Page 97 of Lady Killer

“There is no us,” I said weakly. Even I no longer truly believed that.

“Your lips still swollen from my kiss say otherwise,” he said confidently, wrapping his arms around me.

“A kiss means nothing,” I pouted.

“My kiss means everything, petite diablesse. And if you’ve forgotten that you are mine, I’ll be forced to devour those wicked lips until you admit it.”

He leaned forward and nipped at my lips—only this time, we were interrupted by his phone ringing. “Fuck,” Alister cursed under his breath, pulling away from me.

I feigned indifference at the loss of his touch.

“What’s the matter?” he snapped at whoever was on the other end of the phone.

Whomever they were, they were more discreet than Autumn, because I couldn’t make out a word being said.

Alister let out a heavy sigh. “How long ago? Where?”

My stomach turned as my brain whirred, slowly piecing things together.

“How many?”

No.

Alister looked at me, his brow pinched. “She’s with me, she’s safe.”

Before he could finish, my phone vibrated in my hands again.

UNKNOWN: Rose are red, violets are blue, those girls are dead, soon you will be too.

Chapter twenty-seven

Alister

Three. Three more fucking dead girls.

As I watched Luz’s face fall, I knew she had received another message from the killer, telling her exactly what my brother had told me.

“Cops are arriving, Ali, I’ve got to go. Don’t let her out of your sight.”

Nixon had the misfortune of stumbling on the killer’s latest exhibition and was stuck managing the police on campus.

He hung up and I turned toface my . . .

I wasn’t sure what exactly she was to me, but I hadn’t been lying when I said she was mine. No one would be taking her from me. Not the Virgin Sacrifice Killer. Not my older brother. No one.

“They’re dead,” she whispered. “All of them.”

Her lips trembled as she looked up at me, tears in her eyes, and I had never seen her look so broken before.

Born to an addict and raised by a family of killers, comfort was not in my nature.

And yet, wrapping my hands around her waist and pulling her close to me as I watched her sag under the weight of the killer’s latest crimes felt as natural as breathing.

Her head barely met my chest, and I pressed my lips onto the crown of her hair, breathing in the faint scent of her shampoo and conditioner layered under the dirt and sweat from last night.

“They killed those girls, Alister. It’s my faul—‍”

“It’s not your fault, diablesse.”

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