Wild Side (Dark Side Series: Book 2)

Thirty-One

Mad as a Hatter -- Larkin Poe

If it wasn't Samson, if those glassy eyes didn't hold the faint spirit of the cat who'd hissed and struck at the werewolf reaching underneath my bed all those years ago, I would've thrown him the second he crawled over the top of the box and slid like a wet rag into my lap. A little piece of my heart, the part that had been bricked into a nice memorial, crumbled to dust as the Maine Coon's matted ear flicked underneath my fingertip. I gathered the stinking creature into my arms, turned away from the monster who'd gifted him to me.

Pinstripes lingered in my periphery, set against a long smile and brilliant green eyes. "You like him?" Zakar asked. "He's a good mouser."

With a snap of his fingers, the cat sprang off my lap and crept to the edge of the loft, black paws clutching the edge of the ladder, looking down below, head tilted, listening for a noise beyond the dead ponies.

"I hate him like this," I hissed, watching the Samson's ragged tail swish flat in the hay. Wind checked the barn, pushed a wet wood scent through the cracks. Lightning rolled with it, and in the brief seam of silver light the rusted nail in Samson's back was visible. I tried to call him over, to pull the damn thing out, but the cat padded down the ladder and limped down to the main floor to crouch behind a shovel.

"Cats." Zakar sighed dismissively. "Mind of their own."

"I hate you."

"No, you don't."

If there was any where I could go, if there was anything I could have done, I would have done it to that green-eyed monster in a heartbeat. But it was death sitting in a trim suit across from me, stroking his pointed blonde beard. It was his curse driving the hunger in my bones, and it was his will that held me in place against the drafty wall as he crawled beside me in the flickering light, laid his head on mine and wrapped me in his arms.

"The dead outside, will they find us?" I asked, rolling my shoulders uncomfortably. By nature I wasn't claustrophobic, but there was something about being confined in this way, by this man, that made me desperate to squirm out of his embrace.

"If I were a betting man, I'd wager we won't see that stunt again for, oh, a week or so. Just long enough to take back what's ours."

Down below, there was a faint thump. One of the ponies, though dead itself, had picked up on Samson's odor.

The demon's cheek nuzzled mine. "His death served a higher purpose, Mirelle. Or it would have, if you learned anything. Caring about things weighs you down. You get inhibited. I need you free. I need you wild." His chin prickled the base of my throat. "I need you as a husband needs his wife."

"No, you definitely do not." I tried to scoot away, but Zakar yanked me back against his chest.

"You're wrong." He breathed out slowly, a ridge of goosebumps flared down my arms. "I've been rather generous with you, yet still you pull away."

"You've been shit."

His hands slid over the flat of my belly, over the muck my cat carried on his decaying paws.

"You don't think I would prefer someone like Tasha or your sister? I've been narrowing the odds for centuries, weeding the garden of possibilities until you emerged. There's this tiny little problem with you being a lock around everything I own. I am, of course, the key. Been jamming it in the wrong places for decades. I 'll admit to being leery about the old saying, but it would seems that when you meet Mrs. Right, you do indeed, 'just know.' I need you, my love, in so many ways. I've tried to play nice, and let you have your way, but you just won't love me." He took my chin in his hand and leaned in to kiss me. "Won't you let me love you, Mirelle?"