Serafina, he had said.
Makrath, she thought, and her fingers moved faster.
She came with his name on her lips.
Hard. Shuddering. Biting down on her own arm to muffle the sound, because god knew what was out there in the darkness, god knew if he was watching, if he could hear…
Makrath.
Afterward, she lay in the dark with her heart pounding and her mind racing and her body still humming with aftershocks.
What the hell is happening to me?
She knew the answer. Had been avoiding it for days, maybe longer. But there was no avoiding it now. Not after this.
She wasn't doing this for the money anymore.
She wasn't doing it for Aria, or Angelo, or any of the practical reasons that had brought her to this island. The debt, the bills, the system that had crushed her family—all of it felt distant now. Abstract. Someone else's problem.
She was doing this because she wanted him.
Wanted to hunt him. Wanted to catch him. Wanted to feel the weight of him pressing her down, wanted to hear that voice again, wanted to hear him say her name while he…
God.
She was doing this because she wanted him in ways she'd never wanted anyone. Wanted him with a hunger that scared her, that felt like madness, that made no sense and didn't care about making sense.
And that terrified her more than anything else on this island.
CHAPTER 23
By the fifth morning, the jungle felt like home.
Serafina moved through the green darkness with a fluidity that would have terrified her a week ago. Her body knew this place now, the way light filtered through the canopy, the texture of undergrowth beneath her boots, the humid air that filled her lungs with each breath. She didn't have to think about where to step. Her feet found the paths on their own.
She had stopped thinking about Los Angeles. About the apartment that had burned. About the badge sitting in her go-bag back at the compound. About Aria's medical bills or Angelo's heart medication or the fourteen years she had spent chasing justice through a system that ground people into dust.
There was only the jungle. The Hunt. And him.
His trail was easy to find now. He wasn't hiding anymore. Broken fronds. Displaced soil. Faint heat signatures her visor picked up and translated into ghostly outlines. He left them deliberately. An invitation. A challenge.
They were circling each other. Predator and predator. She could feel him out there, just beyond the edge of her awareness, matching her movements through the green. Sometimes shecaught a glimpse of motion in the trees. Sometimes she heard the distant crack of a branch. He was close. Getting closer.
She wasn't afraid.
The realization should have disturbed her. Five days ago, she had been a homicide detective with a gun and a badge and a desperate need for money. Now she was a different creature entirely. One that wanted to find him not because of the contract or the payment or the life waiting for her back in the real world.
She wanted to find him because he was hers to hunt.
The thought sent heat through her belly, and she didn't push it away.
She crested a ridge and paused, scanning the valley below. Dense vegetation, a narrow stream cutting through the undergrowth, good sightlines from her position. She could set up here, wait for him to…
The jungle went quiet.
The silence came all at once. Absolute. Wrong. Every bird, every insect, every rustling creature in the canopy fell silent at once, and the hair on the back of Serafina's neck stood up.
She dropped into a crouch before she consciously decided to move. Weapon up, finger alongside the trigger guard, eyes sweeping the terrain. Fourteen years of police work and eight years before that in the Corps took over, and she became very still.
