NERO
I feel like a predator.
Not in a bad way. I tend to not view that word in the negative at all. I think it’s used far too often to describe those who commit heinous acts of cowardice or evil. But they aren’t actually predators. Just creeps. Monsters. Evil, shitty humans.
Real predators don’t lurk in the shadows, trying to sneak photos of children. They don’t lie to women to get them into their car, or exploit someone’s misfortune.
Those are just wastes of space who, for all I care, can be rounded up and summarily shot. Good fucking riddance.
So, no. When I say I feel like a predator, I don’t mean a lascivious monster preying on the innocent. I mean I feel like a king. Like an apex hunter of the jungle, enjoying the spoils of the hunt.
Because that is exactly what I’m doing.
I sit back against the headboard of the bed, one knee up, the other leg stretched languidly out. My eyes are glued with smug, cocky self-satisfaction on my prey, laid out before me.
Milena.
She’s currently only semi-conscious, tangled in the sheets near my leg. Her yoga pants got tossed aside at some point, as did her bra. But her panties are still around one ankle, and her shirt’s still shoved up over her tits.
She’s still wearing her socks, too, which I find strangely adorable.
Her hair is a fucking mess. Her skin is flushed, mottled with red marks and covered in me, in every sense.
Bruises paint her skin like a crazy artist went to work on her with an oversized brush and cans of purple and blue, especially around her throat, breasts, and thighs. My cum is glistening as it dries on her neck and chest.
A streak of blood still mars her inner thigh.
A lazy, languid, satisfied grin pulls the corners of my mouth upward.
I reach over to the nightstand, open the drawer, and pull out a pack of cigarettes and my father’s old copper Zippo—the one with the wolf face etched across it and the words “Homo homini lupus est” engraved below.
Man is a wolf to man.
Milena stirs slightly as I flick the flint, igniting the wick and bringing it to the cigarette between my lips. The tip glows orange as I take a slow drag, dropping the lighter back onto the side table and exhaling toward the ceiling.
This is the point where most people would talk. Check in. Debrief after all that insanity. Maybe whisper something soft and intimate, to make it feel romantic.
But I’m not most people, and this wasn’t romance.
“I didn’t know you smoked.”
I take another slow drag, sliding my eyes down to meet hers. Even battered and bruised, with my fucking cum drying on her chin, she looks…
Beautiful.
A wrecked, claimed sort of beautiful.
One I don’t want to look away from, which is confusing and decidedly out of character for me.
I don’t use sex to connect with people. Quite the opposite. I use it to create distance. To put up stronger walls.
It’s been like that ever since I was thirteen.
Since her.
Since she showed me things I was far too young to see.
I flinch, shaking my head.
“I don’t,” I growl quietly.
Milena arches a brow, smirking faintly as she eyes the evidence between my lips.
“Well…not often,” I add with a slight grin.
“Just special occasions?” she teases, her voice still raspy.
“Something like that.”
She winces as she rolls onto her stomach, a flash of pain making her jaw clench a little as she props herself up on her elbows.
“Same,” she says. “Just here and there.” Her eyes drop to the smoke in my mouth. “Could I…”
I nod. Without even thinking about it, I take one more drag, pluck the cigarette from my lips, then pass it to her.
Her fingers brush mine as she takes the smoke and lifts it up. I watch, more mesmerized than I should be as her soft, swollen lips wrap around it, another wince rippling over her face as she draws in a breath, making the tip glow.
It feels weirdly intimate to see her wrap her lips around the same place where mine just were.
As if everything we just did—the chase, fucking her raw, filling her with my cum, spilling it all over her face and then kissing it off, wasn’t “intimate” enough.
It doesn’t make sense, but I can’t shake that idea as I watch her take another slow drag before passing the cigarette back to me.
“Thanks.”
I nod, unable to look away as she rests her cheek on her folded forearms.
“So… How do you have the code to this house and free rein of it?”
“Probably because it’s my house.”
Her head lifts—maybe a bit too quickly. She winces again. Her gaze holds mine.
“Wait, seriously?”
I nod. “Bought it a few years ago.”
Her brows knit. “Why?”
I shrug and look away. It’s easier and simpler than saying something like “haunted mansions are cool”, or “because I used to walk past ‘the old Greymoor place’ and always thought it was beautiful”.
Or “one day, I’d like to restore this place to its former glory and call it home, as opposed to the mausoleum I currently share with the ghosts of my past”.
“Like, what do you use it for?”
I glance at her. “Various things.”
The second I say it, I see a flicker of cold viciousness in her eyes that she quickly tries to cover with a forced, brittle smile. She reaches for my cigarette again, and once more her fingers brush mine as she takes it. But this time she looks away from me as she takes a soft drag.
“Various things like bringing girls here to chase, catch, and fuck?”
The words drop emotionlessly from her lips, like she’s ordering a sandwich.
Purposefully cold. Deliberately blunt.
“Not typically, no.”
Her brows furrow when she finally looks at me again.
“No,” I repeat, reaching out and plucking the cigarette from her fingers. I take a slow drag, eyes still locked on her as I exhale toward the ceiling. “Jealous, princess?”
Her lips tighten. “No,” she says abruptly. “I just don’t believe you.”
I chuckle, passing the cigarette back to her. “And why is that?”
“I just don’t.”
I smirk. “Why.”
“Because you’re…you.”
I grin wider. “And what about me makes me so untrustworthy.”
She grins impishly. “You strike me as a troublemaker,” she giggles. “That’s all.”
It’s like an icy blade slicing into my brain.
Everything goes cold. Everything shuts down, going as black as charred bones.
You’re such a troublemaker, baby boy.
My blood slows to syrup in my veins, my pulse a distant POUND POUND POUND somewhere inside me.
You want to come over and cause some more trouble?
“No,” I growl. “I’m not.”
Milena arches a brow, her grin widening. Totally missing my cues.
“Not a troublemaker?” She grins lazily at me. “Bullshit. You—”
“I’m fucking not.”
The words spit from my mouth like vicious curses, shattering the mood entirely. Milena’s head jerks up, her eyes wide and her mouth open in shock.
I don’t focus on that. I don’t focus on anything but the roaring in my head as I suddenly slide off the bed and stand up. I stab the cigarette out in a crystal ashtray on the nightstand and storm from the room.
My clothes are still on the landing outside. I dress quickly, yanking them on before plucking up the bits of hers that were discarded out here, too.
I stride back into the bedroom, ignoring the stunned look on her face as I toss her clothes onto the foot of the bed and finish buttoning up my shirt.
Milena stares at me, her face pale, her brows furrowed in confusion.
“Um… Did I say something wrong?”
“Nope,” I grunt coldly. “We’re just done here.”
“Oh,” she says quietly.
I want to focus on that. Want to dial this whole fucking thing back three minutes, to that strange sense of peace I felt before the ghosts of the past reared up to tear me apart.
Too late now.
“You know where the door is,” I growl.
I chance a look back at her, my jaw tightening at the way she’s staring at me.
Confused. Concerned, maybe. Probably pissed.
But I don’t have the bandwidth to address that right now.
So I don’t say a word before I turn, march out of the room, and leave her there.
…Before I drag her down into my madness.
