Hunting Adeline (Cat and Mouse, #2)

by H.D. Carlton

My poker face has cracked.

These men may be skilled in hunting, but what they don't know is that I've been hunted by a far scarier man. I was a mouse caught in a trap before, scared, and helpless as I was taken between the teeth of an apex predator. But I'm not their little mouse, and they are not Zade. And I will never succumb to them.

“Meadows, baby. Our last name is Meadows.”

Plus, it’s missing the ketchup stain on the roof, and I miss that stain.

I glance around, trying to locate where my heart fell out of my ass.

“My entire world revolves around you. If you want mint chocolate chip, then that’s what I want, too,” he had said. “Do you even like it?” “I like you, does that count?” “No.”

He’s right. I never did act appropriately to him stalking me.

Zade and I—we don’t make sense to the outside world. Barely even in my own head. Yet I’m finding it hard to care anymore. I won’t ever justify what Zade has done to me, but I do forgive him. Not only that, but I accept him.

He told me before that he wanted me to fall in love with the darkest parts of him, and I have. Every fucked-up piece of him.

“I don’t care if I need to set this world on fire until there’s no one left but you and me. The world will burn around us, and I’ll gladly live in chaos with you as long as the only person that is a danger to you is me.”

“I’ve followed you through lifetimes, Adeline. My soul needs you so badly that I’ve become a shadow, destined to hunt you for eternity.”

my chest. “I don’t ever want to be free of you, Zade. Not in this lifetime, and not in all the ones that come after.”

A devil and a God—two opposing forces that make up one contradicting being.

“I love you, Zade. Sometimes I can’t fucking stand it,” I say, my voice raspy and uneven. “But it was the only thing that kept me alive. You saved me. Even when we were apart, you saved me. And I hope to God you never stop hunting me.”

“Don’t forget your knives and guns, mouse,” I call after her. “And, Sibby… limit your knives and guns.”

Jay announces, bringing the topic away from ghosts and getting fucked with knives by imaginary people.

We’d haunt Parsons Manor together, and it’s undeniable how much I love the sound of that.

Heaven isn’t a place you go to when you die, it’s inside the person that’s worth dying for.