Page 114 of The Fire Went Wild

The Unnamed.

It nods at me, approving.

And somehow, I’m still coming as I die.

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

JAXON

Charlotte’s entire body convulses right before the symphony of her life silences. It feels impossibly fucking good, like every single muscle she’s ever used just clamped down around my cock. I cry out, hand still pressed deeper around her neck, and come, bucking and thrusting into her slack body. Then I collapse down on top of her, trying to catch my panting breath.

She doesn’t move. Her chest doesn’t rise and fall against mine. I can’t even sense the imperceptible rhythm of her heartbeat.

“Tell me I wasn’t wrong,” I whisper in the language of the gods. Now that my ecstasy’s evaporating away, doubt creeps in. I was so sure she’s a Hunter.Shewas sure, even up until the last moment. I know what it looks like, what it feels like, to kill someone who doesn’t want to die. They fight, they panic, they plead—with their eyes if they can’t speak.

And she didn’t do any of that. She came for me, and then she passed out, and then I kept going until she was silenced.

But the doubt is still there, niggling at the back of my thought. What if we both made a terrible mistake?

“Tell me,” I whisper again, grabbing at her limp hand.

A whisper rattles through Charlotte’s lips. The Unnamed. Of course. It was the one drawing us together all this time.

Of course she’s a Hunter.She was chosen by me. Doubt is unbecoming of you.

I breathe out in relief and nuzzle up against her throat. Even the Unnamed’s admonishment doesn’t sting. “How long?” I ask. “Until her revival?”

The Unnamed doesn’t answer that question, and I didn’t expect it to. It will take as long as it takes. The first revival always takes a while, but a death like this, with minimal damage to her beautiful body—a year. Maybe a little longer.

I shift, my cock softening inside her. She wears a black necklace of bruises, and her eyes are bulging open, red with burst blood vessels. Fortunately, I came prepared, and I pull two gold coins out of my pocket. The same gold coins my father laid on my eyes when I died for the first time.

I close her lids, one at a time, and weigh them down with the coins. Then I adjust the dress’s neckline, which got twisted up and dragged down while I fucked her, revealing one of her pretty nipples. I cover that back up, then slide out of her—with some regret—so I can adjust the skirt of the dress, too, arranging it so it flares out around her like fallen snow. I know I won’t be able to withstand the temptation to play with her again, and soon—she’s so beautiful in death, so still, and it will be a treasure to feel her cold pussy around my cock, to lick at her stiffening flesh.

But right now, in the moments after her death, I want to make her a work of art.

I put my dick away, crawl backward out of the tomb, and get to work.

I have my old gouache paints waiting for me in my studio, each color mixed with the blood Charlotte spilled three days ago. It gives the paint a thick, sticky consistency as I carefully paintthe Unnamed’s sigil onto Charlotte’s forehead, murmuring soft prayers as I trace the intricate lines and swirls, feeling the power humming up through my hand. I add delicate embellishments to the design, decorating her already-paling face until she looks like a flower in the darkness. Then I move down to cover her bruises with a thick layer of color, turning each burst bloom into a vibrant, multi-colored rose.

I paint her arms next, ringing them with a delicate, flowery pattern, all the way down to her pale hands. There, I stop for a moment. She’s still warm, and rigor mortis hasn’t moved into her limbs yet, although it’s making its way there.

“You’re so beautiful,” I whisper to her. Then I kiss the inside of her palms before I paint a brilliant, blazing red eye, another symbol of the Unnamed, on the center of each one. I arrange her hands at her side so the Unnamed’s red eyes stare upward at the starry light spilling through the top of the tomb.

It takes a long time to paint every inch of Charlotte’s bare skin. I go slowly and methodically so I don’t accidentally get paint on her dress, which cinches around her waist and ripples over her legs. By the time I’m finished, she looks like a garden in the golden, late afternoon sunlight. And when the weak Louisiana winter ends in a few weeks, and the wildflowers start blooming along the highways and in the sunny patches of my yard, I’ll make her look like a garden for real.

She has to be buried if I want her to revive as fast as possible. And I’d rather bury her in flowers than in dirt.

I crawl out of the tomb to put my supplies away and let the paint dry. I was half-aroused the entire time I was anointing her, but I promised myself—and her, not that I’m sure she really understands the reason for it—that I would wait until she was anointed to have my fun. Now the ceremony is done. I’ve marked her for the Unnamed. Perhaps she’ll meet it in death, just as she did, however briefly, in her dreams.

I go inside and strip out of my suit. I take a shower, washing away any grime and paint from my skin. I eat a little something to get my energy up.

Then it’s back outside—to play with her corpse for the first time.

It’s been hours since Charlotte died. The sun is sinking into the swamp and staining the sky with streaks of red the same cherry-blood color as her hair.

I crawl into the tomb and then crawl on top of her, careful not to smudge any of the paint as I lean down to kiss her lips, which I left bare. There’s no response from her, of course, but she’s in the Abyss, her soul a small bright ember among the darkness, barely glowing as her body heals itself.

“Are you ready, cher?” I whisper, my heart quickening in my chest.