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The bell above the door gave a half-hearted jingle as Wednesday Addams stepped into the Weathervane, the same way she had every morning for the past three weeks. The air smelled of burnt espresso and desperation, the kind that clung to people who believed caffeine could fix their meaningless lives.
She joined the line, already calculating the precise number of seconds until she could retreat to her apartment with her quad espresso—no foam, no sugar, no mercy—and resume plotting the disposal of Mr. Hargrove, the tax accountant two streets over who had once told her to “smile more.” His appointment with a shallow grave was overdue.
But the line was not moving.
At the counter, the barista—Tyler Galpin— was leaning forward on his elbows, sleeves rolled to the forearms, that infuriating half-smile fixed on his face as he spoke to the blonde Pilates instructor in front of Wednesday. The woman—leggings the color of diluted blood, ponytail so tight it looked painful—was laughing at something he’d said. Laughing too loudly. Touching the edge of the counter near his hand. Tyler’s voice rolled out low and warm, the kind of timbre that should have been reserved for reading autopsy reports aloud, not flirting.
Wednesday’s fingers flexed inside her pockets, nails digging crescents into her palms.
He was taking too long.
Her schedule was precise. Coffee. Writing. Murder planning. Repeat. Tyler Galpin was a variable she had not accounted for, and variables were intolerable.
The blonde tilted her head, twirling a strand of hair. “You always remember my order. That’s so sweet.”
Tyler chuckled—actually chuckled. “Hard to forget someone who orders an oat milk latte with three pumps of vanilla and a side of chaos every Tuesday.”
Wednesday’s eye twitched.
Chaos. He was quoting her now? To this… stretchy, performative organism?
The line inched forward by one person. Wednesday remained rooted, staring at the back of the blonde’s head like she could will it to explode. It did not.
Disappointing.
Tyler finally handed over the cup, fingers brushing the blonde’s in a way that looked accidental but wasn’t. The woman beamed, said something Wednesday couldn’t hear over the sudden roaring in her ears, and sauntered off with a little wave.
Then it was Wednesday’s turn.
Tyler’s gaze shifted to her, and the smile changed—sharper at the edges, less performative.
“Morning, Wednesday. Quad, black as your soul?”
She stared at him without blinking. “You’re late.”
“I’m exactly on time. You’re the one who’s early.” He punched the order into the register without looking away. “Rough night? You look like you’re plotting someone’s demise.”
“Always,” she said flatly. “Currently yours.”
He laughed—soft, unbothered, the sound sinking into her sternum like a dull blade. “Flattering. Most people just leave bad Yelp reviews.”
“You’re delaying my caffeine intake. That constitutes a capital offense.”
“Capital punishment for taking thirty extra seconds to be polite?” He slid the cup across the counter, steam curling like smoke from a fresh wound. His fingers lingered a fraction too long when she took it. “You’re welcome, by the way.”
Wednesday’s grip tightened on the paper sleeve until it crinkled. His eyes were too green, too knowing, too amused by her. He matched every barbed retort she threw, parried without effort, never flinched at the morbidity. It was unnatural. Infuriating.
She hated him.
She hated the way he remembered her order without asking. Hated the low rasp in his voice when he said her name like it was a private joke.
Hated how he looked at her like he could see straight through the black wool and into the place where she kept her kill list.
Most of all, she hated that he had smiled at the blonde the same way he sometimes smiled at her.
No. Not the same.
Close enough to be offensive.
She turned on her heel without another word, the bell jangling mockingly behind her as she stepped into the cold morning air.
By the time she reached the corner, the decision had crystallized.
Tyler Galpin had become a problem.
Problems required solutions.
Solutions, in her experience, involved blades, shallow graves, and the satisfying hush that followed.
He would die tonight.
She would make it look like an accident—perhaps a slip in the back room among the coffee bags, a fall onto something sharp and unforgiving. Or maybe she would simply strangle him with the apron strings he wore like a noose waiting to happen. The details could wait.
The point was: he had disrupted her routine. He had flirted with someone else. He had smiled too much.
And Wednesday Addams did not tolerate interruptions.
She sipped her quad, the bitterness grounding her.
Yes.
Tonight.
(She ignored the small, traitorous part of her brain that whispered he might look beautiful with her hands around his throat—eyes wide, lips parted, that infuriating smile finally gone quiet.)
She ignored it completely.
This was justice.
Nothing more.
The Weathervane closed at ten sharp. Wednesday knew this because she had timed it on three separate occasions, stopwatch in hand, memorizing the rhythm of Tyler’s routine: lights dimmed at 9:55, cash drawer counted by 10:02, back door propped open for exactly forty-seven seconds while he carried the last trash bag to the dumpster. Predictable. Efficient. Annoyingly human.
Tonight the alley behind the shop smelled of wet asphalt and stale coffee grounds. Wednesday pressed herself against the brick wall opposite the exit, black coat blending into shadow, switchblade already open in her palm. The steel was cold, familiar, comforting. One clean slice across the carotid—quick, quiet, arterial spray painting the dumpster like abstract expressionism. Robbery gone wrong. The police would shrug, chalk it up to the general malaise of big city life. Case closed before the body cooled.
The back door creaked.
Tyler stepped out, hoodie up, carrying two bulging trash bags, one in each hand. He didn’t look around. Didn’t hesitate. Just walked toward the dumpster like every other night.
Wednesday moved.
Silent footsteps, weight on the balls of her feet. She was ten paces behind him, then five, then close enough to smell the faint cedar-and-espresso scent that clung to him even after eight hours of steaming milk. Her pulse stayed steady. Clinical. Professional.
She raised the blade.
And then he turned.
Not startled. Not alarmed.
Just… turned.
Like he’d known she was there the whole time.
The bags hit the ground with soft thuds. Tyler’s eyes found hers in the dim sodium glow of the single bulb above the door. That half-smile was already in place—slow, knowing, infuriating.
“Evening, Wednesday.”
Wednesday froze, blade still raised, arm extended. The moment stretched, elastic and absurd.
She should have lunged. Should have finished it. Instead her mouth opened and words fell out—words she had not prepared.
“I was… checking the structural integrity of the alley wall. For… architectural purposes.”
Tyler’s brows lifted half an inch. He glanced at the knife, then back to her face. “With a switchblade?”
“It’s multi-purpose.”
He laughed—low, warm, the sound curling around her ribs like smoke. “You know, most people just text if they want to hang out after close.”
“I don’t text.”
“Yeah. I noticed.” He took one casual step forward. Then another. Wednesday did not lower the knife. She also did not step back. “You’ve been watching me for weeks. Thought maybe you were just shy. But this?” He nodded toward the blade. “This is bold. I like bold.”
Wednesday’s brain short-circuited.
Shy?
“I am not shy,” she said, voice flat as a gravestone. “I am lethal.”
“Uh-huh.” He closed the last distance between them until the tip of the blade rested feather-light against the hollow of his throat. He didn’t flinch. Didn’t even swallow. Just looked down at her with those stupid green eyes that seemed to see too much and care too little. “You waited until my shift ended. In the dark. Alone. For me. That’s kind of romantic, in a Wednesday Addams way.”
Her grip on the handle tightened until her knuckles ached. “This is not romance. This is premeditated homicide.”
“Sure. But you haven’t done it yet.” His voice dropped softer, almost conspiratorial. “And I think we both know why.”
She stared at him. The blade trembled—once, barely perceptible.
Tyler reached up slowly, deliberately, and curled his fingers around her wrist. Not to disarm her. Just to hold. His thumb brushed the inside of her pulse point, feeling the sudden, traitorous jump.
“I like you too,” he said simply.
The words landed like a slap. Or a kiss. She couldn’t decide which.
Wednesday’s mind screamed denial in four languages. She did not like him. She did not feel warmth coil low in her stomach when he smiled like that. She did not notice the way his hoodie stretched across his shoulders or the faint scar on his left knuckle or the way his voice sounded like velvet dragged over broken glass.
She did not.
And yet the knife stayed where it was, pressed to his skin but not breaking it.
Tyler tilted his head, just enough that the blade kissed his throat without cutting. “So. You gonna kill me, or are you gonna let me walk you home?”
Her jaw clenched. “I could still slit your throat.”
“You could,” he agreed, almost cheerfully. “But then you’d miss out on finding out what happens when I kiss you back.”
The alley went very quiet.
Wednesday considered murder.
She considered retreat.
She considered the unacceptable possibility that he might be right.
Finally—slowly—she lowered the blade. Not because she was defeated. Because she needed both hands free in case she decided to strangle him instead.
Tyler’s smile widened, soft and victorious and utterly insufferable.
“Come on,” he said, bending to pick up the trash bags like nothing had happened. “I’ll lock up. Then we can argue about whether this counts as a date.”
Wednesday followed him back toward the door, knife still in hand, folded but ready.
She told herself it was reconnaissance.
She told herself she was gathering intel for a future, more successful attempt.
She told herself a lot of things.
None of them explained why, when he glanced back over his shoulder and flashed that stupid, lopsided smile, something inside her chest cracked open like a coffin lid in the wrong direction.
She hated him.
She hated him so much it almost felt like something else entirely.
(She still wasn’t going to admit what.)
The second time Wednesday Addams decided Tyler Galpin needed to die was on what he insisted on calling their first date.
Statistically speaking, the most common murderer of any given person is their significant other. Wednesday had memorized the figures years ago—intimate partner violence accounted for more homicides than strangers, firearms, or blunt objects combined. If she were ever foolish enough to become his girlfriend (which she emphatically was not, and never would be), the investigation would circle back to her eventually. Even with her meticulous planning, even with alibis forged in blood and shadow, there was always a margin of error. Better to eliminate the variable entirely.
Tonight, then. Tonight he would die.
He had texted her the details at precisely 6:47 p.m.:
Tyler: Pick you up at 8. Dress warm. Bring your murder face.
She had replied with a single skull emoji.
He arrived on time in a black Jeep that looked like it had personally offended several parking laws. Wednesday slid into the passenger seat wearing her usual black coat, black turtleneck, black skirt, black boots, and the switchblade tucked into her garter like a promise. She said nothing. He grinned like he’d already won.
They drove in silence until the road turned to gravel, then to nothing at all. When he finally killed the engine, they were at the edge of an old cemetery—the one that had been abandoned since the 1940s when the last family plot was filled and the groundskeeper drank himself to death on moonshine and regret.
Tyler got out first, popped the trunk, and began unloading.
Wednesday followed, already cataloging exit routes, blind spots, places to drag a body. The moon was a thin crescent, perfect for discretion. She could slit his throat here, prop him against a headstone, make it look like he’d come to mourn someone and met with foul play. Or she could lure him deeper, into one of the crumbling mausoleums, and leave him there to rot until the smell finally drew attention months from now. She would be long gone by then—new name, new city, new kill list.
Tyler turned, arms full of equipment, and flashed that stupid, lopsided smile.
“Welcome to date night, Addams.”
He led her through the iron gates (one of them hanging crookedly, like a broken jaw) to a small crypt tucked against the far wall. The door had been pried open. Inside, fairy lights—black cords, warm white bulbs—were strung across the vaulted ceiling like captured stars. A black-and-white checkered picnic blanket was spread on the stone floor. Beside it sat a wicker basket and two black popcorn boxes with white lettering that read “DEATH POPCORN” in dripping gothic font. A small projector was already set up on a makeshift stand of stacked grave markers, aimed at the smooth back wall.
Wednesday stared.
Tyler set the basket down and began unpacking: black licorice, charcoal-dusted truffles, black sesame mochi, a thermos of something dark and steaming. He glanced up at her frozen expression.
“You said you like things morbid,” he explained, almost sheepish. “Figured a crypt was on-brand. And I know you hate rom-coms, so…” He gestured to the projector screen, where the opening credits of Legally Blonde were already cued. “Figured this would horrify you properly.”
Wednesday’s eye twitched.
He had turned a date into a calculated assault on her sensibilities. And worse—he had succeeded.
She could still kill him. Easily. The crypt was soundproof. No witnesses. No cameras. She could strangle him with the picnic blanket’s fringe, or simply snap his neck against the stone wall and walk away. But…
The lights were soft. The blanket looked soft. The popcorn smelled faintly of butter and malice. And Tyler was watching her with that quiet, expectant look, like he’d spent actual time thinking about what would make her… comfortable? Tolerable? Tolerable-adjacent?
She sat.
He sat beside her—close enough that their shoulders brushed, but not so close she felt crowded. He handed her a popcorn box without comment. She took it.
The movie started.
Within ten minutes she was muttering commentary under her breath.
“Her hair is structurally unsound. It would collapse under the weight of actual personality.”
Tyler snorted. “You’d make a terrible sorority president.”
“I would make an excellent one. I would institute mandatory poison control drills and a weekly body count.”
He laughed—low, genuine—and passed her the thermos. Hot chocolate. Black. No marshmallows. Exactly how she liked it.
They traded barbs through the entire film. He matched her sarcasm beat for beat, never flinching at the gore she invented for Elle Woods’ future (“She’ll end up dismembered in a tanning bed, obviously”). When the credits rolled, the crypt was quiet except for the soft hum of the projector and the distant hoot of an owl outside.
Tyler turned to her.
“You didn’t hate it.”
“I hated every frame.”
“Liar.”
She glared. He smiled.
Then—slowly, giving her every chance to pull away—he leaned in. His hand found the side of her face, thumb brushing her cheekbone like he was handling something fragile and deadly.
Wednesday did not move.
He kissed her.
It was careful at first, testing. Then deeper, when she didn’t stab him. His mouth tasted like chocolate and salt and something dangerously alive. Her fingers curled into the front of his hoodie—not to push away, but to hold.
When he pulled back, his forehead rested against hers.
“Still planning to murder me?” he murmured.
“Always,” she whispered back. But her voice lacked conviction.
He chuckled, soft and warm against her lips.
They stayed like that for a long minute—two people in a crypt, fairy lights flickering overhead, Legally Blonde credits looping silently on the wall.
Eventually she stood. He packed up without complaint. They walked back to the Jeep in silence, her hand brushing his once, twice, then staying.
He drove her home.
At the door, she paused, one foot on the running board.
“You live,” she said flatly.
“For now.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Don’t get used to it.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it.”
He watched her disappear into the shadows of the apartment building.
Wednesday closed the front door behind her, leaned against it, and pressed two fingers to her lips.
She told herself it was reconnaissance.
She told herself she was gathering weaknesses.
She told herself the flutter in her chest was merely adrenaline withdrawal.
She told herself a great many lies that night.
But Tyler Galpin lived to see another sunrise.
And—for reasons she refused to examine—she was not entirely displeased.
The third time Wednesday Addams decided Tyler Galpin had to die was on their third date.
They had been “seeing each other” for three weeks and four days—long enough that she now had a preferred stool at the Weathervane counter, long enough that she found herself arriving twenty minutes before her usual time on Tuesdays and Thursdays when his shift overlapped with the afternoon lull. Not because she wanted to see him. Obviously. She was simply… conducting immersive research for her novel. The barista’s relentless cheer provided excellent contrast for her protagonist’s misanthropy. The way he frothed milk was a metaphor for the fragility of human optimism. The murders she was plotting on napkins between chapters were purely academic. Gruesome ways to end a life were excellent world-building.
Tyler texted her on a Thursday evening:
Tyler: Dinner at my place tomorrow, 7. I’m cooking. No crypts, no projectors, no embalming fluids. Just you, me, and actual conversation.
She replied:
Wednesday: Acceptable. I will bring my own poison in case the food is inedible.
Tyler: You already know I like my women dangerous.
She did not smile at her phone. She did not.
His address led her to a sleek, modern building on the edge of the city’s historic district—glass and steel, doorman, rooftop terrace, the kind of place that screamed quiet money rather than barista wages. Wednesday paused on the sidewalk, recalculating. She had assumed he lived in some damp basement apartment above a laundromat. This was… inconvenient. Luxury condos had better security cameras, thicker walls, fewer nosy neighbors who might hear a struggle.
Still. Perfect venue for murder. Isolated. Private. No one would connect a barista’s disappearance to the girl who only ever ordered quad espressos and glared.
He buzzed her up.
The elevator opened directly into the apartment—open-plan, high ceilings, floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the city lights. Minimalist black furniture, exposed brick, a turntable in the corner spinning something low and gothic. Wednesday cataloged escape routes, potential weapons (the marble kitchen island looked heavy enough to crush a skull), places to hide a body (the walk-in pantry was spacious).
Tyler appeared from the kitchen, sleeves rolled up, apron tied low on his hips, hair slightly mussed like he’d run his hands through it while seasoning something.
“You’re early,” he said, smiling that smile.
“You’re wealthy,” she countered, stepping inside.
He laughed. “Guilty. Maternal grandparents left me their estate when they died. Mom and Uncle followed a few years later—freak car accident on black ice. I was eighteen. Could’ve sold everything and disappeared to some island. Instead I bought this place and the Weathervane. Turns out I like making coffee more than I like yachting.”
Wednesday narrowed her eyes. “You own the Weathervane.”
“Since I was twenty. The previous owner wanted to retire to Florida. I made him an offer he couldn’t refuse.”
She filed that away. Humility. Competence. Hidden depths. All annoyingly attractive qualities.
“Dinner’s almost ready,” he said, gesturing to the island where two place settings waited—black plates, silver cutlery, a single black candle already lit. “Sit. Or prowl. Your choice.”
She prowled.
He served “roadkill” pot pie.
Wednesday froze with the fork halfway to her mouth.
“My dad used to make it when I was a kid,” Tyler explained, sitting across from her. “We lived up in Vermont. He hunted—deer, mostly. Whatever didn’t make it cleanly on the road, he’d salvage if it was fresh. Venison, root vegetables, gravy thick enough to stand a spoon in. Comfort food, Galpin style.”
She took a bite.
It was perfect. Savory, rich, faintly gamey in the way that reminded her of family dinners where Grandmama served roadkill flambé with a side of formaldehyde. Wednesday hated how much she liked it. Hated how the flavor settled warm and familiar in her chest.
They talked.
Actually talked.
About music (he preferred Joy Division to The Cure; she respected the error but could forgive it). About books (he’d read every Poe story twice and owned a first-edition The King in Yellow). About death (he asked clinical questions about embalming fluids; she answered in exhaustive, enthusiastic detail). About their families (he spoke of his father with quiet fondness; she spoke of hers with quiet menace).
Hours passed.
The candle burned low.
The turntable clicked to silence.
Tyler stood, cleared the plates, then came around the island to stand in front of her stool. He didn’t crowd. Just waited.
“You didn’t hate the food,” he said softly.
“I tolerated it.”
He leaned in. Kissed her slow, deliberate, tasting of red wine and rosemary. Wednesday let him. Let him deepen it. Let him lift her off the stool and carry her—effortlessly, annoyingly strong—down the hall to the bedroom.
The plan was still in place.
She would wait until he was distracted, vulnerable. The kitchen knives were German steel, razor-sharp. One quick slash while he slept, or even mid-kiss if she timed it right. Blood on black sheets would be poetic. She could be gone before the first siren.
But then he laid her on the bed—gentle, reverent—and looked at her like she was something worth keeping alive.
His hands were careful. His mouth was thorough. He whispered her name against her throat like a prayer. She arched into him, fingers digging into his shoulders, and for once the violence in her blood felt less like murder and more like hunger of a different kind.
They fucked.
Slow at first—exploring, testing boundaries. Then harder, faster, when she growled for more and he gave it without hesitation. He pinned her wrists above her head; she bit his shoulder hard enough to draw blood; he groaned like it was the best thing he’d ever felt. They moved together like they’d done this a hundred times instead of once. When she came, it was sharp and shattering, her nails raking down his back. He followed seconds later, burying his face in her neck, breathing her name like a curse and a blessing.
Afterward they lay tangled in black sheets that smelled of sex and cedar.
Wednesday stared at the ceiling, pulse still thundering.
The knife was still in the kitchen.
She could get up. Retrieve it. Finish what she came here to do.
Instead she turned her head.
Tyler was watching her—soft, unguarded, that stupid smile back in place.
“You’re still planning to kill me,” he murmured.
“Always,” she said. But her voice was hoarse, wrecked.
He chuckled low in his throat, pulled her closer until her head rested on his chest. His heartbeat was steady. Annoyingly soothing.
She told herself she was gathering more intel.
She told herself she was waiting for the perfect moment.
She told herself the ache in her chest was only post-coital endorphins.
She told herself many things as she drifted toward sleep in the arms of the man she had come here to murder.
But the knife stayed in the kitchen.
And Tyler Galpin lived to see another morning.
(She still wasn’t going to admit she liked him.)
(She especially wasn’t going to admit she might love the way he looked at her—like she was the most interesting thing he’d ever dissected.)
The fourth time Wednesday Addams decided Tyler Galpin had to die was during the holidays, six months into whatever this was.
She blinked one morning—awake in his bed, black silk sheets tangled around their legs, his arm slung possessively across her waist—and realized she had let six months pass without finishing the job. Six months of quad espressos handed over the counter with that knowing half-smile. Six months of late nights where “research” for her novel turned into hours of him reading over her shoulder, murmuring suggestions that were disturbingly good. Six months of her things migrating to his condo like invasive species: first the toothbrush (that first night), then a black velvet choker on the nightstand, then an entire drawer of black lace and leather, then half the closet claimed by her coats and boots and the occasional bloodstained apron she used for “cooking experiments.”
She lived there.
She cooked with him (roadkill pot pie had become a weekly ritual). She read with him (he’d started annotating her Poe collection in green ink; she pretended to hate it). She let him fuck her on every surface in the condo—kitchen island, living-room rug, against the floor-to-ceiling windows while the city lights blurred below—and each time she told herself it was reconnaissance, gathering vulnerabilities, collecting data on how best to end him.
But killing had slipped from favorite hobby to occasional side project. She still dispatched the occasional nuisance—a predatory professor, a too-friendly neighbor—but the thrill had dulled. The real adrenaline came from the way Tyler looked at her when she walked through his door, like she was the only thing worth coming home to.
It was disgusting. Domestic. Unacceptable.
So she invited him to the Addams Family holiday gathering at the mansion.
Perfect venue. Centuries-old booby traps. Hidden spikes. Man-eating plants. Petunia—the Venus flytrap the size of a small car, who had once devoured an entire census taker without burping. One “freak accident,” one slip on a greased staircase, one moment too close to Petunia’s snapping jaws, and Tyler would be fertilizer. No body to find. No questions. Her family would shrug and call it festive.
He accepted immediately.
Tyler: Wouldn’t miss it. Tell me what to bring. Poison? Black candles? My undying devotion?
Wednesday: All three. But mostly the last one. For camouflage.
The mansion was alive with holiday malice when they arrived. Black wreaths dripping with nightshade berries. A twenty-foot tree strung with tiny guillotines and glass eyeballs. Carols rewritten in minor keys. Gomez and Morticia greeted Tyler at the iron gates like a long-lost son.
“Mi muchacho!” Gomez cried, clapping him on the back hard enough to bruise a lesser man. “You have the eyes of a man who has stared into the abyss and asked for seconds!”
Morticia swept forward, kissed both his cheeks. “We’ve heard so much about you. Or rather—we’ve heard Wednesday complain in exquisite detail. That’s practically a love letter in our language.”
Tyler grinned, unfazed. “I take it as high praise.”
Pugsley appeared next, suspiciously friendly. Usually people recoiled from him after the first exploding gingerbread man incident. Tyler did not. He let Pugsley show him the new trebuchet in the east wing, complimented the trajectory math, then helped recalibrate the arm so it could launch flaming pumpkins with pinpoint accuracy.
Grandmama dragged him to the potion cellar for “holiday brewing.” Tyler matched her shot for shot of absinthe-laced elderberry cordial and somehow survived the resulting visions without vomiting. Uncle Fester challenged him to an electrocution contest; Tyler won by holding the live wire longer and still managing to wink at Wednesday across the room.
Thing scampered up Tyler’s leg, perched on his shoulder, and signed furiously. Tyler translated without missing a beat: “He says you’re tolerable. High compliment.”
Wednesday watched all of it from the shadows, arms crossed, jaw tight.
She had rigged the staircase with a pressure plate that would release a swinging scythe. Tyler stepped over it like he’d memorized the floor plan.
She’d laced the eggnog with Petunia’s digestive enzymes—enough to induce violent hemorrhaging within minutes. Tyler drank three glasses, complimented the “earthy aftertaste,” and remained annoyingly alive.
She’d positioned him directly beneath the mistletoe chandelier, which was actually a cluster of razor-sharp icicles enchanted to drop on command. He pulled her under it instead, kissed her slow and deep in front of her entire family, and the icicles stayed suspended like they were too charmed to fall.
Every trap failed.
Every single one.
On the last night—after a week of cooing parents, cackling relatives, and Tyler fitting into the Addams chaos like he’d been born wearing black—she found him on the balcony overlooking the moonlit graveyard.
He turned when she stepped out, coatless in the December cold, that stupid smile already in place.
“Thank you,” he said quietly. “For bringing me here. For letting me meet them. They’re… everything I thought your family would be. And more.”
Wednesday stared at him. The wind tugged at her braids. Somewhere below, Petunia snapped at a passing bat.
“I can’t wait,” he continued, stepping closer, “for the day they’re my family too.”
Her chest did something traitorous—tightened, warmed, ached.
He took her hands. His were warm. Hers were always cold. He didn’t seem to mind.
“I love you, Wednesday.”
The words landed like a blade between her ribs—clean, precise, fatal.
She stared at him for a long beat.
The plan was still viable. One shove over the balcony railing. A fall onto the iron spikes below. Tragic holiday accident. She could do it now. She should do it now.
Instead she heard herself say, “I love you too.”
The lie tasted like truth on her tongue.
Maybe sometimes you could love your victims. Maybe sometimes the line between predator and prey blurred until it disappeared.
He kissed her then—soft, reverent, like she was something precious and deadly. She let him. Let him pull her inside, let him take her to the four-poster bed in her childhood room, let him fuck her slow and deep while the house creaked around them and the family downstairs sang off-key dirges.
When it was over, she lay against his chest, listening to his heartbeat—steady, alive, infuriatingly comforting.
They were leaving in the morning.
She told herself she still had time. One last trap on the drive home. A staged car accident. Something elegant. Final.
She told herself she would do it.
She told herself she wasn’t already mourning the idea of a world without him in it.
Tyler pressed a kiss to her temple, murmured, “Merry Christmas, killer,” and fell asleep holding her like she was his.
Wednesday stared at the canopy above the bed, fingers tracing the scar on his shoulder where she’d bitten him months ago.
She was lucky they were leaving tomorrow.
Or else—
Or else she might never get around to killing him at all.
(She still wasn’t going to admit how much she liked the sound of “my family too.”)
(She especially wasn’t going to admit that, for the first time in her life, the thought of a shallow grave made her feel… empty.)
The fifth time Wednesday Addams decided Tyler Galpin had to die—this time for real, no more delays, no more excuses—was exactly one year after she first marked him for death.
She hated how the calendar had betrayed her. Twelve months of meticulous plans dissolving into lazy mornings in his bed, black coffee shared over the kitchen island, nights where he fucked her until her vision blurred white and her kill list gathered dust in a drawer she no longer opened. He had charmed her. Wooed her with that infuriating half-smile, those hazel eyes that saw too much, that cock that could reduce her to wordless, trembling ruin. Every time her fingers had twitched toward a blade or a garrote, he said or did something—kissed the scar on her wrist, murmured her name like a curse he adored, pinned her down and made her come so hard she forgot her own name—and the moment slipped away.
She let it.
She hated herself for it.
But lately he had changed.
Quiet. Distant. Coming home after midnight with excuses about “late inventory at the Weathervane.” His shirts carried the faint metallic tang of blood beneath the cedar-and-espresso scent she used to bury her face in. His eyes—usually warm, amused—were shadowed, guarded. He showered longer. He touched her less.
He was seeing someone else.
The realization arrived like a cold blade between her ribs. She had allowed herself to be played. Manipulated. Reduced to a jealous, lovesick cliché by her own prey. She, Wednesday Addams, serial killer of the unworthy, reduced to pacing his condo at 3 a.m., sniffing his collars like a discarded mistress.
Unacceptable.
She would not be made a fool.
So she planned the perfect execution: their one-year anniversary “romantic camping trip.”
Remote state park. Deep woods. No cell service. A tent pitched beside a black-water lake. She packed light: black sleeping bag, black lantern, black-handled hunting knife sharpened to surgical edge, zip ties, duct tape, a small folding saw for the messy parts. She told him she wanted to “reconnect under the stars.” He smiled—distracted, almost relieved—and agreed.
The drive was silent. He kept one hand on the wheel, the other resting on her thigh like always. She stared out the window, visualizing the sequence: lure him to the lake under the pretense of skinny-dipping, wait until he was naked and vulnerable in the shallows, then strike. Cut him open from sternum to navel. Reach in. Tear out his still-beating heart while he watched. Make him feel every second of the betrayal he’d inflicted on her. Let the water carry the blood away. Bury what was left under pine needles and forget he ever existed.
Simple. Poetic. Final.
They arrived at dusk. Set up camp. Cooked over a small fire (he insisted on s’mores; she ate the marshmallows raw and black). He tried to pull her close, kiss her neck. She let him—once, briefly—then murmured she wanted to “explore the lake before full dark.”
He followed.
The woods were thick, moonlit silver through the canopy. She led him down the narrow path to the water’s edge, boots silent on pine needles. He walked behind her, close enough she could feel his heat, far enough she could spin and strike if he suspected.
At the shore she turned.
The lake was mirror-black, reflecting nothing.
She faced him, knife already in hand—open, gleaming.
“You’ve been lying to me,” she said, voice flat, lethal.
Tyler stopped. Brows lifted. “What?”
“Late nights. Blood on your clothes. Excuses thinner than hospital sheets.” She stepped closer. “Who is she?”
Confusion flickered across his face—genuine, almost pained. “Wednesday. There’s no one else.”
“Don’t.” Her grip tightened on the hilt. “I can smell the lies on you. I can smell her.”
He exhaled through his nose, a short, humorless laugh. “You think I’m cheating.”
“I know you are.”
Another step. The water lapped at their boots.
Tyler’s expression shifted. The confusion cleared. Something darker rose behind his eyes—something ancient, amused, hungry.
He smirked.
Slow. Sharp. Predatory.
His hazel eyes caught the moonlight—and bled yellow.
Bright, molten gold. Pupils slitting vertical.
Wednesday froze.
“You’ve always been so good at reading people,” he said, voice lower, rougher, layered with something that wasn’t entirely human. “But you never quite read me.”
He took a single step forward.
She raised the knife.
He didn’t flinch.
Instead he tilted his head, smile widening until it showed too many teeth.
“You’re the only one with a secret?” he murmured. “No, baby. You’ve been my prey just as long as I’ve been yours.”
A crack—like bone shifting under skin.
His shoulders broadened. Spine arched. Muscles rippled and swelled beneath his shirt until the fabric tore at the seams. Claws punched through fingertips. Muscle—thick, gray, brindled—erupted across his arms, his chest, his face. Teeth lengthened into fangs. The man she loved disappeared in seconds, replaced by something massive, towering, monstrous.
Hyde.
The Hyde.
Seven feet of corded muscle and nightmare, yellow eyes glowing like dying suns. Claws that could disembowel with a flick. A low, rumbling growl that vibrated through the ground.
Wednesday’s knife hand didn’t waver.
But her breath caught.
Bodies found in alleys. Ripped apart. Throats torn. Limbs scattered like confetti. The news called them animal attacks—no bear, no wolf, nothing natural could move that fast in a city, leave that much carnage, vanish without tracks.
Not an animal.
Him.
Her boyfriend. Her lover. Her distraction.
A serial-killing monster whose bloodlust could rival hers—surpass it, maybe.
He stepped closer. The ground trembled faintly.
She should have lunged. Should have driven the blade into his throat, his heart, anywhere soft.
Instead heat coiled low in her belly. Sharp. Sudden. Violent.
Her pulse thundered in her ears—not fear.
Arousal.
Raw. Primal. Electric.
Tyler—the Hyde—tilted his massive head, nostrils flaring as he scented her.
That same smirk curled across his muzzle, fangs glinting.
“Still want to kill me, Addams?” The voice was his, but warped—deeper, gravel and hunger. “Or do you finally want to see what happens when two monsters stop pretending?”
Wednesday stared up at him—heart slamming, thighs slick, knife still raised like a promise.
She didn’t answer.
She didn’t need to.
The realization burned through her like fever:
He had never been prey.
He had been waiting.
Just like her.
The knife clattered onto the damp earth, forgotten. A pointless piece of steel against this mountain of flesh and fury.
Wednesday lunged, but not with violence. She grabbed a fistful of the coarse, brindled fur covering his chest, hauling herself up his body. He was a furnace, radiating heat that singed the air. Her boots left the ground as he easily lifted her, his massive clawed hands—each the size of her head—gripping her thighs. The fabric of her dress tore with a sound like ripping canvas as his claws accidentally scored her skin. The pain was a white-hot spark, a welcome prelude.
"Show me," she snarled, her voice a ragged, breathless thing. She wrapped her legs around his torso, feeling the thick, unyielding muscle beneath her. "Show me what the animal can do."
The Hyde answered with a guttural growl that vibrated through her entire body, rattling her bones. He carried her not to the ground, but to a thick, gnarled oak tree at the edge of the clearing, slamming her back against it. The impact drove the air from her lungs, a brutal, exquisite shock. He held her there, pinned, his yellow eyes boring into hers. He was all predator, and she was the feast.
His muzzle lowered, snuffling at the pulse hammering in her throat. His hot breath, smelling of copper and something wild and musky, washed over her skin. A long, rough tongue, textured like sandpaper, laved a stripe up her neck. She shuddered, a full-body convulsion of pure, unadulterated lust.
"You filthy beast," she moaned, her head falling back against the bark. "That's it. Mark me. I want to stink of you when you're done."
He responded by sinking his fangs—not deep enough to kill, but enough to claim. The points pierced the skin just above her collarbone, and Wednesday cried out, a sound of pure, agonized pleasure. He lapped at the welling blood, his growl a constant, hungry rumble against her flesh.
One of his monstrous hands released her thigh, moving with terrifying speed to rip away the remnants of her dress and the flimsy lace beneath. The cold night air hit her slick, heated core, and she arched against him, shameless. His claws, though careful not to cut, were rough against her sensitive skin as he gripped her hips, angling her.
She looked down. Between them, his cock was impossibly large, a thick, ridged column of flesh the color of storm clouds, jutting from a sheath of coarse fur. It was something alien, something unnatural, and it was perfect.
Her breath hitched. "Oh, you're going to ruin me," she whispered, a reverence in her voice. "Go on then. Fucking ruin me."
He didn't hesitate. He drove into her with a single, brutal thrust.
The world shattered. It wasn't pain, not exactly. It was an overwhelming, all-consuming fullness, a stretching that bordered on tearing, a violation so complete it was its own form of worship. She was split open, impaled, utterly possessed. Her scream was raw, torn from her throat, echoing through the silent woods.
He set a punishing rhythm, each powerful slam of his hips lifting her higher against the tree. The bark scraped her back raw. His claws dug into her ass, holding her in place for his onslaught. She was nothing but a toy for his monstrous lust, a hole to be used, and the thought sent waves of depraved ecstasy crashing through her.
"Is that all?" she gasped out, her voice cracking with the force of his thrusts. "Is that the best a monster can do? Fuck me like you mean it, you overgrown mutt! Make me feel it for a week!"
His growl deepened, a sound of pure thunder. He shifted his grip, one massive arm wrapping around her lower back to pull her even harder onto him. The new angle was devastating. The thick head of his cock battered against her cervix with every thrust, a blunt, glorious agony that made her vision swim. Her own slickness coated him, dripping down his fur and her thighs, a filthy testament to her surrender.
She felt the tension coiling in her belly, tighter and tighter, a spring about to snap. She wanted to see his face when she broke. She reached up, her fingers tangling in the thick fur around his neck, pulling his head down.
"Look at me," she commanded, her voice a breathless demand. "Look at the girl you're destroying."
His yellow eyes, burning with a primal intelligence she'd never seen in Tyler, locked with hers. The connection was electric. He wasn't just fucking her body; he was consuming her soul. He saw everything—the darkness, the hunger, the twisted need for annihilation—and he answered it with his own.
His pace became erratic, his thrusts shorter, harder. A high-pitched whine escaped his throat, a sound of impending release.
"Yes," she hissed, her own orgasm cresting, a tidal wave of black, blissful violence. "Fill me. Breed me like the bitch in heat I am. Give me your monster's spawn."
The words were her undoing. Her orgasm ripped through her, a convulsive, shattering force that left her trembling and sobbing against his fur. Her inner walls clamped down on him, spasming violently.
With a deafening roar that shook the leaves from the trees, the Hyde erupted inside her. It was a flood, an endless, scalding torrent of heat that filled her until she was overflowing, spilling down their legs in a lewd, messy cascade. He held himself deep, pulsing, his massive body shuddering with the force of his release.
For a long moment, they stayed locked together, panting, the only sounds their ragged breaths and the distant lapping of the lake. Slowly, he lowered her to the ground. Her legs gave out immediately, and she slid down the tree trunk to the forest floor, a boneless, sated wreck.
He stood over her, a monstrous silhouette against the moonlight, his chest heaving. He was still hard, still gleaming with their combined fluids.
Wednesday looked up at him, a slow, satisfied smile spreading across her bruised, bitten lips. She felt the throbbing ache between her legs, the sticky wetness cooling on her skin, the bite mark on her shoulder. She felt claimed. Consumed. Complete.
She patted the ground beside her. "Again," she said, her voice hoarse but firm. "But this time, I want you on your back."
The Hyde's golden eyes glinted. A low chuckle rumbled in his chest, a sound of gravel and dark amusement. He was going to enjoy breaking her in a whole new way.
The Hyde's chuckle was a seismic event, a sound of grinding rock and ancient hunger. He dropped to his knees, and the earth seemed to shift with his weight. He didn't lie back as she'd commanded. Instead, he loomed over her, a god of ruin and shadow, his massive forearms bracketing her head. He was asserting his dominance, reminding her that he was the predator, no matter how much she craved the violence.
A slow, vicious grin spread across Wednesday's face. "Oh, you think you're in charge?" she whispered, her voice a silken threat. She reached up, not to push him away, but to hook her fingers into his jowls, forcing his muzzle down toward hers. "Poor animal. You still don't understand."
She met his gaze, her dark eyes burning with a challenge. "You're not fucking me. I'm using you. You're just a toy. A big, dumb, violent dildo with a pulse."
A snarl ripped from his throat, but she held on, her grip like iron. He could smell it on her—the absolute lack of fear, the intoxicating scent of her own arousal mixed with a chilling, unshakeable confidence. She wasn't prey. She was a rival queen.
With a frustrated roar, he finally complied, rolling onto his back. The impact was a dull thud that sent leaves and dirt flying. He was a landscape of muscle and fur, his monstrous cock still rigid and glistening, lying against the hard plane of his abdomen like a fallen weapon.
Wednesday didn't hesitate. She straddled him, her knees sinking into the thick fur of his stomach. She was a pale, fragile-looking thing perched atop a mountain of brute force, the contrast obscene and electrifying. She took him in her hand, her fingers barely able to circle his girth. He was hot, impossibly so, and the ridges and veins of his inhuman flesh were a roadmap to oblivion..
She didn't guide him in. She slammed herself down.
The raw, piercing sensation made her gasp, her head falling back. It was even more intense from this angle, a deep, punishing invasion that hit the very core of her. She braced her hands on his massive chest, the coarse fur abrading her palms, and began to ride.
It wasn't a gentle rhythm. It was a brutal, grinding, hateful fucking. She rose until just the tip remained, then slammed down, taking him to the hilt, her body a weapon she was using against his. Over and over. A wet, slapping, skin-on-fur sound filled the clearing, punctuated by her ragged cries and his guttural growls.
"That's it," she panted, her body gleaming with sweat in the moonlight. "Take it. You like that, you filthy creature? You like being ridden by a little girl? Being my personal beast?"
She leaned forward, her hair falling around their faces, and bit him. Hard. She sank her human teeth into the thick muscle of his pectoral, right where his heart hammered beneath his ribs. The taste of his fur and blood was on her tongue.
The Hyde roared, a sound of fury and ecstasy. His hips bucked up, meeting her downward plunge with bone-jarring force. His claws, which had been resting on the ground, came up to grip her hips. Not to hurt, but to anchor himself as he began to thrust up into her, meeting her tempo, doubling the punishing intensity.
The knot of pressure in her belly was building again, tighter, hotter. She could feel him swelling inside her, the base of his cock beginning to thicken, a promise of an even more depraved violation.
"Yes," she hissed, her eyes rolling back. "Do it. Tie me to you. Make me your bitch."
His thrusts became erratic, more desperate. The swelling at his base grew, stretching her to an impossible limit. With one final, brutal slam, he locked them together.
The sensation was overwhelming. A feeling of being utterly, irrevocably stuck, filled and plugged in the most primal way imaginable. It sent her over the edge. Her orgasm wasn't a wave this time; it was a supernova. A violent, convulsive explosion that tore a scream from her lungs and left her shaking, her vision dissolving into a white-hot haze of pure sensation.
As she spasmed around him, the Hyde let out a long, shuddering roar. He erupted again, and this time it was different. The knot ensured that not a single drop escaped. The scalding flood of his seed was trapped inside her, filling her, bloating her with his monstrous essence until she thought she might burst from the sheer, obscene pressure.
He held her there, locked to him, as the tremors wracked both their bodies. She collapsed onto his chest, her cheek pressed against the fur, her heart hammering against his. The world slowly came back into focus. The night air was cold on her sweat-slicked skin. The bite on her shoulder ached. The deep, stretching ache inside her was a constant, throbbing reminder of what she'd done.
She lay there for a long time, listening to the slowing drum of his heart. Then she pushed herself up, her arms trembling with exertion. She looked down at the monster beneath her, at his yellow eyes that were watching her with a terrifying, calculating intelligence.
She smiled, a slow, predatory curve of her lips.
The lake water lapped gently at the shore, indifferent to the carnage that had almost happened. The Hyde was gone—receded in a slow, cracking reversal of bone and sinew until Tyler stood human again, naked, sweat-slick, chest heaving. His hazel eyes were back, soft and sated, but the gold flickered at the edges like embers refusing to die.
Wednesday lay on the pine needles beside him, knife discarded a few feet away. Her braids had come half-undone; there was blood on her mouth—his, from where she’d bitten his lip during the frenzy—and she didn’t bother wiping it away. She felt wrecked in the best way: limbs heavy, core still pulsing with aftershocks, skin marked with claw scratches that would bruise beautifully tomorrow.
They stared up at the same sliver of moon through the branches, breathing in sync.
Tyler turned his head first. “You were really going to rip my heart out.”
“Yes,” she said simply. “And display it on the mantel. Seasonal centerpiece.”
He laughed—low, rough, the sound vibrating through her ribs where their sides pressed together. “I was going to do the same to you. Months ago. Before I even asked you out. I had the chloroform rag in my pocket the night you waited for me in the alley. Thought I’d take you somewhere quiet, open you up slow, see what color your insides are when you’re still breathing.”
Wednesday’s lips curved. Not quite a smile. Something sharper. “Poetic.”
“Romantic, in our language.” He rolled onto his side, propped on one elbow, looking down at her like she was the only thing worth seeing. “But then you looked at me with those dead eyes and told me you were checking the structural integrity of the wall. And I thought—fuck. I want to keep her.”
She reached up, traced a fresh scratch down his chest with one nail. “You charmed me instead. Distracted me. Fucked me into submission.”
“You let me.” His hand slid to her thigh, possessive. “And every time I almost snapped—every time the Hyde wanted to tear you apart just to feel something—I remembered how you taste when you come screaming my name. So I went hunting instead. Brought home trophies I never showed you.”
Wednesday’s eyes narrowed, interested. “Trophies.”
“Heads,” he said, voice dropping to that gravel edge again. “Sometimes just pieces. I wanted to lay them at your feet like offerings. Watch your face when you realized what I am. What I’ve been doing while you slept in my bed.” He swallowed. “I still want to. If you’ll let me.”
She considered it. Pictured it: their condo floor scattered with severed heads, still dripping, arranged in careful rows while he knelt and waited for her verdict. Heat bloomed low in her belly again.
“Future project,” she murmured. “We’ll need a bigger freezer.”
Tyler exhaled, almost a growl of relief. Then he reached for his discarded jeans, fished something from the pocket, and held it between them.
A ring.
Silver band studded with sharp black obsidian shards, thorns curling inward along the inside curve—designed to bite into skin, to draw blood every time it was worn or removed. It looked like jewelry forged in a torture chamber. It looked like her.
Wednesday’s breath caught—just once, barely audible.
“I wasn’t lying about the late nights,” he said quietly. “Most of them were kills. But a few… I was waiting for this. Had it custom. Took longer than I thought—had to find someone who understood the assignment without asking questions.”
He held it out. Not on one knee. They weren’t that kind of couple. Just palm open, offering.
“Marry me, Wednesday Addams. Kill with me. Burn the world down together if we feel like it. Share the bodies. Share the blood. Share everything.”
She stared at the ring. At the thorns. At him.
Then she sat up slowly, took it from his hand, and slid it onto her left ring finger. The obsidian bit immediately—sharp, bright pain that made her hiss in pleasure. A thin line of blood welled up, trickled down her knuckle. She watched it with clinical fascination, then looked back at him.
“Yes.”
Tyler’s face split into that stupid, lopsided smile—the one she used to hate, the one she now craved like oxygen. He surged forward, kissed her hard, tasting copper and pine and them. When he pulled back, his forehead rested against hers.
“We tried to kill each other from the start,” he whispered. “Manipulated. Lied. Stalked. Planned shallow graves.”
“Multiple,” she corrected.
“Multiple,” he agreed, grinning. “And it only made me want you more. Every time you raised that knife, every time you glared like you were measuring me for a coffin—I fell harder.”
She dragged her bloody finger down his cheek, leaving a red streak. “Same.”
They lay back down, tangled together on the forest floor, ring glinting darkly on her hand, his arm around her waist like he’d never let go.
It had happened the first night in the alley, when he’d almost chloroformed her instead of laughing.
But he hadn’t.
And she hadn’t slit his throat.
They’d chosen each other instead.
Two monsters who understood bloodlust the way other people understood breathing. Two killers who’d finally found someone who could match them, meet them, love them in the language of blades and teeth and shared kills.
The fire between them wasn’t going to burn out.
It was going to consume cities.
And they were going to enjoy every fucking second.