Page 85 of Speak

Routine. Discipline.

I step into my shoes, tighten them, and step out into the brisk late-September morning. The sky is still dark, the misty overcast covering where hues of magenta are usually already be brightening where the sky meets land. Even the heavens are melancholy.

I push play on an audible, listening to a dark romance book, (a guilty pleasure of mine) and descend my front porch steps, hittingthe pavement of the dark, two-lane road. Half a mile into my run, the mist begins to get denser, turning into a fog at my feet. I turn right, heading into the first trail that will take me to the outskirts of the lake and lead me to the old lighthouse the locals say is haunted, that only works on days like today.

My nose is cold, my sweatshirt clinging to me both from the sweat and the mist that’s now a light drizzle. It’s uncomfortable, yet still bearable. However, between the characters in my book, the cold, and the feeling of being uncomfortable, it usually keeps my mind off of Raven. Except right now, in this weather, I think of how much she would love it. My spooky little Siren, wrapped in the tentacles hidden in this fog that laps at my feet like cloudy water, playing her cello, summoning sailors to their deaths with her song. In the density of this haze I suffocate with this unrelentingneedfor her. I don’t understand it. I don’t want it. I know if I fuck her once, just once, this hunger for her will finally be satiated and I’ll be able to go about my day.

I’ll be normal again, hunting for women my age or older that only seek companionship for the evening. That’s why Inferno had been so perfect before I met her. I had a routine. Find a woman that needed minimal aftercare, take her up to the VIP rooms, fuck her, leave her, go home, sleep. Now I can’t even get hard without thinking about her first.

It's Incredible.

Infuriating.

It’s incredibly infuriating.

I reach the trail that leads me to the rocky shoreline, passing the yellow!WARNING! TREACHEROUS ROCKS BELOW! NO DIVING!Sign. It’s the same sign I’ve passed a hundred times over since moving here. Angry that my thoughts have led me to lose my place and I have no idea what’s happened in the book I’m listening to, the trail turns into gravel and goes up to the lighthouse when I spot…someonein the distance. The closer I get the more it feels like a mirage. The closer I get, the more I hope this is just an illusion.

Dark hair clings to her face, her body, wet from the cold drizzle. She stands by the edge, arms outstretched, wearing nothing but a flimsy camisole and lacy black cheeky panties that also cling to her body like a second skin. But I would know the shape of thatbody, I would know that strip of silver spider silk hair, I would know the shape of her face and the length of those lashes even in darkness.

I kick up faster, muscles burning, stomach churning as the drizzle turns to rain. “Raven!” I scream. It all feels like a horrible, horrible nightmare happening in slow motion as she takes a slow step backward, a smile on her face, as if she’s unaware that with six or seven more uneven steps, she’d walk off the short cliff and onto the jagged rocks below.

!WARNING! TREACHEROUS ROCKS BELOW! NO DIVING!

“Raven! Siren! Raven!”

Her eyes are open but she doesn’t recognize me. The blank stare in her eyes, I can tell her mind is elsewhere – a shell of nothing but sinister memories plaguing her. My heart is pounding, lungs blazing, gulping in air as I finally reach her. Her mouth opens and closes but no noise comes out, she’s speaking,tryingto speak. But she’s lost, lost in whatever is in her mind. A dream, a nightmare, a trance. There’s a whisper in the wind that feels like it’s carrying me to her, sending fleeting goosebumps all over my body, the hair on the back of my neck stands on its own and every fiber of my being is roaring for me to just please get there in time.

“Raven, STOP!” I bellow.

As she takes her final step back, I catch her forearm, slippery and cold, and tug her to me, yanking as hard as I can. Her skin is glacier cold, wet and she still makes no sound as we tumble to the ground. "Oh my god. Oh my god, Raven!” I slap her lightly, still covering her body with mine.

A flash of lightning and a roll of angry thunder crash above us. Her caramel eyes surrounded by wet lashes connect with mine as I lay atop her. She shivers and her eyes widen, taking in her surroundings, me, the cold, the lighthouse. She begins to struggle, completely unaware I just saved her. If I had been just two seconds slower…

"Siren. What. The. Fuck!” She pushes me off, teeth chattering and gets up. She runs, barefoot, wet, shivering and down through the woods. I chase after her like a predator hunting its prey. ”Siren!”

A sick thought floats through my mind with every footfall as I watch her thigh and ass jiggle and I feel the beast in me wanting to come out to play. To catch. To feast. To torment and rut.

But it’s cold and she’s wet and it’s not a time for that.

Her strong stride becomes a limping half-run, half-walk until she falls. She grabs at her tatted leg, massaging it. When I reach her, I keep in the hiss that wants to escape me. Her feet are bloody from the rocks and twigs and thorns she ran through, legs bruised, and it looks as though her ankle is swollen.

I take off my sweatshirt, tug it over her, kneel down, scoop her into my arms and when she tries to shove me off again, I clutch her closer. “I’m just trying to help, siren. You can’t walk. Your feet look like they’ve been shredded.”

She hangs her head and leans into my chest, shivering. “Where to?”

She points to the massive black cabin that I’ve always admired… three fucking doors down from my house.

________

At the back gate, which was left opened, I follow the little cobblestone path and up the stairs to the back porch. I kick open the door that’s left a jar. It bangs on the wall and Siren scowls at me. “Where am I putting you?”

She points to a hallway and I hear footsteps rumbling down the stairs.

“Jesus Christ!” is followed by, “What the fuck are you doing here?”

Of course.NaturallyArcher and Jonas are here.

I perch Raven on the grey and black marble granite countertop. They bustle through, shirtless, in thermal pajama bottoms that almost match. “I think she was sleepwalking. I was running this morning and I found her at the lighthouse… preparing to cliff dive onto the rocks.”

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