Page 60 of A Wild Darkness

“This isn’t funny. Put me down!”

“Here you go.” I toss her onto a mound of thick comforters and blankets.

Stevie’s hands swing back to brace herself, pushing into the mattress of the bed. With her hair strewn across her face, she stares at me with anger. “What the hell was that?”

I need to sleep to clear my head after we had sex. “I’m exhausted. As I’m sure you are, too.”

“So, you forced me into my bedroom?”

I turn my back to her, walking toward the door.

“Sebastian, shouldn’t we talk about this?” she shouts.

We can talk all she wants in the morning.

“We both need rest. And to process what happened tonight,” I say. “It’s how I deal with what we do. If I don’t, it’ll consume me. I don’t want that to happen to you either.”

I shut the door behind me. Stevie might be upset right now, but she’ll thank me later after a full night of sleep.

A tsunami of thoughts and emotions crash against me, leaving me in desperate need of some time to myself.

I speed down the hall to the West Wing, craving a cigarette. The incessant itch begging for that euphoric hit of nicotine, I throw open the door to my bedroom and grab a half-empty pack from the top drawer of my nightstand that I’ve had in there for a while. The rain has picked up outside, tapping the glass patio doors, an ideal way to collect my thoughts.

With my favorite skull lighter and a cigarette in one hand, I grip the handle of the doors, opening them to the balcony. The wet, cool night moves across my face. Sucking in deeply, I fill my lungs with fresh air, then empty them before taking a much-needed drag and replacing the clean air with toxicity. It’s a nasty habit when I’m stressed or after a kill, but I can’t seem to quit.

Slumping into the chair safely under the roof overhang, I pull an ashtray over from the other side of the patio table. A bolt of lightning illuminates the endless dark sky right as I think about calling Christian to give him an update on tonight.

“Hey, Sebastian,” he answers on the first ring. “How’d it go tonight?”

I straighten in the damp cushioned seat. “It was an interesting evening, to say the very least.”

“Interesting how?” My mind briefly replays the events. “Well, for one, Stevie kicked ass. She handled herself well.”

“That’s great to hear.” Papers rustle in the background. He’s probably still up working. “So, what happened?”

Flashes of Stevie’s crimson cheeks take over my vision. “We met the killers. Formally. I’m going to make a handwritten list of each one, their monikers, but since they gave us their names while their masks were on at the masquerade ball, I’m still trying to piece together who’s who. Once we narrow them down, we can devise a plan to eliminate them one by one.”

“Will you start the research once I’ve uploaded the list to the secure drive?” he asks.

“Of course.”

He pauses for a beat. “I was thinking about moving back into Nightrose Hall to help you out with the project since River’s away.”

We have three guesthouses on the property: Nightrose Hall, Hollow House where Hayden lives, and Thornfell Lodge which remains empty at the moment. Each one with its own driveway entrance and boasts multiple bedrooms and its own gardens. Christian has stayed at Nightrose Hall often in the past to assist River and me with other projects.

I take another puff of my cigarette, then put it out in the glass ashtray next to me. “That sounds great, man. I’ll send the housekeepers in to prepare the house tomorrow.”

“Okay, perfect. I can probably be there by the end of the week,” he tells me as another bolt of lightning streaks through the sky, followed by a deep rumble of thunder. “Oh, I almost forgot. Did you have to offer a token or something?”

No token, just sleep with the beautiful woman I thought I couldn’t stand for the first time in front of an audience.

“Uh, yeah, about that.” I swallow hard, partly embarrassed that I have to relay what Stevie and I did. I’m not ashamed that we had sex, but I’d be lying to myself if I didn’t hate how it happened in front of a group of psychopaths.

“What was it?”

“I brought my gun as an offering, but they wanted something else…” I begin, unsure how to approach it.

“And?”