Page 3 of Capturing Sin

My thoughts drifted for a moment as I stared up at the steel ceiling beams through the gloom, wondering what would happen when I died.

How fast would Leo move on? Would my uncle even bother to hold a funeral for me? Would anyone miss me after I was gone?

I blinked as someone touched my wounds. A biting pain seared my chest, setting my lungs on fire and yanking me from the fluffy cloud of nothingness I’d been suffocating on.

“S-Sstop!” I hissed, my slurring barely audible.

A monster blinked into focus above me.

Sunshine eyes bored into me, glowing blindly bright. “Hold on.”

I tried to bat him away, my hands slapping uselessly at his arms. By some miracle, I narrowly avoided impaling my palms on the bony spikes protruding from his shoulders.

The demon arched a silvery brow at me. “Why don’t you conserve your strength for something useful? Like living,” he drawled, voice warm and smooth.

I tried to bare my teeth but couldn’t summon more than a glare with the dizziness washing over me.

He lifted my hand, my pale skin looking peachy next to his dark-grey shade. The beast ran a forked tongue along a large gash on my forearm, ending just below the oversize watch clinging to my wrist.

Revulsion had me twitching in his grip, but I couldn’t even feel the pain his feeding should have caused.

“C-Can’t you let…m-me die in peace?” I coughed, and my blood speckled his sharp cheekbone.

The love of my life had sacrificed me on the battlefield. Wasn’t I suffering enough?

A small smile twitched the monster’s lips. “This isn’t your end, huntress. Not if I can help it.”

His meaning tried to sink in through the haze, but I couldn’t understand what he was saying.

“This will hurt, but you’ll thank me for it when we both wake up after a little nap together. If I can be brave enough to save my enemy, you can be brave enough to accept what it means.”

Ragged wounds bled freely from gunshots high in his chest. He raised his forearm, claws widening an already deep gash bisecting his grey skin.

Bright blood dripped from the cut, splattering my lips. I coughed, distress seizing my chest at the damage I’d already taken. I tried to spit out the liquid, but it trickled over my nose, making it impossible to breathe.

The golden sunbursts around his eyes seemed to glow even brighter, a fiery corona amid a sea of black pupil and sclera. He gripped my jaw, claws pricking my cheeks as he forced my mouth open.

Blood filled my mouth. It burned like cheap gin as it slid down my throat, oddly heavy. Heat raced through my body, scorching me from the inside.

The hold on my face slipped, and the demon’s eyes rolled back. He crashed down beside me, but I barely felt the impact against my arm.

Fire filled my wounds, and I screamed.

White-hot agony cut the final threads holding me conscious.

“I don’t fucking believe it.” A harsh male grunt yanked me from the darkness. Something cool pressed to the pulse in my throat.

I peeled open bleary eyes. Everything ached. Even my eyeballs seemed to throb as I tried to take in the sight before me.

A familiar face hovered over me, steel beams cutting behind him. He removed his fingers from my throat. It took me a moment to place the man through the haze—Jayce. The cocky beta squad hunter who’d been gunning for my position in alpha for years.

Jayce’s eyes narrowed. “She’s asleep. Not fuckin’ dead. There’s barely a scratch on her. You sure she was even injured?”

Everything came rushing back.

I wasn’t dead. But my fiancé and the rest of my team had left me behind to die here.

A different kind of pain lanced through me before I remembered why I could wake up.

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