Run Little Fawn (Hunter’s Mark #1)

Chapter 23

THE HUNTER

The elevator doors open with a soft ding, but the silence between us is deafening. Aria's heels click against the marble floor as we walk down the hallway, the sound echoing off the walls.

I keep my eyes straight ahead, trying to ignore the way her coat hugs her curves, the way her hair falls in soft waves over her shoulders. Her real hair now that she's lost the wig, not that fake blonde imitation.

I shouldn't be here.

I shouldn't be doing this.

But I can't seem to stop myself.

We reach her door and she fumbles with the key card, her hands shaking slightly. I take it from her, our fingers brushing, and swipe it through the lock. The light turns green and I push the door open, gesturing for her to go inside.

She hesitates for a moment, looking up at me with those wide, innocent eyes. But there's a glint of something else there too, a challenge.

I follow her inside, letting the door swing shut behind us. The room is dimly lit, the curtains drawn tight against the city lights outside. Aria stands in the middle of the room, her arms wrapped around herself, watching me warily.

There's something that's been on my mind since the club, even if I let my lust cloud those more rational thoughts. But now, it's time to voice them.

"We need to talk about earlier."

"About what?" she asks innocently.

"About what you're doing, Aria." My voice is low, rough. "Do you have any idea how dangerous that little stunt you pulled tonight was?"

She bites her lip, looking away. "I don't know what you're talking about."

I step closer, crowding into her space until she's forced to look up at me. "Don't play innocent with me. Those people at the club, this city—it's not safe for a woman like you to be alone. You caught me by surprise, yes, but if I hadn't come along, if it had taken longer to find you, things could have gone differently. Badly."

Her eyes flash with anger. "And going to a hotel room with a man who wants to kill me isn't dangerous?"

I flinch at her words, my jaw clenching. "That's different."

"Why?" she demands.

"It just is."

"Bullshit." She folds her arms, her eyes hardening as she looks up at me. "Why are you doing this, Lucian? And don't give me the same bullshit answer as always, because that explains nothing. I know there's more. I want the truth."

I stare at her for a long moment, my mind racing. She's right, of course. I have no business being here, no right to feel this overwhelming need to protect her when I'm the greatest threat to her that exists. But I can't seem to help myself.

From the moment I first saw her, there was something about Aria that drew me in. A light in the darkness, a spark of life in a world that had long since gone cold and gray.

I tried to resist it at first, tried to push those feelings away. But they kept coming back.

I'm in too deep now, too tangled up in whatever this is between us. And god help me, I don't want to let her go.

I reach out, cupping her face in my hands. Her skin is soft, warm beneath my fingers. "For one thing, I don't want to kill you," I murmur.

I've never wanted anything less.

"But you're going to," she says, her brow furrowed as she searches my face for answers. "After everything, you're still going to go through with the Hunt."

I want to deny it. Want to live in an alternate reality where this wicked game isn't the only reason we came together. A reality where she can be something more than my prey. A reality where I can be something more than a monster.

"Yes," I finally answer, the word sticking in my throat. A failure. An admission of defeat. "Eventually. When the time comes."

She turns away from me, and I should let her go. Should let her hate me. It would be so much easier that way, for us both.

But I can't. I can't let her go, not like this. Not when I've finally found the courage to be honest with her, and with myself.

I reach out and grab her wrist, stopping her in her tracks. "Wait."

She shirks away from my touch, her eyes flashing with anger and hurt. "If you're not going to give me honest answers, Lucian, then just leave. I can't keep doing this."

I close my eyes, warring with myself. Every instinct screams at me to walk away, to protect her from the darkness that lives inside me.

Even if the darkness I'm fighting will eventually consume her.

But another part of me, a part I've kept locked away for so long, yearns to let her in. To be vulnerable.

Just this once.

"I have to play the game," I finally admit, my voice barely above a whisper. "It's the only way."

She turns around slowly, her arms still wrapped around herself like a shield. "The only way for what?"

I take a deep breath, steeling myself for the truth. "To get revenge."

Her brow furrows in confusion. "Revenge for what?"

"For my mother." The words hang heavy in the air between us, a confession I've never spoken aloud before. "I'm doing all this—completing my initiation into the Order—so I can reach the man who killed her."

Aria's eyes widen in shock, her lips parting slightly. "Your mother was murdered?"

I nod, swallowing past the lump in my throat. "Maybe not directly, but he's responsible for her death all the same."

"Who?" she asks, her voice soft and filled with empathy.

I close my eyes, the truth burning like acid on my tongue. "My father."

Silence stretches between us. Endless. Dark. I can feel Aria's gaze on me, searching, probing. Looking for the lie, the trick.

But there is none.

Not this time.

"I'm sorry," she finally whispers, and I can hear the sincerity in her voice. The bizarre understanding. "I can't imagine how painful that must be."

I open my eyes, meeting her gaze. "I don't feel pain. Not even when I was a child." My throat tightens. "I grew up not knowing if I had a father out there, not knowing his name. But he left his mark on me all the same." I clear my throat. "I knew I was different from an early age. I knew there was something… missing."

"Missing?" she asks, frowning.

She's trying to understand. Trying to make sense of the insensible, of things even I don't understand. Things I gave up trying to figure out ages ago.

I turn away from Aria, staring out the window at the city lights. The memories rise up like bile in my throat, bitter and burning.

"I always had a tendency toward violence," I say quietly. "Not toward people weaker than me, or animals. But people who were strong. People who could fight back."

I remember the first time it happened, the first time I let that darkness inside me take control. I was just a kid, barely old enough to understand the consequences of my actions. But I understood the rush of power, the thrill of domination.

"I almost killed another child," I confess, my voice flat and emotionless. "I had to move schools after that. And it kept happening, throughout my adolescence. I got in fights, hurt people. Doctors threw around words like ASPD, ODD, sociopathy, psychopathy. But the common denominator in all of them was that I was different. Twisted. Broken."

I can feel Aria's gaze on me, heavy with a mixture of horror and fascination. I know I should stop, should spare her the gory details of my twisted past. But I can't seem to help myself. The words pour out of me like blood from a wound, raw and unstoppable.

"Through it all, my mother was the one person who never gave up on me," I continue, my throat tight with emotion I shouldn't be capable of feeling. Not anymore. "She accepted me, loved me, even though I couldn't love her back. Not the way she deserved."

All the things I did to take care of her flash through my mind. The things I had to do because my father left us both destitute. The people I hurt. The people I killed. Would this innocent little fawn still feel sympathy for me if she knew how much I enjoyed those kills?

"She had an addiction," I say softly. "It was her way of numbing the pain the only two men she ever loved couldn't even feel. The things my father inflicted on her, things she never told anyone. Not even me." I swallow hard, my chest aching with a strange grief I've never allowed myself to feel. "It killed her, in the end."

I turn back to face Aria and find her watching me, her eyes shining with unshed tears. Tears I've never been able to shed on my own mother's behalf.

"But before she died," I continue, "she spoke about my father for the first time in my life. She told me I was like him. That I possessed a dark gift."

I step closer to her, my voice dropping to a whisper. "She made me promise that I would use it to protect people. And that if he ever came for me, I wouldn't let him make me like him. That I'd resist, that I'd fight him the way she never could."

Aria stares up at me, her eyes wide.

"Lucian," she breathes, and there's something in the way she says my name that makes my heart clench painfully in my chest.

I reach out, brushing a strand of hair from her face with a gentleness I didn't know I possessed.

"I'm not a good man, Aria," I murmur. "I'm not even sure I'm a man at all, or anything more than a ruthless, broken, soulless machine. Just like him."

Aria's brow furrows, her eyes searching mine with an intensity that makes me want to look away. But I don't. I can't. Not now.

Not when I've finally let her see the truth of who and what I am.

"Is he the one making you do this?" she asks softly, her voice laced with a concern I don't deserve. "Your father?"

A humorless laugh escapes my lips, the sound harsh and grating even to my own ears. "No," I reply, shaking my head. "He's not making me do anything. Not anymore."

I turn away from her, pacing the room like a caged animal. The memories rise up unbidden, threatening to choke me with their bitter poison.

"He showed up shortly after my mother's death," I explain, my voice flat and emotionless. "I was fifteen, and my older brother had just died. Fate, my father called it."

I glance back at Aria, a twisted, rueful grin playing at the corners of my mouth. "He finally had a use for me, you see. He needed an heir, someone to carry on his legacy of cruelty and corruption. So he took me in, trained me. Groomed me to be a monster."

Aria's eyes widen, horror and understanding dawning in their depths. "And you went along with it," she whispers, her voice barely audible over the pounding of my own heart. "To get your revenge."

I nod, my jaw clenching with the effort it takes to keep my composure. "It's the only way I can get close enough to him," I grit out. "The only way I can tear down the house of cards he's built. To make him pay for what he's done."

Aria takes a step toward me, her hand outstretched as if to touch me. But she hesitates, her fingers hovering just above my skin.

"Even if it means destroying yourself in the process?" she asks, her voice trembling with an emotion I can't quite name. "Do you really think your mother would want that?"

Her words hit me like a physical blow, knocking the air from my lungs and the fight from my body.

Her words cut deep, slicing through the walls I've spent years building around my heart. For a moment, I waver, the weight of my choices bearing down on me like a physical force.

But then I remember my mother's face, pale and drawn in those final days. The way her eyes dulled with each passing hour, the light within them slowly extinguished by the poison coursing through her veins. A poison put there by the man who should have loved her, protected her.

The man whose blood runs through my veins, a curse I can never escape.

No, my mother wouldn't want this for me. She wouldn't want me to lose myself in the darkness, to become the very thing I despise.

But that's all the more reason I have to avenge her.

She's gone, and the only way I can honor her memory is by making sure her killer pays for what he's done.

I step back from Aria, my jaw clenching as I force myself to meet her gaze. Her eyes are wide and shining with unshed tears, a mirror of the emotions I refuse to let myself feel. I can't afford to be weak, not now.

Not when I'm so close to achieving my goal.

"It doesn't matter what she would want," I say, my voice cold and unyielding. "She's dead, and nothing can change that. Dead people won't want anything. But I can make sure her death wasn't in vain."

Aria flinches at my words, her hand falling back to her side. "Lucian, please," she whispers, her voice breaking on my name. "You don't have to do this. There has to be another way."

A bitter laugh escapes my lips, the sound harsh and grating in the stillness of the room. "There is no other way," I snap, my anger rising to the surface like a tidal wave. "Don't you get it? This is who I am, Aria. This is all I'll ever be."

I turn away from her, but I can feel her eyes on me, boring into my back like laser sights. But I refuse to turn around, refuse to let her see the war raging inside me.

"The fourth hunt begins at seven," I say, my voice flat and emotionless. "Be ready."

I don't wait for her response. I can't. If I stay here a moment longer, I'll break. I'll shatter.

And I don't know if I'll be able to put myself back together again.

So I walk away, my footsteps echoing loudly in the silence of the room. I can hear Aria's breath hitch behind me, a soft, broken sound that pierces me like a knife.

But I don't stop, don't look back. I can't afford to.

I make it to the door, my hand closing around the cool metal of the handle. For a moment, I hesitate, my resolve wavering in the face of Aria's pain. But then I remember the promise I made all those years ago.

Instead of turning back the way the one small sliver of my soul that's left—a thing only she seems to have awakened—is screaming at me to do, I reach into my pocket and draw out my knife.

"The next time we see each other… you should use it," I say quietly, placing it on the table.

It's all I can offer her, really. Freedom to kill whatever it is inside her heart that makes her see me as anything other than the monster I am.

I push the door open and step out into the hallway, letting it swing shut behind me with a soft click. The sound is final, a death knell for the part of me that dared to hope for something more.

I lean against the wall, my eyes slipping closed as I try to regain my composure. My heart is racing in my chest, my blood pounding in my ears like a drumbeat. I feel like I'm going to be sick.

But I have a job to do, a promise to keep.

And nothing, not even the ache in my chest or the bizarre stinging behind my eyes, will stop me from seeing it through.

I push myself off the wall, squaring my shoulders as I head toward the elevator. The fourth hunt begins in a matter of hours, and I need to be ready. I need to be the monster my father created, the ruthless predator he trained me to be.

Because in the end, that's all I am.

All I'll ever be.

And no matter how much my little fawn might wish it were different, no matter how much I might wish it myself, there's no escaping the darkness inside me.

There's no escaping the hunter I've become.

To Be Continued…