“My hair! Oh my God!” She scrambles out of the fire, sobbing. “You monster!”
I laugh. “Oops.”
Blane’s eyes light up and his grin widens. “Unfortunate accident.”
“You are going to jail for this,” Deanna threatens, tears making her black makeup streak. “I’ll go around your stupid dad. This is assault.”
Crunch.
Warmth burns up my spine, hotter than the fire in front of me.
“Land!” she cries out, hugging herself. “This dumb bitch pushed me into the fire. I should go to the hospital.”
“She pushed you into the fire?” His voice is low and threatening, sending currents of need curling inside my belly. “That’s just…crazy.”
Her mouth pops open when he wraps his arms around me and nuzzles his nose in my hair. I lean back against his solid chest, happily soaking in the possessiveness rippling from him.
Me.
He. Wants. Me.
“What kind of sick fucking joke is this?” Deanna screeches. “You invited me here as your date.”
“And you sucked on my best friend’s dick,” Land throws back at her. “But D, I’m not even mad about that.”
“You’re not?”
“No,” Land says, stepping aside and pulling me under his arm. “I’m mad because of the shit you said about my family.”
She casts a glance toward Blane and he shrugs. No one is going to dig her out of this one. This is all on the queen bitch.
“You’ll all go to prison,” she threatens. “Even your crazy-ass mom—”
Her words are cut off by a rage-filled roar from Land. He storms toward her and raises his hand. A knife glints in the moonlight before he slashes it down.
She screams and stumbles back, sidestepping the fire, as she stares down at the blooming crimson line cut across the front of her chest.
“You cut me!” she shrieks.
Blane creeps up behind her. “I cut you too.”
Another scream as he pushes his own knife into her side.
I take Land’s knife and approach her, loving the terror in her eyes. It shouldn’t feel so…good. But it does. Dad doesn’t have to know. The Sharpe family have kept their secrets this long from him. What’s one more?
“Look, a ghost,” I whisper, pointing to her left.
She looks and I laugh as push the knife into her stomach.
“He was never yours to kiss.”
“You’re crazy,” she accuses, clutching her abdomen.
“And you’re the only one here who’s not.” I grin at her. “If I were you, I’d run.”
A deep voice rumbles from nearby. “Because there are bears out here. Vicious and starved. Bears who are extremely protective over their young.” A dark chuckle. “And you, little girl, pissed off the momma.”
Deanna’s eyes widen when Gabe emerges from the shadows, swinging a machete in his hand. He stops swinging it to point back toward the woods.
A scream, feral and wild, penetrates the woods.
Angry. Determined. Ruthless.
“She’s coming,” Gabe warns. “Time to run.”
Deanna doesn’t waste another second. Her drunk and injured ass stumbles past the fire. She pushes past Blane to take off running. He holds up his fingers, counting to three, and then darts off after her. Gabe chuckles in a way that makes me shiver before walking after them. Just when I think we might go too, Land twists me in his arms. With the knife still in my hand, I rest my forearms on his shoulders and stand on my toes to get closer to him.
“You,” he says, his dark eyes nearly glowing orange from the reflection of the fire.
He stares at me as though I’m the mystery here. The fascination. The dream. His tongue darts out to lick his lips and I bite on my bottom lip, suppressing a whine of need.
“You’re mine, White Rabbit.”
The name used to hurt. Now it feels like a stroke down the spine. Affectionate and endearing. Comfortable.
“I like that.”
His lips press to mine and he kisses me sweetly. If my fingers weren’t sticky with Deanna’s blood, I’d run them through his dark hair. But I don’t want her touching him ever again. He’s mine. He always was.
A flash of blond runs by followed by a wicked cackle.
“You can meet Momma later,” he says, smiling against my mouth.
“Yeah? What about now?”
He pulls back to regard me with a devilish grin. “Now we hunt.”