A gamble with stakes too high.
I risked a glance at the couple, their postures deceptively relaxed, as if they were simply enjoying a quiet evening. But I knew Ravage. He was playing a part, a dangerous game.
As the shadows deepened, stretching like greedy fingers across the clearing, I tightened my grip on my weapon until my knuckles were white. I tried to steady my trembling hands, to force my mind into a state of cold, clinical focus. Praying. Praying that tonight, with this terrible choice etched into my soul, I could finally rid the world of this... monster.
Because that’s precisely what Karl Ingalls Sr. was. A monster.
And I, with my own hand, had helped lure him to his prey.
The thought made me sick.
The wind howled, a mournful cry that mirrored the dread tightening in my gut. My own hands trembled, a treacherous betrayal of years of discipline.
A twig snapped in the distance, a sharp, almost violent sound that cut through the night. Every head snapped toward the noise, muscles tensing, breath held captive.
This was it.
The moment of truth.
The air crackled with anticipation, thick with vengeance and the acrid scent of pine.
Movement to my right captured my attention, and before I could blink, I was running through the trees. Shadows moved fast within the forest as I converged on my target. I plunged through the dense undergrowth, the branches lashing at my face, heedless of the pain. The snap of the twig had been a signal, a prelude to the inevitable.
I saw him then, a silhouette against the flickering firelight, his back to me, his movements strangely languid. He was larger than I expected, his shoulders broad, his posture confident, almost arrogant. He held a gun loosely in one hand, a silent promise of death.
He turned then, slowly, deliberately, as if he had sensed my approach. His eyes, even from this distance, seemed to gleam with a cold, predatory light.
He knew.
He knew we were here, that he’d walked into a trap.
A guttural growl escaped my throat, a sound I’d heard before in the darkest corners of my memory, a sound that belonged to the beast I fought so hard to keep caged. My vision narrowed, focusing solely on him. The world outside the small clearing ceased to exist. There was only him, and the oppressive silence, and the chilling certainty that this was it. The end of the hunt, and the beginning of his reckoning.
He raised his gun and aimed it at me, pulling the trigger.
But he was too slow.
I’d already fired.
The bullet whizzed past my head, a deathly whisper in the suffocating night. My shot, fired milliseconds before, had found its mark, a testament to my years of instinct and brutal training. He stumbled, the gun clattering to the forest floor from his nerveless fingers—a dark, pathetic punctuation to his reign of terror.
The moonlight cast a gruesome glow on his dying face, illuminating the raw horror that had finally claimed him.
He knew.
He knew he was caught; his reign of calculated cruelty had finally met its brutal, violent end. My breath came in ragged gasps, each one a victory against the suffocating fear that had clung to me like a shroud. I watched as Karl Ingalls Sr. crumpledto the ground, his body a grotesque heap against the ancient earth as my deputies along with Firestride, Eros and Indigo rushed over to me.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Karlyn
Lost in his embrace while his mouth trailed kisses down my neck, I happily gave myself over to him under the stars as I felt his warm hand slide under my shirt. His touch sent tingles all over my body as he deftly moved his hand behind my back, unhooking my bra. His fingers worked the clasp, and a soft moan escaped my lips as my breasts, now free, met the cool night air. His touch was electric, igniting a fire within me that threatened to consume us both.
I arched against him, my hips pressing forward, a silent, desperate plea for more. The world outside our small clearing, the dangers that lurked in the shadows—it all melted away, leaving only the raw, untamed passion that had been simmering between us for far too long. His lips found mine again, a desperate, hungry kiss that spoke of shared trauma and a love forged in the fires of Hell.
I threw my head back and moaned as the darkness surrounded us. As he ran his fingers through my hair, cradling my head, he sucked a nipple into his mouth. My body felt alive, energized in this wild forest. He was the wildness I craved, the darkness that held no judgment, only acceptance. As his fingers traced the scars that mapped my past, a shiver, not of fear but of raw, untamed desire, coursed through me. He saw them, the marks of what I’d endured, not as blemishes, but as testaments to my survival.
And in his eyes, I saw a reflection of my own burgeoning strength, a phoenix rising from the ashes of her past. The night, with its velvet cloak and whispering pines, held us captive, our shared vulnerabilities weaving a tapestry of passion that was both fierce and tender. His touch was a language I was only beginning to understand, a spoken word of raw need and undeniable connection. My body, once a battlefield of trauma, now felt like a sacred space, claimed and adored. His mouth moved over my scars reverently, deliciously slow as he licked and kissed them, tracing them with his tongue. He took his time, almost as if he were erasing every shred of fear, pain, agony I’d suffered.
