Page 157 of Arran's Obsession

Okay. I breathed through my nose. Get upstairs, grab my phone, call the security creep, get dressed to meet him. I could do that.

I shifted my weight to set out. A material-covered hand slammed down on my mouth, covering it and my nose, blocking my ability to draw breath.

It muffled my shriek, too.

The intruder ran his other arm around my body and under my breasts then lifted me like I weighed nothing, carrying me into the pitch-black council chamber.

He adjusted his hold, and darkness threatened the edges of my vision, just like I’d wanted. Except for the fact I was in some stranger’s possession, and my worst fears had come true.

“Connor,” was my final strangled, silent word.

Right as a second man launched out of the shadows and I knew my life was over.

Bonus Epilogue

Genevieve

“The rules,” a male voice boomed over the speaker on the wall above my head.

Barefoot, I trod carefully down the corridor, the yellow lights falling on a dried blood trail going the other way.

“The man who catches a woman and fights off his competition needs to fuck her to claim her. She cannot say no. She can run and lash out,” the man gave a dark laugh, “in fact, it’s better if she does. But once that dick is inside her, it’s game over.”

A shiver ran through me. I gripped my arms over my little black dress, exiting the corridor to the open basement where tonight’s game had already taken place. The concrete expanse fell away, more blood in patches on the floor where men had laid into other men, delivering a beating while they stood over a captured girl. The smell of sweat ghosted through the air, the sense of energy, lust, and need high, even now.

I’d watched it from my bed, reliving memories and caught up in the drama and the spectacle it made. The contest had concluded barely fifteen minutes ago, but people would be fucking to memories of it all night and for weeks to come.

They’d done so to images of me, the gang leader’s girlfriend who’d accidentally found her way into a bout. Who’d needed rescuing, and her man left with no choice but to dive inside and follow his own rules.

The voice returned overhead.

“All cameras but the one above you are offline. No one can hear you but me, Genevieve. No one will come rescue you, no matter how much you scream and beg. Do you understand?”

I gazed up at the blinking camera clamped to the suspended walkway where I’d once climbed and hid.

My throat bobbed. “I understand.”

“There’s my good girl.”

Silence followed.

My skin crawled with fear and the thrill of what I was about to do. Or what would be done to me. I’d been scared of this place after my previous visits. First when I was hunted before Arran could reach me, and second, when Convict wanted to apologise for his part in it.

It was my idea to return here and de-demonise it.

What did it mean that I was already sweating? Already wet in the sexy-as-fuck lingerie I’d chosen for this?

In a repeat of my previous footsteps, I trailed into the locker room and checked my reflection in the mirror—flushed cheeks, strands of my blonde hair escaping my ponytail and sticking to my skin—then swallowed down the last of the mango energy drink I’d clung to like it could somehow save me.

This would be easy. The klaxon would sound, and Arran would be released from wherever he’d caged himself. I’d run. He’d catch me.

He’d fuck me on the hard floor or against a wall.

I took a steadying breath, already lost to the action. Doing this was my suggestion, but Arran had taken care of the details. Happy memories to replace the bad, he’d called it.

Along with some sort of twisted surprise, whatever that meant.

An alarm sounded.

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