Chapter 7
Bonnie
No way. I must’ve made a mistake. A blink, and the man I thought I’d seen was gone, replaced with others charging at me. Had it been him? The billionaire masquerading as a mechanic?
I shook off the thought. He wasn’t mine. I was here to find a real man, not one who had predators on speed dial.
“Fuck, yeah.” A red-haired masked Viking guy snatched for my wrist.
I yelped and bolted, my heels clicking on the concrete.
In the dressing room, a petite woman had hugged me, her hands shaking with her fear at what we were doing. That same adrenaline only boosted my energy. Whoever I was pairing off with wouldn’t take me down easy. I intended to make it a battle. I wanted to be the one to make the claim.
To my right, the same woman appeared in the centre of the basement’s widest room, a group pursuing her and another pack rounding to intercept.
The men crashed into each other, fists flying.
She dropped to her knees, right on the lap of a pretty but younger-looking guy. Their eyes locked. She cupped his face.
Almost as quickly as she’d landed, someone lifted her off. The Viking who’d grabbed me. She screamed, and the first guy yelled and scrambled to chase her.
The sound of cracking bone echoed through the space. The men in full fight mode, no more polite circling. This was war. The Viking threw a punch at the younger man, but he took it like a champ, pulling the petite girl behind his back.
And I was done watching someone else’s fight.
Movement closer to me had me running again, down a corridor and around the edge of the main arena.
Ahead, in a doorway, a curvy girl with wavy dark hair had been seized.
She screamed, but not in fear. More like a banshee yell of ecstasy.
Her fingers tangled around the back of a man’s neck as he hauled her to his chest and shoved off two other contenders.
She gasped, her eyes blazing. Then her lips were on his throat.
He lifted her. Tore her underwear with a sharp rip. A second later, he thrust inside her, holding her at arm’s length so everyone could see his thick cock pushing into her body.
My breath caught at the violence. At the public nature of what should’ve been private.
It was pure chaos. Lust-fuelled, adrenaline-laced, and primal.
Exhilaration filled me.
I slipped between two pillars and ducked under a swing of someone’s arm. A man in a torn navy shirt sighted me, dark eyes narrowing in hunger. A second later, he lunged.
“Not a chance,” I muttered and pivoted hard, using a metal staircase to block his reach.
I didn’t want him. Not my guy. Not like—
No.
Had to stop thinking about the rich boy. But then, I caught movement again on the far side of the room. Tall. Broad shoulders. A slow, deliberate prowl. Dark eyes held on me.
Shit. It was him. Edward, or whatever his real name was. I hadn’t hallucinated him after all.
A deep shiver ran through me. Of antagonism. Of need.
As cool as the night, he strode through the carnage, nothing touching him. While other men thrashed and tore each other to pieces for scraps, he walked like he’d already decided. As if he didn’t need to run, because he’d win.
He had no right to be here. None. Billionaires didn’t belong underground, fighting over women like bloodsport. And he especially didn’t, not with the company he kept.
He could buy anything he wanted. Throw parties with naked women every night of the week. His existence was a world away from this. There was only one conclusion I could reach. He was here for me.
Well, he couldn’t have me.
I backed away. He didn’t put on speed. Just kept coming.
The room resounded with grunts, yells, the slap of skin on skin and bodies hitting concrete.
Another woman got captured, pinned against a pillar by two men.
One got his mouth to her throat under her fall of dark hair, the other to her thigh through the slit in her burgundy gown, but she only had eyes for the third, a thick-muscled man holding his hand out like an offering.
She took it and let him drag her free, even as her clothes were torn off her.
I pivoted left and ran.
I was no damsel in distress. I hadn’t entered this with desperation, only with purpose. Let the billionaire feel the shock of wanting someone who didn’t want him back.
My heart thundered. My heels clattered and skidded. A man cut across my path, eyes crazy, shirt shredded but caught in his jeans. I dodged low and slipped past a support column, rounding the corner into a corridor.
The low-lit space was mostly empty, aside from old industrial piping across the ceiling. Only a few unconscious or almost-out men were here. Echoes of the fight bled from the next room.
I ducked into a recessed doorway and crouched, trying to slow my breath.
Edward wouldn’t follow. Not if he was who I thought he was.
Just another man who’d never had to chase anything in his life.
He said jump, and people paid for the privilege of asking how high.
This game wasn’t his world, and easier prey would distract him away from me. There were still women to be claimed.
Footsteps echoed outside my hiding place.
Measured and darkly intentional. Not running, only getting closer.
I didn’t breathe. Didn’t even dare move.
Until a voice cut the silence. “You run as well as you flirt, Miss Braveheart.”
That tone of velvet certainty.
Slowly, I stood, my hands curled into fists.
Edward stepped into my doorway, blocking my exit. He was shirtless with a skeleton crew bandanna at his throat, his dark hair mussed but still immaculate. The faintest smile curved his lips.
Neither cruel nor smug. I called that possessive.
I straightened. “This isn’t your playground.”
“No.” His gaze dropped, skimming down my body and back up again, trailing fire in its wake. “Good thing I’m not playing. I’m only here to win.”
I swallowed. “Win what, exactly?”
“You.”
The word had no right to be so devastating to my nervous system. Sex with him would blow my mind, and I acknowledged the thought that took over almost every part of me. The attraction blooming inside me rose to quivering, towering proportions. Must mate. Must…
“No.” My voice trembled.
“Then run again,” he said softly. A god bored with Olympus. “Give me the chase.”
His words released me from the spell I was under. I moved.
Fast.
Bursting past him, I sped back into the main corridor, my breath caught in my throat and my legs burning from the sprint.
Confusion dogged me. The power of my attraction to the man hot on my heels nearly made me stay.
Or turn to him and fall down with my damn legs open.
But I couldn’t be trapped for thirty days with someone like that.
It would be hell on earth, even if the sex would be wild.
Wait, maybe it would be worth it.
Another scream echoed, high and feverish, and I passed a completely naked woman draped against the metal stairs, fists clenched in a man’s hair as he buried his face between her thighs.
Another man cradled her from behind, rocking into her and whispering something that made her laugh and cry out all at once.
He was her claimer, I realised, and the man on his knees licked or sucked on them both.
Beyond them, the petite woman was spread out over an unconscious man, another opening her legs to make way for him. It was the younger guy. He’d knocked out the Viking. Damn.
Three down.
I didn’t want to be claimed now. Not yet. Not by a stranger.
Footsteps thundered behind me.
Shit.
Four men rounded the corner like a pack of wolves, one with blood on his knuckles, all of them shirtless, the last with a glint in his eye that iced my stomach. They saw me. And something snapped in their expressions.
The front runner grinned. “There.”
I turned, my heart battering my ribs. My heel caught on a crack in the concrete. I slipped, recovered, pushed harder. A hand snatched at my hair.
“Come on, sweetheart!” one of them shouted. “Make it fun.”
I skidded through into the open space at the centre of the basement, people all around and the lights bright above me. My heel twisted beneath me again so I stumbled sideways. The damn thing broke.
A hand caught my arm. Two.
The wolf pack trapped me in their midst, surrounding me, their bodies crowding mine, the skeleton masks intimidating.
A man with dark hair past his shoulders cupped my cheek. “Pretty thing, aren’t you?”
He tore at the button of his jeans. I whirled around and shoved at the guy behind me. He didn’t budge, trapping me where I stood.
A hand drew up my thigh, yanking my black dress over my backside with a croon of appreciation. I yelled and threw a punch, dislodging the touch. Hands spun me around, and faces moved in. They hooted at their capture, the game morphing into something hostile. Dangerous.
All of a sudden, this had gone wrong. I wasn’t enjoying it anymore. It was the mansion again with gross dudes touching anyone they pleased.
“Get off me,” I bit out.
From behind, someone covered my mouth with a big palm. Panic consumed me.
Just as quickly as he’d silenced me, the hand was gone and so was the man. I whipped around to find him on the floor, clutching his jaw.
Edward stood over him. “Don’t touch my future wife.”
He yanked me behind him with a snarl and launched himself at the second man. They hit the floor hard. The other man swung, but Edward dodged, grabbed his wrist, and twisted until there was a crack and a scream.
He leapt to his feet, one hand out towards me.
The last two of my attackers hesitated.
Edward’s gaze pinned them down. “I recommend you don’t.”
The men backed off, panting, and disappeared into the fog of heat and sex.
I stood, frozen, too stunned to do anything but stare. My ankle throbbed, and my breath came in sharp pants. I kicked off my broken shoe.
Edward faced me, his lip split. He’d saved me, but I only saw red.
“I said no.” I shook my head.
“Try denying me some more. See where that gets you.”
I slipped off my remaining shoe and hurled it at him. It hit his chest, the spiked heel slicing his skin. A welt of red formed.
He didn’t flinch, only came forward, slow and hungry.
I backed up until my spine hit the wall.
“My name is Elijah Westwood. You should know it because you’ll need it from now on.”
Elijah. He’d corrected the nickname I’d given him, but all I heard was arrogance.
“I do not consent.”
“Good thing you don’t get a choice.”
“You don’t get to do this,” I tried again, my voice too breathy to sound brave.
“I’m not asking. I’m claiming.”
His mouth was on mine before I could fire back. Not gentle or cruel but all-consuming. One hand pressed to my hip, the other cupped my cheek. Every hard line of his body pressed against mine, the heat and tension boiling between us. I wanted to fight. I should have fought.
Instead, I kissed him back as if he were the only man alive.
Elijah—damn, I hated that I loved his real name—picked me up and curled my legs around his waist, our kiss never-ending.
His taste broke something inside me, an addiction rising fast. I couldn’t get enough.
The sense overwhelmed me so much that I almost missed his rough grunt of need when he discovered no underwear beneath my dress.
But I couldn’t lose track of his hand opening his soft jeans, or the jutting length of him hitting me between the legs.
I burned for him. In a flash, I went from loathing to pure need and desperation. If anything stopped us now, I’d die.
Even if he was the one who bled.