Goddess of Pain - Katie May Page 0,18

of those words settle over me, calming me.

Footsteps behind me shake me out of my reverie. Jumping to my feet, I grab the nearest weapon, which happens to be a lamp.

My arm turns limp when I spot the familiar man standing in the shadows of the room.

Helio.

He looks exactly as I remember him from my…vision? Memory? Tall, with broad shoulders and a splatter of dark chest hair. His beard is just as prominent as it was before, framing luscious lips I would sell my soul to taste. With his bare chest on display, I see his numerous tattoos climbing up his arms and across his chest. And there, right over his heart, is a fucking pumpkin that he got for me after I started calling him that as a joke.

“Helio?” I whisper hesitantly, almost tentatively.

He cocks his head to the side as he considers me silently, and I’m once again bombarded with another revelation. Those eyes…

I felt them before, caressing my skin.

Helio is my stalker.

The man who’s been following me the last few weeks.

“How do you know my name?” he demands, his voice gruff. And something splinters inside of me. I’m bleeding now, and I don’t know how to stop the steady flow.

“Do you…remember me?” I continue, gauging his reaction for any sort of familiarity. Recognition. Anything.

When his face remains impassive, lips compressed in a thin line, I fall even further, my pieces shattering when I hit the ground.

Maybe I’m insane.

That sounds perfectly reasonable.

But once more, I dismiss the prospect that I’m making all of this up. I may not have all my memories back—only brief glimpses and snippets—but the power I feel coursing through my veins is very, very real. When I looked up at that blood-red moon, something changed irreversibly inside of me. I’m no longer Emily Lopez. I’m something greater, something more.

And Helio, my silent giant with the all-seeing onyx eyes, is a part of that.

“You’ve been watching me,” I say slowly, watching as he takes a lumbering step forward. He’s so big that his muscles contract with every movement he makes. I remember vividly how it feels to trace the bulging veins on his biceps with my lips. Isn’t that ironic? I don’t remember my true parents’ name, but I remember how his skin tastes. If that doesn’t say something about my hussy vagina, then I don’t know what does.

“Yes,” he answers in that rough, raspy voice. It’s not a smoker’s voice, though. As far as I know, Helio has never smoked a day in his life. It’s merely him. Every word he says sounds gravelly and husky, a low, seductive tone that never fails to make goosebumps pebble on my arms.

Something occurs to me then, and the intensity of it has me dropping the lamp and collapsing back on the couch. It’s as if I can’t continue using my muscles, as if my legs have failed me, as if my lungs can no longer take in oxygen.

“Are you…” I trail off, swallow, before trying again. “Are you trying to kill me?”

Chapter 9

Helio

I’ve watched her for weeks.

When the order came, promising a hefty sum of cash to put down an unknown female, I jumped at the opportunity.

I hid in the shadows, constantly vigilant and constantly watching her.

I remember the first time I saw her, approximately four weeks ago. She was walking to one of her classes, lips curved into a genuine smile as she walked alongside a blond-haired boy. Everyone she passed waved to her, smiled at her, wanted to be her. And, at least in the men’s cases, wanted to have her.

So I watched, blending into the shadows as seamlessly as a ghost. And that is what I am—a ghost. An entity that only exists at night, that parents tell their kids about before bed and around a campfire in order to scare them. I’m a nightmare embodied, and Emily Lopez is an unattainable daydream.

I had the opportunity to kill her once. She was leaving work, completely oblivious to my presence. As she turned the corner, my knife a hair’s breadth away from her sensitive neck, I found that I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t snuff her light out.

Instead, I watched her. Memorized her.

It wasn’t just because she was gorgeous, though there was no denying that she was. With dark hair framing a cherubic, innocent face, she could’ve been plucked straight from my fantasies. No, it wasn’t just that. It was something else, this innate need inside of me that demanded I protect her.

Now, she’s