Total pages in book: 164
Estimated words: 156728 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 784(@200wpm)___ 627(@250wpm)___ 522(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 156728 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 784(@200wpm)___ 627(@250wpm)___ 522(@300wpm)
Her footsteps slowed.
The corridor ahead was darker than she remembered. Two of the sconces had gone out, or been turned off, leaving a long stretch of blackness between her and the far door. The carpet swallowed the sound of her steps.
She stopped walking.
Something felt wrong.
Not a sound. The air shifted.
Daisy’s pulse ticked faster. She listened. Nothing. Just the faint groan of old timber settling and the distant, almost imagined murmur of voices from the floors below.
She was being ridiculous. The estate was emptying. Everyone was downstairs or already gone. She was exhausted and overwrought, and her nerves were fried from the longest night of her life.
She forced herself to keep going, certain the suite was up ahead. Shadows pooled in the doorways of unused rooms, and paintings disappeared into blackness. The lights had dimmed now that the party was over. That was all.
But when every hair on her arms lifted, and her stomach dropped, she knew her gut was right, and her logic was wrong. Daisy spun just as a hand shot out from the dark doorway to her left and locked around her throat.
Her scream lodged in her throat, cut off by the crushing grip.
Tannhäuser rushed her backwards, into the wall, his eyes pits of fury, bloodshot and wild, stripped of every veneer of professional composure she’d seen before. “Going somewhere?”
Daisy clawed at his fingers, trying desperately to loosen his unbreakable grip. Tannhäuser wrenched her sideways with such force her feet left the carpet. Her back slammed into another wall, and the air punched from her lungs.
His lip was split and swollen from the hunt. And a purple bruise darkened the hinge of his jaw. His fingers shifted, crushing her jaw, and she gasped for air.
He forced her face upward until her neck strained. “You filthy little slag.” He spat the words into her face. “Did you think I’d let you get away after what you did to me?”
Daisy clawed at his wrist, shredding soft skin beneath her raking nails. He didn’t flinch.
“Get off me!” Her voice snapped like a whip as she battled to suck in air.
His hand cracked across her face. The back of her skull struck the wall, and light splintered across her vision. Her knees buckled, and before she could catch herself, his full weight slammed into her, driving her to the floor.
Carpet burned against her shoulder blades as he pinned her down. His knee drove between her thighs, forcing them apart while one hand clamped over her mouth and the other grabbed her breast, ripping it from the lace and squeezing until she screamed against his palm.
She bit his hand as hard as she could, and his nails dragged down her chest, raking from collarbone to stomach.
“Fucking bitch!” He snapped, pulling back his hand long enough for her to scream. “Who do you think you are?”
He yanked his hand back and hit her again with his fist this time. The impact snapped her head sideways. Daisy tasted blood, unsure if it was hers or his.
“Stupid bitch.” He grabbed a fistful of her hair and slammed the back of her skull against the floor. “Hold still.”
She couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t think. The carpet burned. His weight crushed the breath out of her lungs. Cold air scorched her exposed chest. His hand shoved between their bodies as fabric tore.
A sob ripped from her chest as she tried to shove him off. Her thumbs slipped up his face, pressing hard into his eyes.
“No!” The word erupted, raw and ragged, bouncing off the walls of the empty corridor where no one remained to hear it.
His belt buckle scraped against her inner thigh. She thrashed beneath him, but he was too heavy, too strong. He caught her hands. His forearm pressed across her throat, compressing her airway until the edges of her vision darkened.
He forced her legs open. This wasn’t desire. It was destruction.
The hard, blunt weight of him pushed against her thigh, and Daisy screamed.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Nature of the Beast
“Daisy!” A tribute yelled from across the great hall.
Daisy’s face transformed as recognition sparked in her eyes. “Maggie!” The name left her lips with the desperate relief of someone finding land after days at sea.
A dark-haired woman in a muddied dress rushed out of the thinning crowd. They collided in a fierce embrace. Their laughter cut through the low hum of the emptying ballroom, and something loosened in Jack’s chest.
She had someone. Good. She would need people in her life who understood fragments of this night in ways others never could.
“A word?”
Jack turned. Ash Volkov stood a few meters away, hands clasped behind his back, his tuxedo still immaculate despite the carnage around them. Hunter loomed just beyond, arms folded across his barrel chest, his scarred knuckles wrapped around a glass of vodka he didn’t appear to be drinking so much as brandishing.