men like me and fantasised about taking them to bed, so maybe that was where I’d find my people. The readers who understood that sometimes a bit of choking was perfectly acceptable or maybe even desirable and wouldn’t judge me for it.
Once my dirty blonde hair was no longer tainted with red streaks and the only stains marking my skin were the countless patterns of ink which I'd put there permanently to coat my muscular frame, I dried off and pulled my jeans back on. I stole a blue button down from Burnley - because let’s face it, he didn't have use of it anymore anyway - and I strolled my ass right on out of his apartment with my bloody shirt balled up in my hand and the freshly rinsed hammer tucked into the back of my pants.
I strode down the street to my cherry red muscle car and hopped on in, wondering if I could find somewhere to get a burger at this time of day. The Hades Virus sweeping the world really had fucked with my eating habits. Though I guessed lockdown made it a hell of a lot easier to sneak about and kill people seeing as there weren't any witnesses out and about to take notice. Silver linings.
The ventilator mask I'd promised to wear sat in the footwell, glaring at me with its glassy black eyes and whispering 'you could be sick, you stupid bastard'. I stamped on it to shut it the fuck up, pulled a pack of cigarettes from the glovebox, lit one up and turned on the radio as I started the engine. Luck would have it that that fucking tune was playing, the duck quacking along so we didn’t forget about him in the audio version of the ad and the whole thing ending with an enthusiastic man suggesting I buy his tomato soup.
Fuck no. Who wanted food that came without chewing? He could keep his soup and his fucking tune too. I was just glad my question had been answered and it had been purged from my brain.
Daisy by Ashnikko came on as the ads finished and I inhaled deeply, nicotine searing my lungs and giving me a moment's reprieve from the monotonous misery of my life. It wasn't that my life was oh so fucking terrible really, more that it was oh so fucking empty and pointless since I'd failed the only woman ever foolish enough to love me.
Thirty fucking two and I swear I'd lived more of life and learned more of its lessons than men three times my age. I was so tired all the damn time and yet I never actually felt awake. Never felt a whole lot of anything if I was being honest.
I leaned my head back against the headrest, carving my fingers through my hair and filling the car with smoke, sighing as I equally hunted down the memories and wished they'd leave me be.
"I'll love you forever and a day," Ava breathed, looking up at me from beneath those blonde bangs which always got in her eyes and I smiled before stealing a kiss.
"I'll love you until death and beyond, my girl," I promised her in return. And oh how fucking right I'd been about that.
I took my phone from my pocket and opened it up, scrolling to the video I watched too often, the one they'd sent me. The one that had damned me for all of time.
My thumb hovered over the button to play it and through some sense of repentance or insanity or just pure fucking misery, I pressed down.
I watched as Ava was hauled into the room the camera was aimed at. She was naked, her body battered and bruised, cut and beaten. They told her to beg for me to save her. She begged for me not to instead.
"I'm already gone, my love," she wheezed out. "Don't let them take you too."
Tom Nelson backhanded her before the clip ended and that was the last time I'd ever seen my wife alive.
My phone started buzzing and flashing and I growled at it as a notification popped up over the image of my wife's tearstained face, telling me to get my ass to my pa's house or else.
That handy reminder made me realise the time and the fact that I was going to be late. Really fucking late. Goddammit.
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Also by Caroline Peckham & Susanne Valenti
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Kings of Quarantine
Kings of Lockdown
Kings of Anarchy
Queen of Quarantine
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Dark Empire Series
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The Ruthless Boys of the Zodiac Series
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Vicious Fae
Broken Fae
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Zodiac Academy: Ruthless Fae
Zodiac Academy: The Reckoning
Zodiac Academy: Shadow Princess
Zodiac Academy: Cursed Fates
Zodiac Academy: Fated Throne
Zodiac Academy Novellas
Origins of an Academy Bully
The Big A.S.S. Party
Supernatural Prison for Dark Fae Series
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Darkmore Penitentiary: Captive Fae
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Eternal Shade
Eternal Curse
Eternal Vow
Eternal Night
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Kingdom of Wishes
Kingdom of Shadows
Cage of Lies
(Dystopian M/F Series)
Rebel Rising
Tainted Earth
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Afflicted
Altered
Adapted
Advanced
The Vampire Games
(Complete Paranormal Romance M/F Trilogy)
V Games
V Games: Fresh From The Grave
V Games: Dead Before Dawn
The Vampire Games: Season Two
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Wolf Games
Wolf Games: Island of Shade
Wolf Games: Severed Fates
The Vampire Games: Season Three
Hunter Trials
The Vampire Games Novellas
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Bleeding Snow
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