Chapter 25
H
I stare down at Kenzie, her back bowed beneath the force of my hold, her eyes heated with desire. She is drenched in blood, the crimson liquid coating her beautiful skin, threaded through her blonde hair, painting her red. She has never been more beautiful than she is now, staring up at me as if I can give her the world, as if I would ever deny her anything. I will slay the universe and lay their heads at her feet, if only she will continue to look at me that way.
Crane’s control spreads through my body with the sun’s rising presence, but I keep my hand clenched tightly in Kenzie’s hair.
“Do you not fear me yet, Poppet?” I ask, the green flames slowly dying. Behind us, Demon snorts and paws at the ground, anxious but comfortable, even during a massacre.
“I could never fear you, H.” Her fingers spread along my waist, holding on, caressing, loving. “You set me free.”
The sun pierces the night sky completely, the first true beams bringing the sunrise rapidly upon us. Time always seems to move far too quickly on All Hallows’ Eve, as if the very world has to rush through the death, as if not even God wants to prolong the pain. From experience, the bodies will not be moved for another few hours, the mass funeral ceremonies taking place within the week. The funeral industry in Sleepy Hollow prospers around this time of year.
When the edge of the sun slips over the horizon, I can feel the change gradually take hold, the flames disappearing, but before I can slip away completely to the back seat, I place my forehead against Kenzie’s. If she is unsettled by the giant pumpkin head in front of her, she does not show it. Not our brave Kenzie.
“I love you, Poppet,” I growl, just as my body changes, and Crane’s face replaces the pumpkin.
Kenzie grins up at me, not fighting the hold I still have on her, trusting us to protect her. “I love you, too, H, and Crane.” Demon snorts. “And sure, you, too, Demon.” He paws the ground, happy with his attention, but I don’t pay him any mind.
* * *
Crane
* * *
We said we would punish her, H growls in my mind, our places switched with the slow crest of the sun. So, punish her.
With a savage snarl, I take Kenzie’s lips between mine, claiming what I’ve wanted to since the moment I saw her in Whisperwood Sanitorium. She matches the kiss with just as much passion, her teeth scraping against my lips with a teasing bite. With my free hand, I circle her waist and yank her against me, grinding my cock against her belly.
I break the kiss and trail nibbles down her neck, leaving small marks behind in the trails of blood. The metallic tang of her skin should revolt me, but I’m too far gone now. After witnessing H and our massacre, I’m not sure anything can bother me anymore. Not really. Now, I feel powerful. I feel like a beast. I feel complete in ways I never knew I needed. And with Kenzie in my arms, I can’t ask for anything more.
“We promised punishment,” I groan against Kenzie’s throat. “We promised to make you scream.”
“You did,” Kenzie moans. “You have to keep your promises.”
Releasing her hair, I lift her by her ass. She wraps her legs around my waist on instinct, her fingers spearing into my hair and gripping in little pleasure pains. We’re surrounded by death, heads literally on the ground around us—I don’t think too hard about what I step on as I stumble back a step—and I’m ready to fuck her right here. There’re survivors staring at us in confusion, mostly rushing away from the gore, but a few stop and look. It doesn’t seem to bother Kenzie, so I don’t let it bother me, either.
“You were glorious with my axe,” I mumble, biting Kenzie’s lower lip. “The way you sliced through tendon and bone really made it difficult to focus on the task.”
“Was I?” she purrs, grinding against me, ramping the tension higher and higher. “What are you gonna do about it?”
Every year, the festival takes place in the town square, a tiny little cobblestone area where painters sit in the fall and paint little depictions. But I don’t care about any of that. I care about the fountain sitting in the center, the statue of some long forgotten important man who holds a bucket. Water still runs through it, the tinkling of water the only sound, and I head for the sight.
He was the founder of Sleepy Hollow.
“Did you kill him?” I ask even as I lick a trail up Kenzie’s neck.
Yes.
I step over the small barrier, the water splashing around my feet. It’s barely a foot deep, the bottom littered with coins of well-wishers and dreamers. How appropriate that the blood coating our skin will stain those dreams. How appropriate that we will claim them like we did heads.
I don’t wait for Kenzie to react. I kneel in the fountain, letting the chilled water caress our skin, before I cup a handful and trickle it over her head. She leans back at the feeling, her eyes sliding closed in ecstasy.
“I didn’t realize you were going to clean me.”
“I’m not,” I murmur. “I plan for you to be very dirty by the time we’re done.”
I wrap my hand around her throat when I run out of water, dipping my other beneath the waistband of her pants, finding her core. She gasps, her hands clenching on my biceps, her eyes glazing over. I circle my finger, her hips moving with me, but this is a punishment.
I squeeze her throat just enough for her eyes to focus on mine, but there’s no fear there. No, our princess is never afraid. “Did it kill you to ride on the saddle, the movements grinding against your pussy? Did you grow slick with pleasure as I took the heads of the damned?”
“Yes,” she whispers, her breaths sawing in and out of her chest.
“Good.” And I lose all sense of control.
Before All Hallows’ Eve, H was a presence in the back of mind. Now, it’s as if we’re one, as if we’re no longer two separate beings, and it’s weird that I can still talk to him as if it’s not talking to myself.
With a snarl far deeper than my own, I tear the blood-soaked pants from Kenzie’s body, the material floating and twisted around her legs, and I don’t wait long before I’m tugging the waistband of my own pants down. I don’t give her any warning. I don’t wait for some magic sign, knowing that she’s slick from the night of massacre.
With blood coating our skin, the metallic scent filling our nostrils as the water around us stains red, I spear her with my cock, and claim her for our own.
Ours, H purrs.
Ours, I agree.
Until the world runs deep with blood.
* * *
/-/-/-/
Chapter 26
Kenzie
My lips part, and a loud, primal moan fills the air as Crane finally fills me. For a second, I can’t believe that sound actually came from me. My pussy quickly stretches to accommodate him, and God, I love the stretch. My fingers slip against his upper arms, a combination of the water and blood.
Each thrust of his hips splashes the red water against my upper body. My legs cling to his lower back, my hips rolling against his. He’d promised me punishment, he’d promised me screams. . .
“Hold on, Princess,” he purrs, slipping his hands under my lower back. He lifts my lower body out of the water, my legs clinging tightly around him. My senses are in overload, and it’s hard to track his movements; his hands adjust around the back of my knees, and suddenly, my legs are splayed against his chest, my feet over his shoulders. My eyebrows ride up in shock, but it’s short lived. He slams back inside me, diving deep, grinding against my cervix. “You shouldn’t tease men like us,” he groans. “You should know better.”
I can’t look away from him. Patches of dried blood cling to his body, giving way to light-red trails of water mixed with the crimson liquid. My fingers slide across his chest, dragging trails through the gore as he works his cock in and out of me, over and over. The pressure in my core builds to a blinding point, my head falls back, water splashing against my cheeks and dangerously close to my eyes. The sunrise is beautiful; pinks and yellows and lig
ht blues are mixed like a watercolor painting. My pussy spasms, growing tighter around Crane’s already large cock, and my breath hitches.
“Na-uh,” he moans, clicking his tongue against his teeth. “Not yet, Princess. You haven’t earned it.” Before I can touch the edges of the orgasm I’m chasing, Crane pulls out of me and flips me over onto my knees in one calculated move. His fingers dig into my hips so hard I think they might bruise. Water splashes against my face as my fingers scramble for purchase against the bottom of the fountain; pennies and quarters slide under my hands as I finally find my bearings and arch my spine.
“Yes,” he groans, sliding a hand gently over the curve of my ass only to bring it down in a punishing smack a moment later. My eyes refocus as I let out a squeal. Crane teases the head of his cock in and out of my entrance, and it’s maddening.
“Please?” I whimper as I’m faced with the destruction around us once again.
“Mm, I like the sound of you begging, Poppet,” he growls in a deeper voice. “Do it again.” He slides an inch deeper inside me, and my body quivers, a throaty moan bubbling out of my throat.
“Please!” I beg, pressing my hips back against him, feverishly chasing the friction I need. He sinks deeper into my core with his next thrust, a long groan coming from him as he twists his hand in my hair and pulls.
“Do you see what we did tonight?” he murmurs, bending to trace kisses across the back of my shoulder. “How wet did you get when their blood covered you? I thought you might come on the spot when I slit Yoon’s throat, when her blood sprayed across your throat. Was it warm, like my cum, Princess?”
Hot goosebumps break out across the back of my neck, and I try to nod, but the tension in my hair is too much to allow the small movement. Instead, I grind my hips back against him, panting as he sets a punishing pace. In hard, out slow, in hard, out slow. Every time his hips slap against my ass, my body jars forward, only to be stopped by the tight hold in my hair.
“Oh, fuck,” I whimper, biting my lip.
“Say our names,” Crane demands, slipping his hand from my hip around to my pussy. His wet fingers circle my clit as his cock slams in and out of me, and I cry out, my fingers curling into the mess of coins beneath us. “Scream them.” His teeth pluck at the skin on the back of my shoulder, and that slight twinge of pain is all I need
“Crane! H! Fuck!” My back twists, and I grind my hips back against his, his cock bottoming out deliciously against my cervix. I can feel him swelling, his cock getting bigger as he gets closer to coming with me.
“Do you want to come for me Princess?” he growls, twisting my head, so I’m looking in the direction of a survivor, staring at us openly in shock. I can’t blame him, we’re covered in blood, dripping it again because of the water splashing against our skin while we fuck in the early morning light, surrounded by murder and mayhem. My eyes meet the stranger’s, his hooding as he takes in the show, and Crane sinks his teeth into the back of my shoulder—not deep enough to break the skin, but enough to make me cry out.
“Yes!” I force my eyes to stay open, taking in every stroke that Crane gives, my core spasming out of control around his cock.
“Come.” It’s not a request, but a demand. Crane’s hand leaves my hair, sliding quickly around to the front of my throat and squeezes as he pounds in and out of me. I scream out, my eyes finally shutting as the world goes too bright. I whimper beneath him, and he looses a feral-sounding snarl as his cock swells and twitches deep inside my core and hot cum splashes against my insides.
“Fuck,” he murmurs against my skin, kissing the tender area he probably just bruised with his teeth.
“Mmm,” I purr, rolling over as the tension leaves his body behind me. My head rests against the stone side of the fountain, staring at the statue of the man behind Crane. “Who is this, anyway?”
“The mayor of Sleepy Hollow from when H was still in his original body. He killed him, apparently,” he chuckles. “Big surprise.”
I snort, splashing some water at him as he falls into the pool beside me. “What the fuck do we do now?”
Crane’s fingers trace slow patterns across my leg, trailing water across the gore and leaving behind cleaner skin. “H says we can leave on Demon, go wherever we want.”
“Won’t there be like . . . cops? Or something?”
“Not in Sleepy Hollow. This is their—” his head cants to the side, and I know he’s listening to something H is telling him. “Tradition. Their curse. They won’t call the police.”
The exhaustion of the night finally hits me. Maybe it’s all the killing, maybe it’s the earth-shattering orgasm I just had, but I’m fucking tired as hell. I yawn into my hand and begin bathing myself in the water around us. My skin is finally clean, for the most part, but my hair still looks stained red at the ends. I wonder for a moment if the blood dyed it.
“Come on,” Crane whispers, holding out a hand. I stand from the water, the brisk October air hitting me, and it finally feels cold again. Wrapping my arms around myself, a shiver starts to rack my body, and Crane’s eyebrows fly up his face. He scampers off somewhere, leaving me standing by Demon, but at least the hellish horse provides some warmth.
“Where the fuck did he go?” I mutter to my new companion.
Demon only snorts a few green flames in answer. I guess his powers don’t fade with the holiday like H’s. He bumps his forehead against mine, and I laugh, wrapping an arm around his neck. I hide my frozen fingers in his mane.
Finally, Crane returns, clothed in a sweatshirt and jeans. He tosses a plain shirt, a brown leather jacket that reminds me of hippies, and blue jeans onto Demon’s saddle with a grin. I look at the clothes and scrunch my nose up. I haven’t worn real clothes since I was a child, and this is what he picked out?
“Calm down, Princess, we will pick out something more fashionable once we’re out of here.”
“Hmph,” I sigh, quickly getting dressed. While I don’t appreciate his taste in fashion, I’m grateful for the warm long-sleeve shirt and the jacket. Once I’m dressed, I wrap my arms around his neck, pressing my lips to his for a quick kiss.
“Are you ready?” His eyes sparkle with mischief, and I grin up at him.
“I’m always ready for you,” I answer. Grabbing a hold of the saddle horn, I haul myself up onto Demon’s back and wait for Crane to join behind me. He chuckles as he makes his way up onto the large horse and settles with his arms around my waist, grasping the reins.
Yes, this is exactly what I deserve
All those years of being locked behind gilded bars. All those years of listening to the bullshit doctors telling me who I should be. All those years of slowly dying inside.
And now, I’m finally free.
I look up and behind me at Crane, my eyes shining.
“Where would you like to go, Princess?” he asks, a crooked smile on his face. “We have a whole year.”
I think for a moment, back to my books, to the dreams I never dared to dwell on, to the hopes I never let soar. With a grin, I tighten my fingers in Demon’s mane. “Ireland,” I whisper. “I want to go to Ireland.”
“As you wish.”
Epilogue
“Sad news today coming from Sleepy Hollow, New York where there are reports of a massacre that happened on Halloween. And get this, it isn’t the first time it’s happened. We sent one of our very own out to the small town shrouded in legend to get the scoop. Jimmy, take it away.”
The camera cuts from the pristine and pressed anchorwoman to a disheveled man in a suit.
“Thanks, Veronica. Yes, I’m standing here in Sleepy Hollow where there are reports of a massacre just two nights ago. The residents are very tight-lipped about the incident, and it was difficult to find anyone who was willing to speak about what happened, but every year, there’s a festival to celebrate the legends surrounding this sleepy little town, and we managed to speak to a survivor.” A man strides into the camera, his eyes wide as if he’s permanently in surprise. “T
his is Bill Ebenstein. Mr. Ebenstein, can you tell everyone what happened?”
“It was the horseman! He rode in on his flaming steed and started chopping off heads, man. The legends are true. The legends are true!” The rest of the words are garbled nonsense, and the anchor stares with a raised brow into the camera.
“There you have it, folks. You heard it here first. Whatever ailment has befallen the classic town of Sleepy Hollow, the residents aren’t speaking, keeping their secrets, but we’ll get to the bottom of this mystery. This is Jimmy Malone, reporting for KPCK Channel three news.”
Acknowledgments
Poppy:
I have to thank Kendra. My life pretty much fell apart while I was writing this book with her and she was a rock for me behind the scenes. I can’t thank you enough, girl. You’re the big sister I never had, and I love you so much. Thank you for always being there for me and for running with my crazy ideas. Thank you for answering my late-night breakdown texts. Our first official co-write is on the books and I couldn’t be prouder!
Kendra:
Honestly, who else could I thank besides my co-writer, ⅓ of the 3way, one of my besties, Poppy Woods. Thank you for always being there for me when I need you the most. I’m so excited we started with this little bitty idea that grew too big and turned into this amazing book. Thanks for being such an important part of my life. I couldn’t be prouder of what we created. Our shared mutual bestie love is amazing. Where have we all been each other’s lives?
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