I shook, swallowing hard. This was Cairo angry.
“What if I did? I didn’t even know you then.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“That’s not a question you have the right to ask me.”
“Raiinnneey.”
I stiffened. No way to tell if it was Roan, Jacques, Arsenio, or Legend. All I knew was they were close.
“Come on out, sweetheart,” one of them called.
I’m barely holding my own against Cairo. What do I do if they all catch me? Hold me down, hit me, ravage my breasts, rammed their cocks in my—
A moan escaped my lips. Cairo had found his way under my skirt, and slipped past the thin cotton barrier. He teased my clit under slow, soft strokes.
“Answer me, Rain.” The sound of his zipper pierced the night. “Are you a virgin?”
Slowly, unable to stop myself, I nodded.
“Really?” Satisfaction laced his voice. “Because you’re wet like a fucking whore.”
He dipped inside my pussy, soaking himself to the knuckles. I watched, transfixed, as he licked me off his middle finger.
“Hmm. I was wrong,” he said. “As delicious as your tears are, nothing is sweeter than your pussy. Taste.”
“No.” I smacked his hand away.
Cairo flashed. He seized my neck, squeezing till I choked—gasping for air. In went his fingers.
“Lick them clean. Don’t waste a drop.”
I obeyed—sucking, licking, slurping.
Cairo leaned over me. He pecked a light kiss on my nose and pushed in with one hard thrust.
“Ahh!” My cry rang through the forest.
“There,” Jacques shouted. “She’s over there!”
Cairo gave me no time to recover. He started pumping, angling my hips to bury to the hilt. The pain was excruciating.
“Cairo, don’t,” I sobbed around his fingers. “Please, no.”
He groaned deep inside him. “You are so fucking tight. You did wait for me.” He removed his fingers to kiss me. “Good girl.”
“S-stop. It’s too much.”
“Oh, baby. It’s not even close to enough.”
He jerked me toward him. I slammed back on the dirt, my head bouncing off a root. Cairo lost control.
The green-eyed Bedlam Boy pounded me like a beast. Mouth open in a silent scream, my world converged in this single slice of space and time, Cavendish, Jennifer, the sheriff, the new letter, the dangling rope in the barn. All that existed was the wolf who claimed me, and the others coming to take me away.
The pressure was rising, taking over me. Digging my nails in his shoulder, I threw my head back, and came so hard, Cairo cursed at my squeezing down on him.
“Holy fucking shit, woman.”
Jerking and flopping on the ground, I rode the crest of pleasure and pain till they threatened to choke me themselves. I sucked in deep lungfuls of air, gazing up at the trees, wondering what the hell happened. What the hell was still happening. Cairo was far from done.
“Cairo,” Arsenio called. “Do you have her?”
“I’ve got her.”
I dropped my head, eyes alighting on something.
“She’s ours now.”
“I’m not,” I whispered. “You don’t get to keep me. It won’t be that easy.”
“She says while her cum lubes my—”
I smashed the crossbow over his head.
Cairo pitched forward—dropping on top of me. He was out cold.
“Where the hell are you?” Roan demanded.
Pushing him off, I fixed myself as best I could and disappeared into the trees. This was my forest. I’ve run around inside her since I was old enough to get my wobbling new legs underneath me. My interlude with Cairo aside, there was never a question of if I could lose them in the woods. I was destined to the minute I crossed the tree line. It just took some creativity toward the end.
But now what?
I headed away from Black Widow Hill. If I continued in the direction I was going, it’d skirt the rim of the canyon, then drop me off at Chaney Bridge. From there, it was a six-hour walk to the next town, and I’d be limping the whole way.
Cairo fucked me. There was no sweet or cute way to put it. He got me in the dirt and fucked me like an animal. My cheeks stung, my nipples throbbed, and I’d fall asleep in an Epsom salt bath with dreams it’d help the soreness in my middle.
Did I keep going? The Bedlam Boys made it clear there was nowhere in this town I’d be safe from them.
I touched my neck. Did I finish what I started?
No.
The denial rang clear and true in my mind. What had changed since I stepped into that noose was hard to put into words. I just knew there was another way now.
My fingers moved down, brushing the tiny pinprick wound of the crossbow.
“You’re not my curse, Rainey de Souza, you’re my cure.”
Once more, I asked my grandmother what to do. The wind carried her whispers in my ear, showing me the way.
***
Cairo
“Let me get this straight.” Legend’s dry voice grated on my ears. “You had her, and somehow she got your crossbow, hit you over the head, and left you in the dirt with your pants down?”