Juniper Unraveling (Juniper Unraveling #1)

by Keri Lake

“And you would die the moment they learned you’re a girl.” “I’m going to die, anyway, aren’t I? Eventually?” “Indifference to death isn’t going to help you here. Learn to be indifferent to pain, and you’ll become invincible. Defiant.”

“Civilization has always been divided into those who have everything and those who have nothing. Even when the world goes to shit.”

“They’re afraid of Six, then.” “We should all be a little afraid of Six. He’s driven by the same needs, Wren. The second generation has a more symbiotic relationship with the protein, and he can function on a higher level. But he has urges. Some he can’t control, as much as he may want to.”

His lips create a reverent path from my navel to my neck, until he slants his mouth over mine. Like some kind of ritual, he performs this way every time we partake in something sexual, as if asking forgiveness for what he’s about to do.

It’s weird to think women once roamed wherever they wanted, without something trying to kill, or mate, them.

While most would kill to live here, I find it all utterly depressing. An everlasting façade.

But there is no monster more terrifying than the human being who lacks compassion.

I don’t know what it is about Six. What it’s always been. He is fire in a rainstorm. A sweet poison that intoxicates me. A force of nature that defies everything I know—both dangerous and extraordinary at the same time.

Isn’t that the way of love, though? It’s like a flame, a magnificent gift of nature that draws you into its warmth. The closer a person gets, the more they sacrifice themselves, until they’re burning in that unforgiving fire, wishing to become numb, as they turn to nothing more than ash on the wind. That’s my take on love. Yet, still my masochistic heart yearns for that heat.

He is vengeance incarnate. The devil. My dark messenger of pain and retribution.