Chapter 21 #2
The hand on my mouth tightens, not cutting off air but reminding me of his control. His other hand slides up my ribs, thumb brushing the underside of my breast.
“You escaped me to become a hunter yourself. Turned your captivity into a weapon.” I can hear pride in his voice. “I’m impressed.”
My mind races as my body melts against him. This is it—the moment I’ve been subconsciously preparing for, the confrontation that was always inevitable. He’s found me, cornered me, pressed against me in my own apartment with his hand over my mouth and his cock hard against my ass.
And instead of fighting, instead of reaching for one of the dozen weapons scattered throughout this room, I’m getting wet.
“But playtime’s over now, Jenna.”
My real name on his lips makes my core clench. Three months of being Kathy, of building this new identity from blood and violence and lies. But he still sees through it all.
“Time to come home.”
Home.
As if that concrete cell, that underground facility, that bed where he made me beg and tell him I was his—as if any of that was home rather than captivity.
His hand moves from my breast to my throat, fingers wrapping around the column in a grip that’s firm but not cruel. Just enough pressure to make my pulse jump, to remind me of all the ways he can hurt me if I make the wrong choice.
“You’re going to be very quiet,” he murmurs against my ear. “Very still. And very, very good for me.”
The knife. I have a knife in my boot, another in the nightstand drawer, a third taped under the kitchen sink. All I need is one moment of distraction, one second where his attention wavers, and I can—
“I wouldn’t.”
His voice cuts through my planning like ice water. The hand on my throat tightens enough to make breathing conscious instead of automatic.
“I know where you keep your weapons, beautiful. Know this apartment like I know your body—thoroughly and with great attention to detail.” His thumb strokes my skin. “The knife in your boot. The one in the nightstand. The ceramic blade you think is so cleverly hidden in the kitchen.”
My heart stops. He’s been here. Been in my space, touched my things, violated the sanctuary I built for myself. For how long? Hours? Days? Weeks?
“I’ve been watching you for a few days now. Learning your new patterns. Your fighting style is impressive, by the way—very efficient. Very brutal. You’ve become exactly what I knew you could be the first time you came at me with a blade you barely knew how to hold.”
The pride in his voice makes me sick. Makes me wet. Makes me want to lean back into his strength and let him carry the weight of my choices for a while.
“The hunting ends tonight. The killing ends tonight.” His grip shifts, thumb pressing harder against my windpipe. “You’re mine, Jenna. You’ve always been mine. And it’s time to stop pretending otherwise.”
I try to shake my head, try to communicate through the hand over my mouth that I won’t go back, that I’ll fight him with everything I have. He reads my intention in the tension of my muscles, the way my weight shifts as I prepare to move. I move anyway.
Three months back in the cage circuit. Five collectors dead by my hand. I try the only move that has any chance against someone holding me from behind—I drop my weight suddenly, twist hard, drive my elbow back toward his solar plexus, reach simultaneously for the knife in my boot.
He responds before I finish the motion. His hand intercepts my elbow midstrike, redirects the force.
His other hand abandons my mouth, catches my wrist on the way to my boot, twists it just shy of dislocation.
In the time it takes me to register what’s happened, he has my wrist locked behind my back, his body pressed against mine harder than before, his other hand back across my throat.
Carotid position. He could render me unconscious in three seconds.
I freeze. I’ve killed five men with knives. Choked out collectors twice my size. None of those men moved like this.
Through the mask, he laughs. Low. A sound that isn’t quite human.
“There she is,” he murmurs against my ear. “I was getting worried.”
The pressure at my carotid eases. The wrist lock stays.
“That,” he says. “That was what I spent three months hunting for. Not the woman who left my bed. The one who built herself into someone who could try that and almost pull it off.”
The almost lands like a slap. He’s telling me I got close. Closer than I thought. He’s also telling me I was never going to make it.
“Try again,” he says. “I want to see what you’ve got. I want to know exactly how much you’ve learned.”
I don’t try again.
Because I understand now. This isn’t a recapture. It’s an interview. He’s not afraid of what I became—he’s hoping for it. He came back for the woman who could try to take him out, not the one who left his bed. The fight isn’t going to stop when he takes me.
I could keep trying. He’d let me, because he wants to feel it land. He’d let me cut him just so he could know I was capable.
And then he’d take me anyway.
Both things are true.
I let my body go still. This is a long game. Tonight is one move in it.
“Smart girl,” he says, reading my stillness. “Shh.” The sound is soothing, gentle, at odds with the way he’s holding me immobile. “I’m not going to hurt you, beautiful. I’m going to take you home and remind you why you belong in my bed.”
His cock throbs against my ass, hot and hard and demanding. The piercing—I can feel the shape of it through his clothes, that curved barbell that drove me insane with need. My body remembers how it felt inside me, dragging against places inside me I never knew existed.
“Of course, I’ll have to sedate you for transport,” he murmurs against my ear, voice casual like he’s discussing the weather. “Can’t have you trying to escape again during the drive.”
His free hand reaches into his jacket, and I catch a glimpse of a syringe. The same kind he used before, when he first took me from my apartment three months ago.
“But maybe,” his voice drops lower, becomes rougher, “maybe while you’re unconscious, I’ll take what’s mine. Fill you up properly. Make sure you wake up dripping with my cum, sore from being thoroughly used.”
The moan escapes before I can stop it. Heat floods my core at the image—being taken while helpless, being claimed while I can’t resist or pretend I don’t want it. Waking up marked, used, full of him in the most intimate way possible.
My knees buckle slightly, and his arm tightens around my waist to keep me upright.
“Oh, you like that idea, don’t you?” Dark satisfaction colors his voice. “The thought of being fucked while you can’t fight it. Can’t pretend you don’t want my cock splitting you open.”
I squeeze my eyes shut, mortified by my body’s reaction. By the shameful heat that spreads through my belly at the thought of being violated while unconscious.
What’s wrong with me? What sick person gets aroused by the idea of being drugged and raped? Even if it’s by someone who—
“There’s my good girl,” he growls, reading my response in the way my body melts against him. “Still so responsive. Still so eager for what I can give you.”
His other hand is still on the syringe, but he hasn’t moved it toward me yet. He’s waiting. Watching me.
“Do it,” I whisper.
His body goes still behind me. “Say that again.”
“Do it. While I’m out.” My voice steadies as I say it, even as the rest of me shakes. “I want to wake up knowing you couldn’t wait.”
The sound he makes through the mask is barely human. His cock throbs against my back, and his grip on me changes—no longer just restraint. Something else now. Reverence.
“Jenna.” My name, through the mask, has a destroyed quality. “Do you know what you’re saying?”
I do. God help me, I do. Three months of telling myself I was building a life and knowing, every single morning when I woke up with my hand between my legs and his name on my tongue, that I was waiting.
Three months of staying in his city when I could have run anywhere in the world.
Three months of murdering his competition like I was clearing the field for him to find me.
I’m so tired of lying.
“I want you to fuck me while I’m unconscious.” The words come out clearer this time. “I want to wake up sore and full of you. I want to know you had me. That’s what I want.”
“Jesus Christ.”
“Please. Before I lose my nerve.”
The hand on my throat gentles. His other hand brings the syringe up slowly enough that I could pull away if I changed my mind. I don’t pull away.
“You’re sure,” he says. Not a question. A last offer.
“I’m sure.”
The needle slides in then—soft, almost gentle, the pinch at my neck no worse than a thought. His other hand strokes my throat as the room starts to blur at the edges.
“You’re mine,” he tells me, holding me up as my knees go. “You’ve always been mine. And tonight I’m going to give you exactly what you asked for.”
The floor tilts.
I look at the door. At the knife I didn’t reach for.
I let him catch me.
“Sweet dreams, Jenna,” he murmurs against my hair. “And this time, you’re never leaving me.”