“F-fuck. Letgo.” His teeth were chattering when he tried to scramble back again, but I was through playing games. Fuck, I was so through with the games. The rain soaking into my skin made me realize the best way to be finished was to completely, thoroughly claim him.
Mine.
I’d split him open and carve out every memory in his chest until there was only room forme. I’d eat his heart while it was still beating and give him mine to fill the hollow in his chest.
Mine—the thunder roared, and I wrapped my fingers in his hair, jerking him forward and toward the open door.
Mine—and he fought, thrashing like a wildcat in my arms, splitting my lip and leaving me with more shallow knife cuts littering my arms and chest.
Mine—and I dragged him out into the rain, throwing him to the muddy grass in front of the enclosure I’d opened earlier to find him that stupid fucking tiger skull.
If he wanted a predator, I’d give him one.
If he wanted teeth and claws, I’d tear him apart.
I was ready to make him somethingnewuntil he finally let go of his past and felt whole. With me.
The shocked look on his face as the rain soaked into his skin was intoxicating. How long had he been avoiding it? Scrambling into shelter when it fell and clawing at himself because monsters like us craved the storm on our skin. It was starting to steal away my ability to think, sinking bone deep and leaving me with that word grating in my head.
Over and over again.
Mine… mine… I needed Aubrey to be mine.
I stalked after him and he scrambled back on hands and knees, though I noticed he kept the knife clutched to his chest out of pure instinct. It didn’t matter.
Fuck. Nothing mattered but the storm andhim.
I tore my shirt over my head and threw it back toward the house. With the rain on my skin, I felt like I could let him flay me alive and I’d still want to feel him pressed against me.
Ineededhim.
He barely managed to get to his feet before I caught him by the arm and swung him around. The knife he was holding caught on my side this time, slicing across my hip and making me groan. The pleasure and pain mixed together, and I wondered if he could tell the difference between the rain on my skin and the wounds he was cutting open.
I wondered if it mattered.Everythingwas red.
“Let mego,” he hissed again, jerking away from me while his body followed instinct and rocked forward.
In this world, the rain was God. In this world, it was the one thing you couldn’t resist.
The rain, and now Aubrey, who snarled in my face and slashed the knife across my chest—they were all shallow cuts. The slickness of blood gave him the ability to push back from me, and this time he fell to his knees on the ground.
“Stop fighting it, Aubrey,” I snarled, coming down into a crouch and stalking forward like I was the tiger he’d mourned. I covered his body with mine, clamping my hand on his neck to pin him on a ground that was starting to run wet with mud and blood. “Fuck, just let it go. Whatever the fuck it is that’s holding you back, let it go and be here.” I dipped my head and scraped my teeth on his shoulder, licked the rain from his skin and felt it burn my lungs. “Be with me.”
Fuck, the rain made you honest. I’d never askedanyoneto stay. But…
“I can’t.” He half choked on the words while he writhed beneath me, gasping like he couldn’t draw enough air. His nails dug into the earth, leaving behind scars that I didn’t have to ask the story of. I knew these—I could see these. We made themtogether.
“Letgo.” I mirrored his earlier words, and Aubrey slammed his fist on the ground andscreamed.
The sound was lost to the thunder, to the rain. It was lost to everyone but me, and I drank it down andknewthat it wasn’t defiance.
It was pain. It was all the pain he’d been holding in his chest, every ounce of agony that had been tearing him apart, ripping from his throat and feeding into the sky, the air, the fucking clouds, and the red rain that had damned us all from the beginning.
Aubrey screamed, and he slammed his fist to the ground again.
Aubrey screamed as his fingers tore at his clothes, ripping his shirt over his head, yanking at the button of his pants. He turned in my arms with rain-damp skin and lifted the knife between us.
“Make me,” he snapped, but the fury and challenge in his tone was belied by the begging agony swimming behind the sting. He needed this.
