Needle&Thread: I would beg for your tongue to kiss me deep. I would moan for your fingers to stretch me and make me wet, and I would get on my knees and suck you for the chance to have you inside me again.

My eyes rolled back as I worked myself faster. My breathing puffed in the silence of my room.

What was she doing? Debts had dragged us together, but life had given us that magical spark that made even the simplest of touches or barest of smiles cataclysmic. It was fucking dangerous, and I had no intention of playing with fire again.

I had other things to chase. Better things.

Kite007: If you’re lucky, I might let you taste me again.

Only while she was paying the Third Debt and nothing else. And I doubted she’d want anything to do with me by that point.

Needle&Thread: All of you?

Kite007: Don’t get greedy, little Weaver.

My hand bruised hot flesh, jerking with violence as I crested and craved. My dick hardened. A release grew stronger, just out of reaching distance. Picking up my pace, I thrust into my palm, driving myself toward the goal.

The residue of the last pill I’d taken five hours ago faded, letting me live in bliss for a short moment. Falling back into insanity, I typed:

Kite007: I’m fucking myself. Are you jealous?

Needle&Thread: Obscenely jealous.

Kite007: Rub yourself. I want to hear you moan.

Needle&Thread: If I were in your bed, you’d hear me scream.

Goddammit.

I gritted my jaw; my hips drove faster into my hand. My breathing accelerated until my bed creaked with my thrusts. In a few short hours, I would collect her—not because she’d ‘invited me’ but because it was time.

Our plan was in place. It was time for execution. In more ways than one.

Needle&Thread: I’m so close, Kite. So close to coming. I need you to collect me. I want to be fucked by you again.

I came.

I couldn’t help it.

With a loud groan, ribbons of white shot through the air and splattered against my naked belly. Wave after wave, I rode through vicious pleasure. The foggy haze dispersed just long enough for me to twitch and moan with the first sensation I’d had in weeks.

Breathing hard, I typed one last message:

Kite007: Don’t go into the dark alone, little Weaver. Monsters roam the shadows, and your time is officially up.

With a cold smile, I tucked the phone inside my drawer and wiped down my stomach with a sock. My breathing slowly steadied as I rested my head on my pillow. Taking the small bottle from its safe place beside me, I swallowed a pill and felt the change instantly.

Whereas before there was sensitivity, now there was nothing.

I was back to being blank, and the next time I saw her, she’d finally understand the errors of her ways.

She’d had me and lost me.

Now it was time to suffer the consequences.

It was cold tonight.

My breath billowed as I shrugged into my leather jacket and straddled my new Harley. My gloved hands were warm, my uncut feet toasty in my heavy boots.

I no longer had to hurt myself to stay sane.

I had something better.

Pulling out the small bottle, I popped another tablet of the best medicine in the world. I’d taken an extra dose today—just to be sure—and welcomed the familiar blanket over my thoughts.

My heart was a lump of snow, my extremities their usual ice.

I pulled down the black visor on my helmet.

I was no longer human but a black shadow.

The Grim Reaper.

A Hawk about to steal what was rightfully mine.

I left at midnight.

Leaving Hawksridge behind and driving at crazy speeds from Buckinghamshire to London, I counted the minutes until she’d be mine again.

I doubted she’d planned on this when she’d texted me last night. I couldn’t wait to see her face and for her to finally understand what’d changed in the month we’d spent apart.

There were three of us on the road.

Me, Kes, and Flaw.

They flanked me and had my back—just in case the Weavers got any ideas. After all, we’d bided our time to make them complacent, but I wouldn’t underestimate them again. Not after the sneaky fuck up Vaughn had created.

The entire journey, I thought about Nila’s text messages.

I grew hard again, knowing that soon she would belong to me and I could once again prove to my father that his leniency toward me was justified.

Nila was nothing to me. Not anymore.

Time flew as we tore through the night with a roar of engines and smoke. The smell of gasoline filled my nostrils.

I was high on octane, and soon I would be high on thievery.

I was stealing what was rightfully mine.

I was claiming her, exterminating her.

Her fate was mine. There was never any other way. No alternative ending.

She was a Weaver.

I was a Hawk.

This is it.

I was outside her house.

I killed the engine.

I WOKE TO a dangerous darkness.

My heart rate exploded the moment my eyes tore open.

He’s here.

I knew it as surely as I knew my name.

He’s in my room.

I couldn’t see him.

I couldn’t smell him.

But I sensed him.

Coldness and anger and bite.

“Jethro—?”

I blinked, peering into dark corners.

He’s come for me.

I knew it stronger than anything.

It’s not over.

But this time…I had a plan. I wasn’t the victim. I wasn’t some stupid girl who’d been sheltered by her family. I’d stared death in the face—I’d been in its clutches—and I knew how to survive.