The Blood We Crave: Part Two (The Hollow Boys, #4)

by Monty Jay

Far before we stood in these bodies, someone had decided she would be the keeper of my soul, knowing I would have done far too much damage to it.

“I can’t stay away from you, even when I know I should. It would be the only good thing I could do for you, Scarlett.” Lyra rubs her nose against mine, nibbling at my bottom lip before breathing. “Don’t be good. Don’t stay away. Just be with me.”

smirking. “Should I be worried about where the meat in this dish came from, Hannibal?” Thatcher rolls his eyes. “Human beings are disgusting. I don’t touch them with my bare hands, and you think I’m going to eat their flesh? Some stalker you are. Do you even know me?” My jaw drops. “You jerk!”

I adore this version of Thatch, the one only I get to see. I love it almost as much as the part that terrifies people. He is both their nightmare and my daydream.

“There are many faces of a killer.” His tone is indifferent. “It’s almost never the creep in the corner. It’s more likely to be the man in the center of the room. We’re chameleons, able to blend in and copy emotions. If Easton is the Imitator, then he efficiently camouflages himself enough that even you don’t believe it.”

Thou shall not kill, but if you must, kill those deserving of death.

In this private moment, with the truth of him settling between us, I accept just how much I like him. How much I love him. How I would shred the world with my teeth to have him. Would lie, steal, and cheat for his safety. And yet, that still doesn’t guarantee our happily ever after. That fact alone cripples me. Knowing that you could care for someone this fucking much and it wouldn’t be enough for the universe to let you live in that love.

My mother wasn’t religious, I’m not religious, but if it meant keeping him forever, I’d pray.

Please, I think, let us have the ending we deserve. It doesn’t even need to be happy. I just need it to have him.

“I saved all of them for you, you know?”

“Butterfly dresses?”

“No.” I huff out a laugh. “My firsts. I saved...

“I think…” He trails off for a moment, as if to search for the right words. “I think I saved all my firsts for you, too.”

“You’ve never—I was your first?”

“I don’t like touching other people, Lyra. You think fucking them would ...

“Knowing all these hands have done, what they will continue to do—” He squeezes me as if to remind me. “—you aren’t afraid of them?”

“I can’t change for you, Lyra. This thing between us won’t change who I am.”

“No matter the cruelty your hands are capable of, they will always be the one place I feel safe. How could I fear fingers that were made to touch me?”

“You’re invisible to most, this enigmatic ghost. You are a mystery to the world, Lyra, and you’ve let me solve you.”

“What are we doing?” I whisper as we sway in tune to the melody of the music, his hands on my body guiding us. “It would be a shame for you to look this beautiful and not have someone ask you to dance.” “We’ve danced before, Thatch.” “And just as I told you then, that was a distraction,”

“This,” he breathes across my lips, “is dancing, darling phantom.”

“When this is over, what will you do?”

“Try to avoid prison for the rest of my life.”

“And me?” I ask breathlessly when he catches me in his arms. “What will I do?”

“You’ll be just as you are right now,” he begins, tucking a piece of hair behind my ear. “Haunting me. Existing for me.”

“I have a gift for you, too.”

If it makes me weak to crave her, then let me be weak. Being strong means nothing if I can’t have her.

“Nothing about you could ever scare me, Lyra Abbott,” I mutter. “All your darkness is my own. We’re the same.”

“What is it you see?” I break the silence as my fingers flutter across the rows of pictures. “When you look at these, at me.”

“A boy who was turned into a weapon before he knew what it meant,” she hums, pulling a photo down of me when I was maybe fifteen. “I never understood how they called you a monster when you were always so beautiful. This was how I kept you close when I couldn’t be near you.”

“Do you know why I wanted to kill you, Lyra?” I ask, dragging my tongue across my bottom lip.

“Because you hated how I followed you around?” she offers, unsure of her answer.

“My father told me when I was young that if I ever felt, I had to kill it. That was how I remained perfect.” My other hand snakes around her waist, hauling her from the wall and into my body. “I wanted to kill what you stood for, what you did to me.”

“Every single time I saw you, I’d stare at this pretty little throat and think about the bruises I’d wanted to leave just so everyone would know who owned you. I wanted to hold you so tightly your ribs cracked. When you spoke to anyone else, I was half tempted to rip them apart. I wanted to ruin you, end you, just because I knew I could never fucking have you.”

“You had me then; you just never realized it. You can have me now.” Lyra’s sneaky fingers pull at the buttons of my shirt, undoing it casually. “Forever, if you want.”

“Do you know what I want, darling phantom?”

“What?”

“I don’t want to be perfect if it means I have to live without you.”

“Whiny, greedy thing,” I pant through wet, swollen lips. “Your cunt is selfish. All it craves is me, isn’t it? My fingers, my tongue, my cock?” “I need you so badly.” She pivots against my hand, following the slow circles I’m spinning against her core. “I ache for you everywhere.”

“You want me to fuck you, Lyra?”

“Please.” She wraps an arm around my neck, her wet lips finding my neck. “I want you inside me.”

“Earn it.” I tangle my spare hand in the roots of her curls, jerking her suction-cup lips away from my neck so that she can look at me. “Grab the knife in my pocket. Make yourself bleed for me while I make you come.”

have me. “Go on, pet,” I purr, swiping my thumb across the sensitive nub between her thighs. “Bleed for me.”

“Good fucking girl.”

Until the grave. That’s what we are, have always been. The kind of connection that began in death and would last far beyond it.

“Needy, cock-obsessed little whore,” I growl. My cock is forced onto the warmth of her body, making my hips jerk. “Tell me how bad you want it.” Lyra withers against me, her hands stretched in front of her as she claws at the table. “Please, I need you,” she begs. “Please, angel.”

It’s primal, the way I dig the sharp edge into her flesh, carving the letter T into the softness of her back. She screams, pushing her ass into me as blood seeps from the mark. “It hurts.” She moans around the words. “You can take it, baby. You’re doing so good for me, pretty thing.”

“You were made for my cock.” I slam into her again, feeling the ripple of her ass against my stomach. “This sweet, tight pussy was made to take every single inch.”

“Drown my cock,” I groan. “Come for me, baby.”

“Your heart is racing,” she whispers, placing a hand over my chest as if to steady the thrumming in my chest.