Body Tox (The Bodies duet #1)

Chapter 21

A series of sirens wailed outside. It was from a distance, but if I had to guess, every fire station for miles was on the scene. Not long after, Echo was back, moving around inside the attic. Her hair was nearly black, and soot was coating her clothes.

So, there was obviously a fire happening somewhere.

The robes were gone, but I wasn’t sure how long I’d been unconscious. But everything in my gut told me she started that fire.

“Welcome back, little pyro,” I said.

She wouldn’t meet my eyes. Instead, she shocked me by hopping up on the stone slab I was on and curling up in my arms. I blinked, unable to comprehend exactly what the fuck was going on.

I couldn’t see her ash-covered face, but I felt the coolness of her tears drip onto my chest.

This woman who tortured me, pleasured me, and tried to kill me…was crying?

Not really thinking, I yanked my arms down. The weight and pain of my wrists screamed at me. My muscles ached while cradling her cold form and contemplating my whole damn life. This tornado of a woman had flipped my world upside down.

“Wanna talk about it?” I said, rubbing the black from her hair.

She was silent, and the only sounds were her quiet sniffling and her tears running off my chest onto the stone bed.

“No.” It was all she said and curled deeper into my side.

Pausing my thoughts, I calculated the timing between the siren sounds and when I heard them. It was near her house. So, her father met the fiery end he deserved.

“I’m sorry, my Little Wraith,” I said.

“Me too,” she whispered so softly I wasn’t one hundred percent sure she’d spoken.

She started to get off, but I held her tighter.

“You can go back to torturing me later. Right now, be still, and let me hold you, woman.”

She gasped but laid back down without a word.

We lay there in silence, the sirens eventually dying out, the sounds of her silent tears quieting finally, too.

The woman who’d set fire to two different buildings and was trying to kill me had just closed her eyes and fallen asleep on my chest. My wrists were damn near breaking, the cutting metal sinking into my skin, but I didn’t let go. I just held her until I fell asleep.

When I woke up, Echo was staring at me. She was sitting in a criss-crossed pose on the side of the stone slab, watching me with a puzzled look. Her hair was wet, and that soot that covered her face had been washed away.

Now, her radiant beauty was shining on her face, enhanced by the light from the hole in the ceiling. The sunlight felt brighter than usual. It was lighting up the room around us, but then I heard church bells and the sound of shuffling underneath us.

Looked like mass was in session.

“Are you going to atone for your devilish deeds, Little Wraith?” I mused, yawning and stretching my body where I was able.

It hadn’t escaped my attention that she’d adjusted the chains, and I had more slack for my arms. They weren’t directly above my head anymore, and the constant dizziness I’d felt the night before was less upon waking up.

“Come on,” she said, scooting off the stone and walking over to a box on a wooden fixture in the room.

There were all kinds of tools and materials up here. Rugs that had been rolled up, forgotten, glass containers, and rusted implements were littered all over the ground and on random tables spread around the area.

There was a window on the far side of the small space and a trap door that I assumed went down to the main prayer room.

I didn’t know a thing about this place, and I was kicking myself for not reading any layout or blueprint plans for it. I knew most of the blueprints of every building in Alaska, yet this church remained a mystery.

The only thing I knew about it was the creeps that put on robes and collected idiots to sacrifice. I wondered if Echo knew about the origins of this place or the cult.

“Are we going on a field trip?” I said, watching the little fiery blonde fiddle with that box at the back of the table.

“I am not asking, Asher,” she warned, and now I could see the golden metal she held in her hands.

It was a knife—actually a big ass curved dagger. One that looked lethal, and the memory of the gold flashed in my mind from the video.

Curious as ever, my little mystery.

“Ah, so this is your paintbrush?” I teased, enjoying the freedom with my damn arms again. I stuffed my hands under my head. “I prefer to stay at the murder castle.”

A slight twerk of her brow told me she definitely didn’t know what this place was.

“How long did they keep you in that tower, princess?” I said, laughing.

She didn’t laugh. She walked closer to me with her pointy friend.

“What do you know, Pretty Boy?”

I shrugged innocently, and she lunged at me, her knife tickling my neck.

“You sure do love playing with knives, don’t you? Be careful because those shiny tips bite, baby. Like me.”

She smiled. That beautiful, teasing look was back where it belonged.

“I know they bite,” she said proudly, unbuttoning her jeans and bringing those milky thighs into my view. “But today, I’m more interested in hearing your bark , Vamps.”

My eyes widened, and I couldn’t help but desperately watch her hand as she slid that damned knife over her thigh. Her moan made me instantly hard. I had to hold my breath, my humor dying off like my strangled hard-on.

She had my boxers half on, and the band was threatening to snap me in the stomach.

“Oh fuck. If only you could taste me, Pretty Boy,” she purred, those drops of blood slipping down her thigh.

I was downright whimpering and knew she was reveling in my reaction.

“Wh-What are you doing, you fucking tease?”

“There it is. Good boy.”

Fuck her. Fuck her. Fuck her…Fuck me.

“Since you were a good little boy, maybe I will reward you if you behave and go on this trip with me.”

I narrowed my eyes at her.

She used her nail to swipe the blood drop from her leg and smeared it on my lips, holding my hands down with her foot on my chain. Her nails dug into my cheek, and she used her tongue to lick the crimson droplet off my lips.

A moan escaped both our mouths, and I captured hers with my own, biting her bottom lip and using my legs to wrap her into my chest. Her knife dropped to the ground, skittering off under the wooden table.

She could feel the power of my cock jamming into her stomach, and I pulled her harder down into me.

“There is nothing fucking little on me, woman. You would be wise to remember that, or next time I won’t be drowning you, I will fucking suffocate you.”

She paused for a minute but then huffed and pushed herself up from the altar.

“You wish,” she said, adjusting her shirt and dusting off imaginary lint from her pants.

“I will kill you, Asher. It’s not a matter of if but when,” she said. “The only question remaining is, how slowly. That is up to you because I am generous.”

I snorted, but she didn’t look like she was teasing. Was she intent on killing me because of her father hiring me? Or something else…

Maybe if I played a little follow-the-leader game, I would figure out why she seemed to want—or was it a need—me dead situation.

“I’ll behave for now. Where are we going?” I said, raising my chained hands in surrender.

She leaned against the back of the wall and contemplated. The hooks linked to my chains encircled in the metal loops behind me clinked.

“Evangeline.”

My blood ran cold, and I barely registered the chains falling from my wrists.

“Why in the fuck would I go back there?” I sputtered, rubbing the raw skin under my palms.

“I don’t like puzzles.” It was all she said before tossing my clothes at me.

I could play nice and see why my Little Wraith was digging into my past, and maybe better yet, I could bury it even more.

It might be fun to play with her. I could get more information about her in the process and be one step closer to ending my target for good. My phone was lost in that fire, and there was no way of contacting the Debt Collector anyway, so I was on my own.

I would take her phone and use it to send a message when I had her distracted.

My cock throbbed.

I couldn’t think of a better way to distract this gorgeous woman than to show her that I wasn’t fucking little. Throwing her on her back and making her count every goddamn inch of me.

“Lead the way, Little Wraith,” I said, smiling, my plan in action. “Lead the way.”