Page 53 of Savage Hunt

He sneered. “Then stop fucking around and torture me.”

I pressed the blade into his skin until a line of red bloomed across his flesh. “Maybe I’ll use the Devil’s Nightshade again.”

“That’s child’s play for someone like you.” His black pupils thinned into diamonds. “You’re the fear master, aren’t you? Why don’t you use fears on me anymore?”

“Because I’ve seen all of yours, and I’ve grown bored of them.”

His challenging smile had me questioning my tactics. “You haven’t seen them all.” He lowered his head toward me. “I’ve got one more fear you’d love.”

Unable to resist temptation, my fingers rested on his cheek to seek out a new fear I had yet to discover.

Maybe I should have thought twice before tapping into this nightmare.

Another version of me appeared sprawled on the ground at his feet. Crimson splattered my face and chest while I listlessly stared at the ceiling.

No life remained. That had all been ripped away. A gash in my throat spilled blood, and a jagged hole revealed the empty place my heart should have been.

Bile oozed up my throat at the revolting sight of me dead and broken.

The beast bellowed so loudly I had to clamp my hands over my ears. His teeth extended into sharp points, and slick black talons sprouted from his fingers.

“Tate!” The chains pinning his wrists and ankles to the wall violently rattled as he fought the restraints. “No! This isn’t real. Get up.”

Invisible ropes of steel and titanium wound around my lungs as his anguished wails ricocheted against the stone walls. Each howl slammed into my skull like a blow from a metal bat, and I stumbled back.

As his agony became my own, I clawed at my chest, trying to rip out the emotions he poured into me. It wouldn’t work, though. I couldn’t hide from them any more than he could.

“Tate, baby, please get up.” His cracking voice nearly shattered me.

I fell onto the bed, choking on air as tears blurred the room. The other me stirred inside, banging against the walls she crouched behind. She hadn’t known how deep his feelings ran. He never let her see.

Now she couldn’t unsee it. She couldn’t stop feeling it.

He wanted her body. He dreamed of all the deliciously dark and dirty things he would do to her.

But he craved her soul too. He never thought he’d find anyone who would accept him or the monster he could become.

She did.

He thought he was doomed to wander the worlds alone, and even in the afterlife, no one would greet him.

Tears leaked down my cheeks as the beast continued to fight, trying to reach the dead hallucination of me—of her—on the ground. He thought he could bring her back if he just touched her, took her pain, gave her his energy.

He’d give her everything if she just came back.

He loved her.

The realization slammed into me with the force of a wrecking ball, and the other me burst forward to rip the reins out of my grasp.

“Fane!”

His head jerked in my direction once the other me called out. As the confusion drifted away and his fear vision faded, rage coiled around his muscles. He knew exactly what he was doing when he provoked me to show him that fear. He knew it would be enough to push him over the edge or reach his precious other me.

The fear was so traumatic it did both.

His nostrils flared as danger oozed out of him, along with a bone-chilling growl. “Tate, come back.”

“I’m here!”

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