Page 84 of Hunt for You

“You okay?” His voice was low and husky, that gravel he used to hide his true tone from me.

I turned my head, struggling to focus. He was looking at me, but he was wearing that mesh mask again and I couldn’t see anything because the mask obscured the shape of his face, and the hood hid everything else.

He turned away first, eyes back on the road. But I saw his shoulders rise and fall with a deep breath.

“Is this it?” I tried to ask, but my voice was so thin and hoarse, I had to clear my throat and swallow a couple of times to wet the roof of my mouth again. I coughed, then sighed.“Where are you taking me?” I was pretty sure he was on the way back to my house, but it was entirely possible he’d set up a lair somewhere nearby and he was taking me there. “Are you going to kill me now?”

“This wasnota hunt,” he growled, shaking his head.

And I slumped with relief—then my eyes welled again. What the hell was wrong with me?

I rested my temple against the window, blinking, swallowing, working to get my body back under control. And eventually, when I could trust my voice, I spoke to him quietly.

“Thank you for… intervening.”

He grunted as if he didn’t approve, and Ifelthim bristle. I sighed.

“I never made an arrangement with him, Cain. You’re the only hunter I’m talking to… now.”

His head snapped towards me again, and again I wished I could see beyond that mask—read his eyes, his expression, get inside his head. But I couldn’t and I was way too tired to talk, so I let myself slump against the window, closed my eyes, and tried to breathe deeply.

Twenty minutes later when his car rolled intomydriveway, I wasn’t even surprised.

I also wasn’t surprised when he used a little clicker on his visor and my garage door began to rattle up.

I was starting to feel like nothing would surprise me tonight.

Oh, how wrong I was.

As soon as the garage door was down and we couldn’t be seen from the street, Cain pushed out of the car and trotted around to pull me out of the passenger seat. He didn’t speak, just slid his hands under my knees and behind my shoulders, then turned me bodily to slip me out of the car, giving me a couple little bounces to get me balanced properly in his arms… then took me inside my own house. Still tied up.

My house looked strange to me. As if my eyes had been replaced with the eyes of someone who’d never been in here.

Suddenly I could see through the patina of middle-class wealth to the shit underneath.

The stains on the carpets.

The dust in the corners.

The lack of art or any other kind of decoration on the walls.

I wasn’t surprised when he walked confidently from the garage, straight back through the house, beelining to my bedroom.

I tried to drum up the adrenaline, the anticipation, to feel good about that. This was what I’d wanted! But my body suddenly had nothing to give.

Even when he sat me on the bed and began untying the knotted laces at my throat that helped keep the cloak in place over my shoulders, my heart barely sped up.

No.No.This wasn’t the way this was supposed to happen.

I started lifting my hands, trying to bat his away—but bound the way I was, all I did was look stupid, trying to push his big, strong hands aside when I couldn’t even move mine independently.

He huffed at me, but didn’t speak. And the moment he got the cloak off, he knelt to remove my shoes.

I sat there, gaping at him, aware of how gentle his grip was on my ankle while he pried off first one shoe, then the other.

And I didn’t miss the way he cupped his large hand under my leg and let it slide up my calf a little before he let go.

But as soon as my feet were bare and my shoes tossed aside, he straightened and lifted me again, throwing me over his shoulder this time and carrying me, ass first, into the bathroom.

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