More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
by
Eva Ashwood
Read between
May 28 - June 16, 2024
you’re in the wolves’ den now. And little foxes don’t survive when they go up against wolves.”
River. So that’s her name. It fits her somehow, even more than Ghost does. She’s slippery and hard to grasp, seeming calm on the surface but concealing rapids underneath.
The thing about powerful men is they think their power keeps them safe, when really it just paints a big, red target on their asses.”
“I’ve come harder from a bicycle seat than whatever uncoordinated shit you were doing with your fingers just now. It was pathetic.”
“That’s one of those secrets I’d probably get shot for sharing. And I’m too hot to be walking around with bullet holes in my ass.
Seducing some guy and making him think I don’t want anything in the world as much as I want his cock in me is a great way to get close to the men I wanted to kill.
There’s a slight ache in my chest, as if some part of me is connected to some part of him, a wire stretching taut between us. I can’t help but feel as if somehow that small moment was more intimate than anything that came before it. It’s like that sometimes, when broken people reveal their broken parts.
“There’s nothing wrong with being broken,” I tell him quietly. He blinks, his long lashes sweeping down over his bright blue eyes and then back up again. “Some things aren’t meant to be whole. And some things don’t need to be fixed.”
there’s something about her brokenness that fits with ours.
I wrap my arms around my legs, drawing them in tight to my chest as I try to hold myself together. But I can’t. I’m just pieces. Too many pieces. Like I might blow away in the wind.
“You were right,” I murmur. I know she’s awake. I know she can hear me, even if she’s out of it right now. “Some things are broken and aren’t meant to be fixed.” She doesn’t say anything, but her hand is still in mine, and it’s like I can feel her listening. The darkness is like a blanket around us in this moment. Wrapping us up. Keeping this between the two of us. “But that doesn’t mean they’re fine how they are,” I continue. “It just means they are how they are. There’s no changing them or undoing the past. There’s no gluing the pieces back together and remaking the whole how it once was.
...more
They didn’t try to make me go back to the way I was. They just learned to love the shards of me.
“I used to think you were a fox in a pack of wolves,” I tell her, running my hands, slick with her blood from the piercing, up her back. “But you’re a fucking wolf too.”
It’s violent and rough, and any tenderness is wrapped up in the chaos of it. Maybe this is tenderness for us, I don’t fucking know.
“You look ruined,” he goes on. “Are you ruined?”
“How the fuck am I supposed to not want you? You’re fierce as hell, strong as a fucking warrior, and you come so perfectly when I take you apart.”
Assault. Always the first tool in the arsenal of every shitty man who doesn’t know how to take no for a fucking answer.
He wrote a word on my chest with our mingled blood, and it stands out in stark red against my pale skin. Mine.
Somehow, whenever I have sex with Knox, I always need a fucking shower afterward. There’s always cum and blood that needs to be washed off,
Even if someone wants to take her, they’ll have to go through me to get to her, and it won’t be fucking pretty.
Maybe I can’t fucking claim her yet. But I still won’t let her go.
broken things don’t need to be fixed. Maybe they just need to find other broken things, so that together, they can make a whole.
“Please come back to me, baby,” I whisper roughly. “Don’t do this. Don’t let the darkness take you. You’re stronger than this, I know it. Please. Come back to us. We fucking need you.”
“You’re like a psychotic, murderous Winnie the Pooh.”
Knox’s hungry growl turns into one of frustration, and he reaches over and picks up a knife from the counter, throwing it toward the door just as it opens. The blade hits with a thud, embedding a couple of inches into the wood, and I look over to see Ash rolling his eyes. He doesn’t seem bothered by the fact that a knife flew toward his head as soon as he entered the room, like he knows Knox missed on purpose. “Sorry to interrupt,” he says,
“What the fuck are you doing, Ash?” Knox asks, sounding exasperated. “Don’t just pile the shit up like that. Have you never packed a car before?” “Well excuse the fuck out of me for not having played dead body Tetris in a trunk before, Knox.
“You have resting murder face.”
I’m worried about her, worried that she looks like she’s losing this fight—and even worse, giving up the will to keep trying. But at the same time, my dick is rock hard, and she’s turning
Fuck her demons. They won’t take her from me.
breathing hard. My face is pressed to the upholstery of the seat, cool and smooth under my cheek. Every part of my body is humming, vibrating with the remnants
“I hate all of you,” I mutter, but there’s no real bite to my voice. Gage grins, but it’s half a grimace. “I’m not so sure that’s true,” he says, still sounding like a smug asshole about it.
His eyes burn like twin stars, and he stares at me like he can see directly into my soul.
“You may be monsters, but you’re the most beautiful monsters I’ve ever met.”
About a week after my encounter with Preston in the living room, I come upstairs one day to find Knox stuffing knives and other weaponry into various hiding places in my bedroom. “Are you putting together a treasure hunt or something?” I ask dryly, leaning against the doorframe as I cross my arms. Knox glances at me over his shoulder as he slips a small sheathed knife into my underwear drawer. “Yeah. A treasure hunt for anyone who tries to fuck with you. It’s called ‘how many ways can you get murdered by River?’ And the answer is gonna be ‘a lot.’”
The men keep going, trading positions around me as if they’re playing a weirdly sexy game of musical chairs, taking turns eating me out, touching me, and kissing me.
“This woman? This force of nature? She smashed my heart open like a brick through a fucking window.” I chuckle, and River bites back a smile, her eyes shining. “I was so unnerved by the shit she made me feel that I tried to hate her at first. I tried really fucking hard. But even then, it was never truly hate. Not really. It was just love I didn’t know how to recognize yet. I love you, River.”
“I am serious, River. No matter what happens, I’ll never stop loving you. I’ll never stop trying to protect you. Not in this life, not in the next.”
“Gonna fuck you. Gonna marry you. Gonna keep you forever.”
“Thank you for coming back to me.” “I always will, baby girl.”
