Page 44 of Touch of Hate

Fuck. I’m losing my mind.

The rain comes down harder, the drops becoming pellets of rain. I turn to walk back to the house, reminding myself he’s never coming back.

As I start back toward the house, a blur of black appears in front of me. A scream builds in my throat but never makes it out. The stranger’s hand presses against my mouth, and I force myself to breathe through my nose. It’s that smell that causes my eyes to open wide and wariness to ignite deep in my gut.

Warm and woodsy, like cinnamon and earth. That’s what he smells like. I want to breathe him in and punch him in the face at the same time.

For a moment, our gazes collide, and I find myself being moved backward, only stopping once my back hits the rough bark of the tree. Lightning flashes across the sky the next moment, and I see him, really see him. Like a Greek god with his perfectly angled features, pronounced jawline, full lips, and high cheekbones, he appears to be chiseled from stone. He stares down at me, and I wonder how a man could possibly be any more gorgeous.

It’s hard to make out in the lightning, but he somehow seems taller and broader, like he’s added muscle since the last time I saw him. But the thing that stands out the most to me is his eyes.

They’re identical pools of blue, but the darkness of them holds me; there isn’t a single spark of light inside them. There used to be a light inside him, even if it was small, but now there is nothing. It’s almost like he’s dead.

Fear sizzles through me like a bolt of lightning. I’ve never been afraid of Ren, but suddenly, I am. The man standing before me isn’t the same man who left me, and I can feel it in the pit of my stomach.

His palm rests heavy over my mouth, and the rough pads of his fingers press against my cheeks. His body presses into mine, and for one brief second, I’m reminded of everything that could’ve been.

His body molds to my softness, and I want to lean into him.

I remember the last time I looked at his face, my sixteenth birthday. He was still him then, but I don’t know the man he is now. This is Ren’s body, Ren’s smell, but he doesn’t possess Ren’s soul.

Like a boulder rushing down a hill, the reality of it all crashes into me, and I start to struggle, realizing he shouldn’t be here. He shouldn’t have his hands on me. This wasn’t how our first meeting after all this time was supposed to go.

Wrenching myself free of his unforgiving grasp, I push forward, but my feet slip on the wet grass. I struggle for half a second, and then he’s on me again.

“Shhh, relax. It’s time to make you mine, angel,” he whispers into the shell of my ear, and despite my struggles, I want to melt into him, but I just fucking can’t.

I might’ve been his once. A long time ago before he abandoned me. Before he became this… other person.

One I hardly recognize.

One I can’t trust.

One I need to get away from before it’s too late.

12

REN

I’ve waited for this moment.

Imagined it.

Longed for it.

There have been times in my solitude when the promise of being with her again was the only thing that kept me going. If I’m being honest, Scarlet is the last trace of humanity left inside me. The one good, true thing left in my otherwise bleak, dark, empty existence.

Empty from the lack of her, of the warm glow of her love and adoration. The lack of her touch or even the sound of her voice.

And her smell, dear god, hits me all at once, rolling through me like the thunder now rolling overhead, so loud and strong, it causes the earth to shake beneath my boots.

Or that could be me.

It could be the force of finally placing my hands upon her while pressing my body to hers that has me feeling as though the earth itself shakes.

After so much waiting and wanting, sometimes barely existing from one second to the next, here she is. It had to be tonight. I couldn’t wait another day. Not when she’ll be leaving soon, away from me to the one place I can no longer venture. The one place I will never be able to follow her as I’ve been all this time. Here we are. Just as I imagined.

Except for one small, inconvenient point—she’s not playing along. She might want to melt against me—she came close—but she’s fighting it. Fighting her instinctive impulse to give herself to me once again.