Page 67 of Corpse Roads

I want to drown in the molten pools of his eyes and never take another breath. I attacked Hunter. I… cut his throat. I nearly killed him! I’m no better than the monsters that birthed me.

“Harlow,” he pleads, cupping my cheek with one hand. “I need you to take a breath for me. Everything is okay. You’re safe.”

“No! You’re bleeding!”

“I’m fine, Harlow. Just startled, that’s all.”

“You c-couldn’t hear… I did that to you.”

“Breathe, sweetheart. It was an accident. Not the first time, and it won’t be the last.”

Despite his oddly gentle words, all I can do is stare at the blood dripping down his clavicle from his gushing nose. I did that. Me. It felt so good to fight back.

I hurt him.

I enjoyed it.

What does that make me?

Climbing off his body, I spiral deeper into despair. My back hits the marble breakfast bar until I can’t run any further. Hunter ignores his injuries and pursues me.

He’s a pillar of power and intimidation, but in this moment, his expression is broken. He looks indescribably sad. Does my pain entertain him? Am I nothing more than another fractured specimen for him to study?

“He was so real,” I say, the words dark and ugly. “I could… f-feel him. His voice. The s-smell of his skin… everything. He was so real!”

“It was a dream,” Hunter assures me. “You were sleepwalking or something. None of it was real.”

“But I attacked you! I thought you were… my father.”

“I’m not. Can you see me now?”

I stare into his coffee-coloured irises. “Yes.”

“Do I look like him?”

“N-No.”

Tentatively, Hunter reaches for my hand. I’m too stunned to protest. He raises it to his chest, placing it right above his pounding heartbeat. I can feel it hammering away.

His tattooed skin is hot to touch, softened by a patch of brown fuzz across his defined pectorals. His tongue darts out to clean the blood from his lips, still weeping from his nose.

“Look at me,” he commands sternly.

I obey without hesitation, trapped in his gaze.

“He isn’t here. Look at me, feel me. Know that I’m not him.”

His voice is mesmerising, gliding over me like thick treacle. My hand moves of its own volition. I trace the hard planes of his chest, over the dark swirls of ink that mark his tattoo.

It wraps itself around his torso, sneaking up to the ropy muscles of his neck. I can pick out individual elements—an intricate tree, wrapped in beautiful vine leaves that spreads across his stomach.

Birds with vast, powerful wings fly across the slope of his ribcage to escape, blending into the path of shadowy storm clouds and strobes of white ink that paint individual raindrops.

It’s a thunderstorm, painted on his body in a real-life canvas. Hunter is exactly that—deadly and mesmerising all at once.

“You’re home with me,” he murmurs, his voice growing throaty. “Nobody is ever going to touch you again. I won’t let them.”

A thick lump gathers in my throat. I let Hunter slide his arms under my legs, too numb to protest. He lifts me until I’m pressed against his bloodstained chest.