Total pages in book: 107
Estimated words: 100086 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 500(@200wpm)___ 400(@250wpm)___ 334(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 100086 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 500(@200wpm)___ 400(@250wpm)___ 334(@300wpm)
Aspen looks me up and down and shakes his head. “Kill… This man wears black at all times. He’d be living with a lint roller. His mom is right. He needs a firecracker. Let me take you out to one of the clubs with my friends—that would loosen you up.”
I don’t think Aspen is anywhere near as aware of my sexuality as Damen, but I still hate every second of this stupid teasing. I’m twenty-eight, for fucks sake, I can handle my love life or lack of it. I am in complete control of my life and I like it that way.
The last thing I need is advice from a barely-legal psycho with half his brain on killing people, and half on tits.
“You know what loosens up people? When you cut them open taint to asshole. Or a dosage of propofol.”
Silence stretches a bit, Mom drifts off to the table with snacks, and Killian goes a little pale. Exactly what I was going for.
Aspen clears his throat. “Actually. Speaking of poison. I was hoping you’d have some cousin-to-cousin advice… I’m not planning on shooting anyone today, since I’m not actually taking part in the hunt, of course, but if say, one was to shoot, like, in self-defence, is there a poison one could put on the bolt to make the death more painful in case the shot person runs away?”
Dalton’s face, twisted in a mixture of ecstasy and pain flashes through my mind, but when I try to shake it off, the vision expands instead of leaving me be. Dalton’s half-naked, with crossbow bolts pinning him to a tree as if he’s St. Sebastian. His lips quiver, no doubt cursing me for giving him false hope when psychos like Aspen are allowed to shoot at people for no good reason, just because it’s fun.
Dalton didn’t do anything.
It’s debt.
Not even a real crime against the family.
I imagine his skull on the empty bit of wall in front of me, and it finally sinks in that I am not okay with that scenario.
I might not be willing to come out, but I do want to experience the absolute abandon of being Dalton’s bed mate again. I could tuck him away somewhere. He’d play along, of course, because who wouldn’t? He’s reasonable enough to not want to die.
I’m not done with him.
Not yet.
“Corvus?” Aspen waves a crossbow bolt at me.
“Do your own research,” I slap the bolt away and walk off with new determination.
Dalton will be my Christmas present to myself.
Chapter 6
Dalton
With every breath I take, my lungs are closer to turning into a block of ice.
Dense vapor clouds the air in front of me each time I exhale, fighting my way through the deep snow covering everything in sight. I have no fucking idea where I am, but my captors wouldn’t be hunting people for sport if their neighbors weren’t like-minded. At this point, my legs feel numb under my ripped jeans, and the sneakers I wore on the day Van der Horn goons captured me are soaked through with icy moisture. Though maybe my nerve endings have already frozen over? How long does it take to lose one’s digits to frostbite? Am I there yet, or will it not happen before one of the armed hunters in tactical gear hangs me up on the tree for gutting?
The bare trees are like rotten skeletons reaching for me, but this is not a haunted house, and if I fail to run away, the one person laughing with relief will be the guy who promised me a chance at survival if I plow him just right.
In the corner of my eye I spot a fallen tree and dash for it like a rabbit in search of a hideout. I have no idea where I can escape to, but I’ll worry about that when immediate survival is no longer my main concern.
I jump over the tree and as soon as I land on the other side, I meet a pair of wide eyes.
All I know about this guy is that he’s even more ragged-looking than me, and that I saw him for a few minutes before we were all let out to run for our lives. At least I had a shower yesterday. If our hunters have dogs with them, they’ll scent this guy from miles away.
“Get your own damn hiding spot,” he snarls and pushes me back
In any other circumstances, I’d fight him, get into a shouting match, and haul him over the tree for good measure. But that would only create the kind of commotion to bring the hunt closer to us.
So I clench my chattering teeth and slide down the hill behind the tree. The snow gets under my bomber jacket, then under my hoodie, making me stiffen, but there is no point in feeling sorry for myself. I have to run. Run. Run. Run, and hide. I’m in the holly bushes at the bottom of the slope when the swish of a crossbow bolt makes me spin around, with frost on my lips instead of air.