Under Your Scars (Under Your Scars, #1)

by Ariel N. Anderson

The Meridian City Silencer. A serial killer in a red mask that patrols the streets at night, beating up criminals and dishing out bullet-shaped justice to anyone he feels deserves it.

A serial killer went out of his way to return my most important belongings. The thought alone is unsettling.

“I wanted to see the face of the man who saved me,” I say cautiously.

“You’ve got it backwards, angel.” Before I have a chance to ask him what he means, he lets go of me and leaves my apartment so fast I’m not sure he’s even human.

Today was an absolute shitshow. Mondays, am I right?

His lips ghosting over my neck sends my senses into overdrive and it’s taking everything in me to stay still and not grind against the considerable tent in his pants.

“Until next time, Elena.” Oh yeah, I’m definitely going to imagine him saying my name like that with my vibrator against my clit tonight.

At least the Silencer is giving me a choice.

“It means that I’m going to make you want me as bad as I want you. I’m going to make you fantasize about how it feels to have my fingers in your greedy little cunt. I’m going to make you beg for my tongue against your clit. I’m going to make you so wet and needy for me that you’ll do anything to get me to relieve that hot, achy feeling inside you. Once you admit you want me, that’s when I’ll show my appreciation. With every part of me. On every part of you.”

“It’s in case you ever need help,” he explains. I lift the chain to examine it. “The charm attached is a silent panic alarm. You turn it on by clicking it five times. You’ll feel it vibrate, and it will send me an alert with your exact location. If you press it, I’ll come. No matter what.”

“I don’t want to kill you, angel. I want to keep you all to myself. You’d better take off those rose-colored glasses and accept that the only place you belong is in my black heart.”

“They need to know what happens when they touch what’s mine, Elena. They’re going to convert religions, because they won’t be praying to God, they’ll be praying to me. Begging for my fucking mercy after I hunt them all down and show them the true meaning of fear.”

“Okay,” I breathe, and with trembling hands, I cup his masked jaw and force him to rest his forehead against mine. I don’t know what

else to do to calm ...

He rubs my bottom lip with his gloved hand. “If you’re so concerned about my humanity, Elena, then reach into my soul and find it, because I’m not sure I have any left.”

Quitting isn’t an option for her. I know that. Valenti would just send his goons to kidnap her and drag her back to this wretched place. It’s better that he thinks she doesn’t suspect anything. If he thinks she’ll run, he will chase her. And that’s my fucking job.

Bloody. Just the way I like my kills.

But what I feel when I kill can only be described as relief. Relief that the monster inside me has been fed and will recede back into his decrepit cave until he’s hungry again, and that’s when I’ll kill next.

Eight. I’ve given him eight souls since September sixth. It should have only been one. It should have only been me.

Me. I’m going to be the one to get hurt, because he’s the untouchable Christian Reeves and I’m nobody.

That kiss had been lustful and harsh, full of intoxicating desire. The way he’s kissing me now feels like a promise of something more. It feels like the future.

I see more than you think I do. He said that to me the first time I was in his office, and I foolishly thought he was talking about the city. I didn’t realize he was committing tiny details about me to memory.

lick the whipped cream off my straw. He’s got a mischievous glint in his eyes and a smile on his face that screams trouble.

Then, he innocently licks his thumb, though my damn vagina couldn’t have found the action any more obscene judging by the way it just fluttered.

I shudder. “You can’t just keep killing people for—” “I can and I will, Elena. Until there’s no one left that can hurt you. That’s a promise.”

The Silencer turns and walks away without another word, and I make a mental note to research psychiatric hospitals when I get home, because I need serious mental help.

He admires me like my pussy is the finest work of art he’s ever seen. He licks his middle finger, still damp with my release, and slowly pushes it into me again.

need to taste her. I need to feel her around me. I need to worship her the way only I can. I need to love her so violently that it breaks her, and then fill in all those cracks with gold until the only thing holding her together is me.

She’s everywhere, and it’s still not enough. It will never be enough. Not until she loves me.

Though the Youngs have a history of stalkers, I’m not in this because I have some indescribable obsession with Elena. I know exactly why I desire her in my soul, and I’ll tell her about it one day, because she deserves to know why I call her angel.

“You taste so fucking good, Elena. I could stay down here forever.”

“You are.” “Not to you, to him.” “You are.”

let her go, and she stumbles to the tiny twin-sized mattress on the other side of the room. She climbs into the bed and then makes grabby hands at me. I chuckle, crawling into the bed next to her.

But then I met Elena, my perfect little guardian angel. I don’t just want to be a god anymore; I want to worship my goddess. I want to protect her. I want to take care of her. I want her to be mine. I want her soul to belong to me as mine belongs to her, even if she doesn’t realize she holds that power over me yet.

I lightly push her until she’s flat on her back, and then I kiss up her body, licking and nipping at her thighs, her stomach, the space between her breasts, until I get to her neck. And then I bite her. Hard.

Hard enough to leave bruises.

A soft moan escapes her lips. If it’s one of pain or pleasure, I really don’t give a fuck. She’ll have my bruises on her body, one thing I get to cl...

It’s a shame I’m already destined for Hell, because it’s not where angels belong. But I’m not going anywhere without her.

Christian makes my insides twist in all the wrong ways, and if he thinks some flowers will heal the ache in my chest, he’s dead wrong.

“You shouldn’t be shocked. You’re extraordinary, Elena. I know you don’t see it, but I adore everything about you, even the parts of yourself that you’re insecure about. I know precisely how much creamer you put in your coffee because your nose does this crinkling thing as you pour it until it’s enough. I know you tend to forget your lip balm because you’ve got a dozen tubes of it all over our office. You lightly chew at your bottom lip when you’re concentrating and when you bowl you always double tap your foot before you roll.”

He chooses to celebrate his historic success with a bottle of red wine and his tongue on my clit because, in his words, I’m ‘the single best pairing with a good Cabernet’.

Fear is such a strange emotion.

If she pressed her panic alarm after that, she is in danger. Not just scared, but actual, mortal danger. ‘I’m calling the one person on this earth that I hate for help’ kind of danger.

Her soft brown eyes meet mine, and I crumble. Literally crumble to the floor at the edge of the bed and I’m ready to beg. Beg and plead until she forgives me. As I open my mouth to do just that, she stops me.

Love makes people blind. It makes us blind, and selfish, and stupid.”

The one I used to crave.

There’s a saying that every seven years, your body will be new. The same, but all your cells will be replaced. In seven years, I’ll have a body that Frank and Neil would have never touched. I wish that gave me comfort.

I let out a nervous scoff, my own voice cracking when I ask, “Why did you keep my secret?” She sucks in a sharp breath, flattening the letter I wrote her against my chest, her words coming out as pathetic whimpers.

“Because I love you, too.”

I’m happy that a serial killer is coming to my family home. There is something seriously wrong with me.