Total pages in book: 87
Estimated words: 89074 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 445(@200wpm)___ 356(@250wpm)___ 297(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 89074 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 445(@200wpm)___ 356(@250wpm)___ 297(@300wpm)
“Why did you do it?”
“Because it felt dangerous, Colson. It made me feel alive.”
He gives me a hard stare. “You wanted this?”
“At first. It only went on for about a year. And then there came a time when I really got sick of it. They tried to make me a pawn, and I’m not a pawn.”
Rayne nods. “You’re a king.”
“Guess we both need to feel like we’re royalty in our own little worlds,” I tell him. “I didn’t need their money. I’d rather protect myself. And eventually, I refused to give them information about a particular person.”
“What person?”
“My father.”
Rayne furrows his brow. “They knew your father?”
“My father visited me in London. They were very quick to realize how wealthy he is. And they wanted a piece of it.”
“So you protected your own father from being robbed?”
“Bingo.”
“Damn, Hunter. Who says you don’t value your bloodline?”
I shift on the bed, leaning forward. “I despise my father. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to sell him out to a crime family, Rayne. So the family ambushed me.”
“Ambushed?”
“They showed up at my apartment and attempted to kill me.”
Rayne’s eyes go wide. “You’re not serious.”
Deadly.
Fucking.
Serious.
“They’re quick with a gun, but I’m quicker at realizing when someone is hiding in my bedroom closet when I get home. They shot at me as I ran back out into the street, but I got away. I ran so fucking fast, probably four miles away, ducking behind every dark corner I could find until I knew they’d lost me.”
Rayne truly looks scared, now. “What the fuck, Hunter?”
“I got on the first random bus I could find. And then I went north. I hid myself away in Liverpool for a few months. I paid for everything in cash, which is always one resource I’m lucky to have. It gave me long enough to apply for transfer to Crimson College. And then I was gone.”
“That’s fucking terrifying.”
“It didn’t scare me. But it pissed me off. And that’s why I’m going to protect you from whoever is messing with you. It pisses me off that I can’t get revenge on the people who deserve it, so I need to channel that energy into something else.”
“You should just stay out of it.”
I give him a cold look. “Never.”
“You should,” he insists. “Don’t get yourself hurt just because you can’t let go of a grudge.”
“The people attacking you deserve to be stopped, Rayne. They’re sloppy. They can’t even use a smaller dart to try to tranquillize you. They nail amateurish photos of you to the front door. They don’t even know how to scare people effectively—”
“But I am fucking scared,” Rayne says loudly, cutting through the quiet in the room. “I’m scared, Hunter. I’m not afraid to admit that like you are. I’m so fucking scared—”
I toss my knife onto the desk with a clatter and stand up, crossing the room to where he’s sitting on his bed.
I stroke his soft hair with my palm, looking in his eyes.
“You never need to be scared when I’m with you,” I tell him.
I mean every fucking word of it.
His hair still smells fresh from the shower and the scent of him near me is intoxicating.
He has a broken look in his eyes.
And as I gently stroke his hair, he leans forward, resting his head on the front of my body. A flare of possessiveness hits me strongly, like a wave crashing over my body.
Rayne’s demanding.
Mouthy.
A pain in my fucking ass.
But he’s also so raw with me in a way that I can’t get enough of. I like it when he’s near me. When his body is against mine like this, it feels correct.
We fit together.
And no one’s ever fit with me like this, Rayne.
My heart is pounding.
Everything feels too overwhelming, all of a sudden.
He knows the truth even though he shouldn’t. And I need to fucking come back down to Earth.
“I’m going to sleep,” I tell him softly.
He doesn’t respond.
And I stroke his dark hair for another minute before I go to bed alone.
I’m in a dark room, and something is very wrong.
My hands fumble along each of the cool stone walls, but I can’t find a lightswitch anywhere. I don’t know how I got here, but I’m very aware that I’m trapped.
It’s like a cave, but not a natural one.
A tunnel, maybe.
I move forward, grasping in the dark, trying to feel anything that could serve as a tether back to something I’m familiar with.
Where is Weston?
Where is anyone?
Suddenly, I hear a voice call out from far off. It’s a distant echo, but instantly, I know who it is.
“I’m here,” Rayne is saying.
Over and over.
And deep down, I know in my bones that he’s in trouble.
And I’m more than certain it’s my fault.
“I’m coming,” I try to call back to him, but my words come out as a mumble, like it’s hard for me to speak at all.