Page 118 of Inside the Wicked

“Welcome to reality,” I mumble.

Meeting Rhett’s eye, he contemplates just for a second before giving me a small nod.

I’d told him I wanted to be the one to stop at least one evil soul tonight.

Permanently.

I pull the trigger aimed for the man’s chest.

Even though I was prepared, I’d wanted to do it, I don’t think the twinge of regret,fear,will ever go away. It’s the kind that adds a small tarnish within me but I’m glad for it, when it’s the thing that separates me from the man I killed. Good from evil. Not the act but the intention and the emotions we bear toward it.

Rhett’s touch is gentle over my hands still clamped around the gun. I let him take it from me, then he tilts my chin up from staring at the body.

“Are you okay?” he asks, searching my eyes to know if I lie.

“I think so,” I whisper.

I flash a look around Rhett for Adam’s reaction. He doesn’t give away much; a little disturbed but it’s hard to tell if it’s toward what I’ve become or if it’s impacting him more to see the monsters behind the trafficking he’s only heard about so far.

When our eyes lock, I have my answer in the way he eases a small smile. It’s painfully understanding.

“Let’s get away from here,” Rix says.

“Are you sure nothing can trace this back to us?” Adam asks apprehensively.

Rix slaps a hand to his chest, deeply offended. “Dude, have you not been paying attention at all?”

They walk ahead as Rix continues voicing his dismay about Adam’s doubt in Xoid.

“You looked sexy as hell when I found you,” Rhett says, creeping closer to me. There’s a man I just killed lying a few feet away and yet he has the ability to make that insignificant in the way he speaks and reaches for me. “I almost didn’t want to intervene just to watch my violent little creature at work.”

My lips part to the rumble of his words cascading down my neck.

“Now you’re being inappropriate.”

He grabs my ass, pulling me closer until his thigh is between my legs.

“I thought we were still playing?” His hands coax my hips to move and I can’t help myself. I grip fistfuls of his t-shirt when pleasure starts to mount.

“We can’t do this here,” I pant.

“Why not? I don’t think he’s going to tell.”

This should be all kinds of wrong. There’s something fucked up with me not to give a damn about the body behind us. All I care about ishim. Rhett, Rhett, Rhett.His name chants in my mind like an exhilarator to my impending orgasm.

“Please. I need––” my words are cut off by my own cry of tortured frustration when he grips my hips tight, stopping me from grinding against him anymore.

“I’m not above fucking you next to the blood of our enemies, even over it, but the other’s will be back to clean up the mess any minute and no one is getting to hear those sounds from you but me,” he says, equally as breathless.

I’m so needy that my underwear is soaked through. Rhett takes my hand, leading me out of the dark passage between the containers and we emerge into the bustling carnival again. My cloud of lust disperses enough to begin relaying what just happened.

“Will they find the women and children that we were too late to save?” I ask.

“Yes. We have the two others he was with. One of them was quick to give it up. These guys are always the easiest to break. They’re at the bottom of the chain; unreliable and flakey crooks just looking for a quick payout with the least involvement. The moment they get spooked they usually back out.”

It’s a relief to hear. Rhett goes on to explain how it’s not often they get a trace on the “poachers” as he calls them. Tonight we got lucky.

“There’s no redemption for someone like that,” I say, though I think I’m trying to convince myself after what I did.

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