by Renee Rocco
“Impossible.”
Didn’t mean to say the word out loud.
“Not so impossible.” Her voice is a hush, barely audible above the rushing of blood in my ears and the hammering of my heart.
Afraid I’m dreaming, praying I’m awake, I balance my weight on one arm and trace my fingers down her cheek. Reverently. Half expecting her to dissolve beneath my touch. But she’s warm and smooth. Perfect. Real. Not a figment of my desperate imagination.
She blinks up at me, her face frustratingly unreadable. The rapid rise and fall of her chest the only sign of her distress. There she is, the girl who dug herself so deep into my heart, I didn’t know where I ended and she began.
The girl who was tungsten wrapped around stardust.
“Jamie.” It’s a whisper of a prayer in the darkness.
Her sad smile is a fist squeezing my heart. “Hello, Eric.”
3
Wraith
The day I turned eighteen, the Unholy baptized me in blood, and I was reborn as Wraith. Hearing the name Eric on Jamie Ellis’s lips is both a benediction and a blasphemy. Spoken in a place that’s an endless nightmare, where I’ve become more monster than man.
She’s a fantasy come to life, pulled from a corner of my mind reserved only for her.
It’d be too easy to find out if her mouth still tastes of apples.
Do it, the devil taunts.
Unfortunately for us, we’re in hell, and there’s no angel to counter the evil perched on my shoulder. Its incessant voice is a buzz in my brain, reminding me how Jamie left me hanging for eight goddamn years like I was nothing. Not even an afterthought. There’s no one to stop me from lifting her skirt, ripping off her panties, and sliding into her. Nothing to prevent me from stealing one moment of pleasure in this world of pain and misery.
Nothing but my conscience.
Fuuuck.
“You’re crushing me.”
Jamie’s breathy whisper sounds too intimate with her under me. My dick throbs in empty anticipation of what I can’t have. Of what’s never been mine to take.
“Bullshit.”
But I climb off her anyway. I may be a monster, but I’m not a rapist.
Disheveled, Jamie sits up and adjusts her skirt. Tendrils of hair came loose from its knot, and yet, that thing is still wound so tight it’s giving me a headache. She sweeps away those stray hairs and sits there, a portrait of tousled dignity.
She owes me a shitload of answers.
I start with the most crucial question. “What the fuck are you doing here?”
In this twisted kingdom. In this cell. With me. Out of nowhere, like a fantasy pulled from a fever dream.
To Jamie’s credit, she cringes. “It’s complicated.”
I gesture around the cell. “Seriously?”
She crisscrosses her legs, the position childlike, her spine achingly rigid. “It goes back to what happened after the acquittal.”
“Since we’re not doing a whole lot of fucking, we got nothing but time, sweetheart, so you better start talking.”
Jamie focuses on the floor. Then the wall. Finally, back at me, her expression unreadable, but her eyes spark with an intensity she can’t shield. Not from me. Never from me. “I didn’t stay long with my grandmother. The one in Reading. My father’s mother. Obviously, it couldn’t work, so she sent me to live with my aunt in Florida. That arrangement didn’t go well either, so I moved out at eighteen. After that, I bounced around between Orlando and Ocala, and now I’m here.”
Yeah, no. Jamie and I may not have been an official couple, or sleepovers-and-hair-braiding BFFs, but we for damn sure were more than casual. Because it was me who she ran to when daddy fucked her up and she needed comfort. I was the one who held her hand and walked with her in the woods for hours, dreaming of the day when she’d be free. I never treated her like trash when any other guy would have taken advantage of poor broken Jamie Ellis. So for her to sit there and gloss over the details of where she’s been and what she’s doing here is a slap to my face. Especially after her vanishing act sent me into a two-year pity party that ended the day I became an Unholy.
I think I’m more than justified in wanting to shake the shit out of her until a few answers come loose.
I grit my teeth as ket sends a fresh wave of razor blades skating through my veins. “I expected at least a goddamn phone call.”
Her cheeks flush. “I didn’t think you cared.”
“That’s a crock of shit, and you know it.” I narrow my eyes at her, making a conscious effort not to strangle her. “Why the hell were you with Crane last night?”
She looks guilty as sin, and it doesn’t take a genius to fit the pieces together. But I need to hear her say it—say the actual words to hammer home the nails in her coffin. “That’s even more complicated.”
“Then explain it to me like I’m a goddamn two-year-old.”
My roar rebounds off the walls, but Jamie doesn’t flinch. Just sits there, the epitome of composure. But I know her tells, and I see she’s gripping her hands so tightly, the skin is white from the strain.
“David is my husband.”
Don’t do it. Do nothing you’ll regret.
Nope, can’t talk myself off the cliff.
I’ve earned the name Wraith for a reason.
Jamie doesn’t see my strike coming. By then, it’s too late. I already have her on her feet, with one hand clamped around her throat. I shove her until her back slams against the wall. The breath gets knocked out of her, and when I kick her legs apart and force myself between them, I feed off the fear that flashes across her face.
Good. I want the bitch scared.
I want her as scared as I am every time her fucking husband chains me in the torture room and uses me as his personal playground.
I bring my face in real close to hers and bare my teeth in a snarl. “Say it again. I fucking dare you.”
She doesn’t. Instead, she whispers, “I’m so sorry, Eric.”
The apology is a knife digging its way deeper in me. I squeeze my eyes shut, unable to look at her without wanting to kill her for marrying that scumbag.
But I open my eyes anyway and crush her throat tighter. “Why?”
I don’t really want an answer because nothing she can say can ease the sting of betrayal.
But what I see is the damaged girl she was when we were teenagers. Who’d get teased because she had to dumpster dive for clothing. Who would rest her head on my shoulder and talk about going to England to visit medieval castles so she could see one of those walls she loves so much live and in person.
The girl who tasted of apples.
The only woman with the power to rip out my fucking heart.
My growl rumbles between us as I pull back my fist and let it fly into the concrete beside her head. Agony explodes up my arm as the skin over my knuckles splits. Bones shatter, the physical damage helping to regulate the pain splintering my brain.
I unclasp my hand from around her throat and stalk the claustrophobic width of the cell, trying to convince myself I don’t give a shit she’s married—or who her husband is. Yeah, not working. Nothing Crane’s done hurts as much as knowing Jamie is married to him.
Her gasp echoes around me. “What did you do?”
“Leave.” My voice is deceptively calm, the control I have on my temper slipping like sand through my fingers.
“Eric—”
“Don’t.” I cut her off, the barked word saturated in rage. I jab a finger at the door. “Get out.”
Apparently, she’s full of shitty decisions because she comes toward me instead of hitting the red button. “Please, Eric, let me explain.”
“Eric is dead,” I hiss. “My name is Wraith.” I stalk toward her, closing the distance between us in three long strides, and clamp my good hand around her upper arm. I drag her over to the bars, leaving drops of blood in our wake. “Get. The fuck. Out.”
Jamie, unflinching, stands her ground. “I need you to liste
n to me.”
“Because I give a shit what you need.” I release her arm with a shove, and she stumbles backward. What I should do is punch the wall again—and keep punching until I cause enough physical damage to numb what’s going on in my head. “Do us both a favor and go away, Jamie.”
But she’s still as stubborn as when we were kids. “Please let me explain.”
“What the fuck is there to explain? Look what that prick did to me.” I throw my arms wide to give her a good view of my battered body. “Give me one goddamn reason why I shouldn’t send you back to him in pieces to even the score.”
Jamie, with her back to the bars, is shivering, and it’s not from the cold. The dungeon is an oven because Crane doesn’t waste air-conditioning on the living dead.
“I am not my husband.”
Husband.
She’s got balls, I’ll give her that.
I change tactics and step toward her. I stink to high heaven. My mouth tastes of garbage, and blood is leaking from my hand like a sieve. Oh well, too bad for her. Her husband created this mess. My disgusting condition is her new problem.
But this is Gomorrah, and here, women want to slum it with trash. To get dirty with an animal. Jamie came for a monster, and that’s what I’ll give her.
Before she can stop me, I unravel her tidy hair and bury my undamaged hand in the silky brown strands. I try not to notice it’s softness or how good it smells, but I’m only human, and this is friggin’ Jamie. She hisses in a breath between clenched teeth when I grind against her and tries to look away, but I clench my fist and force her to meet my eyes.
“I’ve tasted your kiss for years. Thought of all the filthy things I would do to your body when you came home. I wanted to be the first guy to fuck you. The first one to make you happy. We would have been good together, Jamie. But you never came back. Nah, you trashed it down here in Florida.” I lean in close to her ear and flick my tongue over the delicate shell. Inhale the honeysuckle aroma clinging to her creamy skin. “Too bad you turned out to be an epic disappointment.”
She tries to shove me away, but that’s not happening. “Wraith, please don’t do this.”
I run the first knuckle of one of my busted fingers down her smooth cheek, leaving a line of blood in its wake. “No worries, you cold bitch. I wouldn’t fuck you now if I were dying and your pussy could save my life.” And then I think of an ideal way to crack her composure. “Doesn’t mean I won’t take a blow job. A mouth’s a mouth.”
Christ, I’ve never been more wrong about anything, ever.
Jamie’s so light, it takes nothing to push her to her knees. When I line up her face with my crotch, that’s as far as this fiasco goes. Her fist…elbow, who the fuck knows…connects with my balls and sends me reeling backward. I cup my nuts and cradle my ruined hand to my chest as a river of bile flows up my throat. Waves of agony ripple out from my groin, and I double over, choking down the vomit. Not sure if ket’s amplifying the pain, or if she just managed a prime shot. Doesn’t matter, really, because pain is pain, and currently, I’m feeling a whole lot of it.
I let out a laugh and wag my finger at her as I gasp for air. “Got the boys good, Runt.”
“Don’t you dare call me that.” She’s hellfire and brimstone as she wipes my blood off her cheek. “You’re lucky I didn’t bite it off.”
There’s a lesson to be learned. Don’t underestimate Jamie Ellis—yeah, no, I’ll cut off my tongue before I call her Jamie Crane.
Once I’m able to breathe, I straighten and swipe my hair out of my eyes. “Why him, Jamie?”
I can’t stop the question when it tumbles out of my mouth.
Chilling composure extinguishes her fire. “Because I was homeless and hungry, and David offered me a chance at a better life.”
His name on her lips kills me.
“You should have come home.” Desperation, I understand. Shit, I’m there now. Desperate for freedom and revenge. Doesn’t mean I’m willing to be diplomatic. Not when she’s wearing Crane’s fucking wedding band on her finger.
Her constrained anger is there in the flare of her nostrils and the clench of her jaw. “Mayhem was never my home.”
“It’s where you belonged.”
“No, it’s where you belong.” She glances at the steel door. “What’s done is done, Eri…Wraith. I can’t turn back the clock and make different choices. And honestly? We have a more pressing issue than the mistakes I made as a teenager.”
“What about the mistake you made when you married that piece of shit?”
“I didn’t know he was a piece of shit when I married him.” After a glance at the rock of an engagement ring, she spins it around, as if hiding it makes her marriage less real. “We met once while I was living with my aunt. I was surprised he even remembered me when he saw me years later in Orlando.”
“You make an impression.” I hear the bitterness in my voice, but I don’t give a shit.
“He got me off the street and gave me a new life. You’d have done the same thing if you’d been in my position.”
I lift a brow at her remark even though the action pulls at the cut on my forehead. “Hate to break it to you, but Crane could have offered me the moon, and I wouldn’t have married him.”
“Not funny.” Do I see the ghost of a smile lift her pretty lips? If I did, they flatten back into a humorless line real fast. “He told me the fighters are here by choice.”
Can’t help my bitter laugh at that bit of bullshit. “And you believed him because Crane’s such a fine, upstanding citizen.”
“I believed him because he never gave me a reason not to. And given what goes on in Mayhem, is it such a stretch for me to accept that people willingly put themselves in the cage?” She gestures to me. “Take you, for example. You’re brutal in the ring. So, you can hate me all you want, but I genuinely thought the men are here on their own volition.”
I reluctantly concede she has a legit argument. We go hard in Mayhem, but it’s consensual. And yeah, when Crane grabbed me, I was making a name for myself in the local underground mixed martial arts circuit where pretty much anything goes. It’s why he targeted me, or so he said. Who the hell knows if that’s even his true motive.
I give her a lazy grin. “You stalked me?”
She lowers her gaze, but not before I glimpse an honest human emotion cross her face. Makes me remember when we were kids, and she’d have to work some shit out in her head and have the same expression. But the moment passes, and when she looks back at me, she’s stoic again. She takes my hand, tsking as she surveys the damage. Her gentle touch nearly drops me to my knees after feeling nothing but pain for months. “Does it hurt?”
“Like a motherfucker.” The bleeding’s slowed, but I can’t move my fingers, and it’s swollen and purple from the first knuckles to my wrist. They’ll have to give me a double-dose of noz to make sure I’m ready for my next fight.
No way will Crane allow me to sit out an event. Not when I’m his champion. I’d bet my right nut he’s already sold tickets for my fight. He disappoints fans, he loses fans. He loses fans, his kingdom crumbles.
Not gonna happen.
“I truly am sorry, Wraith,” Jamie whispers. Each stroke of her fingers up my arm sends tiny frissons of electricity straight to the tip of my dick. “For everything.”
“Not your fault, Runt.”
Jamie’s eyes are golden glitter against rich Pennsylvania green, and I can almost smell the damp, mountain air. “Does it hurt? Not your hand. The other thing.”
Ket.
“Not as much now. Lyle will shoot me with more once you’re gone.”
She cringes like my words are a physical assault. “No, he won’t.”
“Yeah, he will.”
I walk backward until I reach the wall. Sag against the stone, my body just…done. My mind is a tangle of thoughts and memories, and…yes, I’m still reeling from the shock that Jamie—my Jamie—is here.
“They’ll do what I tell them.�
��
“You’ll make it worse,” I say on a frustrated and exhausted sigh.
“The guards listen to me.”
“No, Jamie, they listen to Crane.” I need her to understand that her good intentions will only make my situation worse. “They’ll dose me harder just to fuck with me.”
Her brow furrows, and I doubt she’s aware she’s wringing her hands again. “I see.” Then she lifts her chin and says deadass, “I’m going to get you home.”
I laugh. Can’t help it. Her announcement is ludicrous. Ballsy and noble, but absurd. “You and what army, Runt?”
“The plan is already in motion.”
My heart skips a beat, and a spark of hope ignites deep in my soul. “Plan?”
“The original plan was to get myself out and disappear. It’s what I do best, right?” Jamie pulls a rueful face. “When I learned Atticus had an Unholy tattoo, I knew I couldn’t go alone. I didn’t know it was you, only that it was obviously someone from Mayhem.” She shakes her head. “I couldn’t leave knowing someone from…home…was down here.”
Hope and dread are weights that sinks to the bottom of my stomach. “Oh fuck, Jamie, what the hell are you doing?”
“I’m getting us out, Wraith.” She cups my face, her smile so genuine, it’s a flame that melts through a layer of misery. “Thomas and Roger are with me. All we need you to do is stay alive long enough for us to finish putting the pieces in place.”
Part of me is afraid. Yeah, afraid. Jamie’s not the girl who left Mayhem. She’s David Crane’s wife. This could be another twisted game. Dangle Jamie like a carrot on a string. Give me false hope, then rip her away and leave me with nothing.
