Page 21 of Hunter's Trial

The first stop that I make is to the nearest bathroom stall that I can find the moment that they released me. I’m not hiding. I just have some damned urgent business to attend to. Things that I haven’t been able to handle since Kate’s last visit to the prison. Her damned face and those full, sensual lips had been plaguing me for days. I just need to get her out of my system. That’s all. I just need to satisfy that particular urge that started when she let me push her up against the wall in that visitation room. Then I will be free of her.

The problem is, my hand feels nothing like hers. It doesn’t feel like her soft skin or even better - her full lips wrapped around my cock bringing me pleasure. I can imagine her all I want but it’s not going to be enough to quench that fire that she built inside of me. I’ve never felt a woman match me pace for pace in the way that she did. It was like she was waiting to see what else I had up my sleeve. She felt like the sort of woman who was longing for somebody to push those boundaries to really let herself go fully. I have imagined her surrendering to me countless times now.

If only there was an opportunity to make it come true.

Why can’t I get her out of my head?

I’m not ready to be done with her. I know that much for sure. Whatever chapter has been started between Kate and I, I have to see it through.

I can’t leave until it’s done.

One way or another.

Orders be damned.

This might be a new personal low for me.

Regrettably, my actions over the last handful of hours can only be described as stalking. I followed Kate home so that I know where she lives. Horus, of course, is parked outside in his damned car just like I knew that he would be. Why wouldn’t Alek have assigned my old right-hand man to Kate? It makes perfect sense. Though, I won’t deny that there’s a deep-seated feeling of betrayal that I can’t get rid of when it comes to Horus. He is what he is because I made him that way -- and then, at the last moment, he switched sides? He didn’t turn out to be the person that I thought that he was.

Complicated. Best to avoid him if at all possible.

If he were to spot me, he might go running off to tell his new boss on me.

How juvenile.

With great difficulty, I push aside the bitter feelings rolling around in my gut and force myself to think about the present problem that I’m facing. I have to get inside of her house Horus seeing me. Furthermore, I have to not scare her too badly in the process. The lights in her kitchen are still on. I wonder what she’s up to. Has she wondered where I went? Over the span of the next hour and a half, I watch as she puts her daughter to bed and starts to wander through her house. Insomnia? There’s so much that I don’t know about her and need to know.

Funny how fast that desire became a need.

I don’t dare approach until the kitchen light is the only one left on. Now that she’s in there all alone and her daughter’s asleep is my chance. I just need to see her. I just need to say goodbye if nothing else.

There’s already somebody on her doorstep when I move up. Thinking that it’s Horus, I take a step back into the shadows around the side of her house and wait to see how things are going to play out before moving forward.

For a moment, until the door opens and the tall, thin man is bathed in the warm yellow light of Kate’s living room. Just for a moment - and then I hear the words coming from the man’s mouth. Foul, hateful words and then a hiss of pain.

Not on my fucking watch.

I move without thinking - without a single care for what the consequences might or might not be before I am on him. He’s not a very strong one. Certainly not in comparison to me. I’ve been fighting my whole life. This prick? He’s just a man who gets off on making people fear him.

My fists move like a blur. I channel every bit of rage and bitterness that has built up over my time in prison - nearly being murdered last night, my frustrations and just the general rage of Kate’s gasp of fear and pain. The man doesn’t even have a chance. He’s sputtering on his own blood, gasping from his broken face and even then - it’s only Kate’s sob that makes me stop.

Kate isn’t a woman that should ever have a reason to cry.

It’s so unlike the image of her that I have in my mind that it makes me pause.

I release the body in my hand - letting him fall to the shadowy front lawn of Kate’s house in a wet thump. I have never wanted to soothe somebody before - it doesn’t even feel like myself as I pull Kate into my arms. Her body wraps into my hold as her tears break loose like a damn being lifted. I hold her in my strong embrace and step into her home and kick the door shut behind us both. I lock it and let the pair of us fall back against the front door where we slide into a messy heap of limbs until she can get her bearing.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

KATE

There’s so much blood.

So many times over the course of my marriage I imagined somebody coming to save me. Back before I knew that I could simply save myself. I had pictured somebody swooping in and giving Billy what he deserved. And he does deserve it. However, wishing for it and actually seeing it happen in front of my eyes are two fully separate things. Nikolai came out of nowhere like he was sent from heaven itself to save me right in my moment of need.

I don’t know what I would have done without him.

And I don’t know how I’m going to ever get the image of Billy’s broken and battered face out of my mind. I never imagined it like this. Every time I blink, his face is there. He’s still outside. He’s just lying there on the grass. We should call somebody. We should do something. Panic is settling in. I have to start packing. I have to gather up all of our stuff and leave now while he’s unconscious. We aren’t safe here anymore.

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