The House of the Wicked (The snake and the raven #1)

23. August

August

This isn’t an emergency

S he’s terrified. It’s clear in her eyes. Behind the fat tears beading along her lashes is a fear so profound it’s almost beautiful. Pushing the barrel of the gun further into the delicate skin under her chin—a fucking gun. Where’d she get a gun? Logically, I know she lives in a house surrounded by them, but she’d never steal one from Ricky.

God . She almost got away. My heart’s racing as I attempt to rein in my panic and suffocate the fury blazing like a wildfire through my body.

Her breathing is haggard. With each lungful of oxygen she draws into her body, her perfect fucking tits press further into my chest. If she notices how hard I am, she doesn’t let on, neither do I. Staring at her, I wait for her terror to subside, for her arrogance to return. I wait for the woman who flung her car keys at my head to resurface. But the longer I wait, the more fear I see.

She asked me not to hurt her, now I’m fighting the urge not to smile at her, because I will. I’ll hurt her in ways she’ll never see coming. But if she knows that now, s he might temper her fear, master it. She might allow her rage to replace this fear and that won’t work for me. Or for her. We both need her fear. Her to be irrational behavior, her need to question everything will serve us both. So, instead of warning her any more than I have, I let her fear bloom, let it take over.

“What were you planning on doing with this?” I demand, pulling the gun away from her throat and brushing the barrel along the seam of her mouth. She’s silent. “If you pull a gun on me again, Nora, you better be prepared to use it.” Unclipping the magazine and pocketing it before offering the gun back to her.

“Technically, I didn’t pull it on you.” There she is . I smile. “It was just in my hand,” she states.

My eyes jump around the around the alley and then back at her. “We need to get back.” It’s not lost on me how impossible my request is, given I’m currently still pressed firmly against her. We need to move, but I can’t. Not yet. The feeling of her against me is intoxicating, as always. And like every time before, I relish the way she makes me forget. “I don’t want to carry you back to the guesthouse, but I will if you try to run,” I say, finally stepping away from her.

“Don’t fucking touch me,” she spits the words at me, venomous and hateful as ever. Good, I smirk.

“No?” I raise my brows at her. “Every single memory of each touch we’ve shared is burned into my mind, Nora, and I don’t remember you hating a single one.” I say, dropping my head low until my lips are a breath away from hers, but not touching.

When her breath hitches, the fight to control my need, to grind my hips against her stomach, nearly slips. I long for her to feel the want that burns beneath my skin; the want that exists solely for her. The same want flashing like lightning in her eyes.

“Get off me,” she whispers, leaning into my body.

Moving away from her, and stepping to the side, a sigh drops from my lips as she marches off. She’s a few paces in front of me. Slowing purposefully behind her is torture, the best kind.

Her sweatpants are so goddamn tight. Each step makes her ass sway in the most incredible way. The anger I felt moments ago has dissolved and in its place is a kind of desire entirely unfamiliar to me, a coexisting polarity to my rage. Rage is familiar. I long for rage. This desire—this burning need to fuck my anger into her—is new to me. Her little stunt could’ve fucked us both. But while I’ve never struggled to dip into the anger lurking inside me, with Nora, it’s slippery. Maybe it’s because I understand her, not that she’ll ever accept that, but I do. I understand why she ran. Why she needs to escape. I know what it feels like to desperately crawl toward your freedom. So the anger I should’ve felt, that I need to feel, is painfully absent.

B y the time we get back to the room, I’m fucking exhausted. The sprint through the town, the raid, the few hours in a holding cell, all of it weighing me down. I need sleep, because waiting on the other side of my exhaustion is worry and grief that might very well destroy whatever’s left of my heart.

I can’t think about Dima. Not yet. Sitting in that police cruiser, handcuffed, hearing Nora scream, not knowing if it was her or Ricky, had eaten me alive. Not once had I suspected that it could’ve been Mimi. But I can’t touch those feelings, not now. Veer into the path where she’s jus t Mimi and I’m just Auggie... Fuck. We haven’t even reached the safe house and the wheels are already coming off.

Nora’s hovering near the sofa when the shrill sound of her phone ringing yanks me out of my head and back into the present.

“Who is it?” I demand. Who the fuck would call at—my eyes drop to my watch—two in the morning?

She ignores me, not bothering to look in my direction, as she answers the call. “Adam?” Her voice croaks over his name. Shit, she’s close to hysteria again. Fuck knows what that sniveling little shit will make of it.

“Put it on speakerphone,” I demand again, watching as she flings a filthy look over her shoulder before doing exactly as I said.

“Where are you?” Adam’s voice bounces around the room, instantly setting my nerves on edge. “I got to the house a few minutes ago, but it’s deserted. You didn’t even lock the door, Nonny.” Yeah, because she has no intention of returning, dipshit.

“We’re on our way to one of the safe houses,” Nora says, still sounding on the verge of tears.

“Which one? I’ll meet you there.” Like fuck he will. Stalking into her line of sight, I shake my head aggressively. He won’t be meeting us anywhere.

She stalls for a second too long. I sigh before cutting in. “Adam, it’s August. Ask Stephen to get a permission slip from Ricky and I’ll let you join us.” Ricky wants Nora isolated. I don’t know why yet. But I’m confident Adam won’t get the green light to join us. Yet.

“Fuck you, man,” Adam growls. “They arrested Gracious, too. I’m out in the open with no fucking security and my dad’s locked up.” Jesus, he’s a whining fuck stain.

But I didn’t count on Gracious being arrested. My brain literally fucking aches as it scrambles to plan for the hole his absence will create. I hope—

Nora’s voice cuts my thoughts short. “Adam, just do what August says. I’ll see you soon,” she says. Grabbing the phone out of her hand, I kill the call.

After quickly removing her sim card, I toss the phone on the bedside table. One night of uninterrupted fucking rest. Why does it feel like asking for a miracle at this point?

“What the hell is your problem?” Nora shrieks at me before rushing toward the bedside table, no doubt trying to get her phone back.

Moving into her path, I nod to the space behind her. “Get in the bed,” I whisper, smiling down at her. She’s so short, it makes her protesting even more ridiculous.

“What? No, I’m not getting in the fucking bed. Are you insane? Give me my phone.”

“Get in the fucking bed, Nora,” I practically shout. Turning and dropping to a crouch, my hands dip into my suitcase, searching... There. Fuck, thank God. The clink of metal is almost musical as I untangle the handcuffs from whatever they’re caught on in my bag.

“Why do you have those?” Her eyes are wide as saucers as she notices them. A laugh rumbles out of me when she takes one calculated step away from me.

“These?” Lifting them up, my grin is practically feral as the moonlight blinks against the cold steel. “In case of emergencies, I guess.” I stalk toward her.

“This isn’t an emergency, August,” she whispers, taking another step back, closer to the bed.

“O f course it is, Nonny ,” I say, overemphasizing the infantile nickname everyone around her insists on using. “Give me your wrist.”

“No.”

I glare at her. “Give it to me.”

She huffs out a breath, stalling for a second before raising her hand. “Handcuffing me to the bed is barbaric, August.”

I snort at that, genuinely amused by her assumption. Closing the handcuff around her left wrist, I wink before saying, “I’m not handcuffing you to the bed.”

“So where are—” Her words die on her tongue as the opposite side of the handcuffs snap around my left wrist.

“Go on, get in.” I gesture toward the bed with our joined hands.

She stomps the four steps to the bed, dragging me behind her, before crawling in. It takes a second to move our bodies into what will hopefully be a position comfortable enough to sleep in. When she finally stops twisting and turning, my eyes close. My arm’s dangling somewhere above her head, hers rested on the pillow, close enough for my fingers to brush hers.

“Go to sleep,” I mutter after a few minutes of tense silence.

“I can’t. This is so uncomfortable,” she groans.

Jesus , I sigh internally. “Lift your head.” When she does, my arm slips under her neck, so she’s cradled in the crook of my elbow. It’s equally uncomfortable, but for an entirely different set of reasons. My body stiffens as she snuggles into my arms and exhales.

It shouldn’t surprise me that sleep is the furthest thing from her mind. I fight the groan struggling to get free from my throat as she takes a deep breath.

“W hy did you say you couldn’t promise not to hurt me?” she asks softly.

All I want is sleep. She’s made me chase her ass across this goddamn town, and now the need to close my fucking eyes and forget—even if it’s only for a few hours—is completely overwhelming. Christ, fuck , just a few hours to drift off into a version of reality where none of this is real. But of course, she has questions. And here, wrapped in darkness with her cushioned in my arms, my mind betrays my body as it pushes me to answer her. I can give her something minor.

A warning. A truth. Awareness.

“You refuse to see me as I am, Nora,” I say. “Do you think I don’t notice? The way you let me touch you, the way you look at me, the small glances you steal when you think no one is watching…” Dragging her back against my chest. “What you don’t realize is I’m always watching. And I know what it means.”

She relaxes against my chest and I almost fucking moan as the soft swell of her ass pushes against my cock.

“What does it mean, August?”

“You know what it means.”

She falls into a pensive silence. I listen to her breathing slow and then deepen. Relaxing back against my pillow, I let my exhaustion pull me toward the oblivion I desperately crave. But she’s not ready to let me go just yet.

“Lomax, huh?” she asks. With my eyes still closed, I smile up at the ceiling.

“It’s not really my last name,” I whisper.

“What is it then?” Her voice is soft and husky and so fucking alluring.

“Hunter, Nora. My last name is Hunter.”