in a soft, driving rhythm. “Look at me.” Damian cradled her in his arms. “I need to know you feel the same way I do.”
Haley’s eyes glossed over as he skillfully maneuvered his colossal organ inside her. “I do.”
Deepening his strokes, wholly possessing her, he groaned in dissatisfaction. “I need to hear you say it.”
“What?” She moaned a little at the sublime feeling.
Damian slowed his pace considerably. “I told you how I feel about you.”
“Oh.” A trace of panic spread through her, and a heartbroken expression crossed his features. He held his dick motionless inside of her. “No,” she pleaded. “Please don’t stop.”
“I’ll keep going.” Damian gave her a hardened look, gliding in slow and deep. “Because you’re such a good fuck, Haley, but I’m starting to think you’re not in love with me. Not the way I am with you, anyway.” Falling to the crook of her neck, he gave her stronger thrusts. “Ugh, I sound like such a pussy. You’ve fucking ruined me.”
“No, I’m hopelessly in love with you, Damian.” She gasped at his dominant power between her legs. “I’ve been in love with you forever, probably since the first time you fucked me.” Her intimate declaration seemed to motivate him. Pressing harder, he nuzzled his face into her hair with an erotic growl. “I was afraid to tell you— Oh my God, please don’t stop.”
“You’re in love with me?” He breathed in relief, bouncing her tits with the unyielding force of his thrusts.
“Yes…” She panted deeply. “I am completely in love with you.”
“Ohh fuck, Haley, say it again.”
“I love you, Damian. I love you so much.”
Groaning, he lowered his face to her vigorously jerking breasts. “I love you too, angel.” He emptied inside her, and a prickle of sensuality drifted down to her sex from his stroking licks between her breasts, tingling through her needful clit as if he was licking her there. She moaned, roughly clutching her nails at his back, digging into him while she came.
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