Chapter 13
THIRTEEN | TARYN
His rough hand is plastered on my mouth, and the one snaked around my waist soaks in the tremble that racks through every bone in my body.
The lips against my ear tilt upward, tickling the skin there. My eyes flutter closed, preparing to brace myself. His hands vanish from my body, making me colder than I already was. I turn toward him unhurriedly, fearing what I might see.
My eyes instantly magnetize to his, my lungs shriveling into raisins that deny me oxygen.
His irises are black under the silver moon, leaking through the trees and contrasting with the shadows.
They are deep and bottomless, and I know instantly that he will be the thing that drags me under.
Because I recognize what his eyes look like under fluorescent office lights and framed by charcoal-rimmed glasses.
A glacier green that takes my breath away, but the magic evaporates when his mouth opens, breaking the spell.
Eyes that I’ll never escape from even after I’m buried six feet underground.
My mouth parts, and I stare at him as a sadistic grin holds me completely still.
“A—Alaric,” I breathe. I retreat a step, my back hitting something hard. My hands drop, magnetizing to the apple tree behind me.
His head cocks to the side, his mouth faltering as if in disappointment. “Try again.”
I swallow, my focus dropping to the dark ink on his wrists under the sleeves of the gray sweatshirt he wore earlier when I glared at him out the window. His hair is messier than the last time I saw him but lightly styled, and his glasses and nice attire are gone.
He’s mouthwatering standing before me, messy and rugged like this.
And that’s a problem.
When I remain silent, he steps into me, placing one hand above my head on the tree. He tucks a strand of loose hair—wild and frizzy from sweat—behind my ear. “I’m a little offended my brothers didn’t talk about me more. Or warn you, should I say.”
He places the pad of his thumb directly on my flushed forehead, rooting me to the ground.
He drags it down the middle of my face, over the curve and bridge of my nose, and my top lip until his force becomes more demanding, pulling my lower lip downward.
I don’t even realize I’m holding my breath until the inferno in my chest makes me release a sob. He smirks.
My eyes widen, and I choke on the lump in my throat. “Colten.”
He is at least a foot and a half taller than me and peers down into my damn frightened soul. The heat from our bodies creates something suffocating that envelops us.
He pulls his lower lip between his teeth. “I love how my name sounds on your tongue when you’re running for your life.”
Liquid heat rushes between my legs, dampening my underwear. What the hell is going on? My body is confused. You should not be reacting like this.
“I—” He cocks a brow at me. “I don’t understand…” I force the words. “You interviewed me for that teaching position. You’re a principal, and you’re fucking kidnapping young girls!”
“If it makes you feel better,” his eyes roam from my shoes up my toned legs, landing on the swell of my breasts peeking out of the white tank top below my open flannel. “Nothing about you is young.”
I open my mouth, but the words don’t emerge.
“Also, I’m not a principal,” he says flatly as if I’m senseless for even thinking he was.
“But you interviewed me—virtually and in the office. You asked me professional questions!” Well, the first time. The gears in my head spin and spin.
“I, unfortunately, remember our time together in the office very well. It took every ounce of restraint not to throw you over that desk and shove something other than your panties down your throat to shut you up.”
“I would’ve rather killed myself with the letter opener and bled out on that desk.”
A muscle in his jaw pops. “Red is my favorite color, Little Ghost. That wouldn’t have stopped me.”
Gooseflesh breaks out over my arms, and I inadvertently knit my arms together. “You’re incorrigible.”
His eyes haven’t left mine once. “Only for you, Little Ghost.”
I feel flattered.
He sighs, rubbing a hand over his jaw. “My brothers and I went to school there. I have copies of keys. Access—”
“But the second-grade teaching position…” Tears form in the corners of my eyes, and my nose tingles. “It’s not a real position. Is it?”
His evil grin has me pursing my lips to hold in another sob. I was fucking catfished by a job listing.
“Why?” I whisper, my breath still labored from running.
He steps into my body again, and I swallow, wishing the sharp claws of the shadows would reach through my body and end me so I don’t have to live in this nightmare.
The hard ridges in his chest brush against my breasts.
“Because we needed someone gentle. Caring. Someone with no ties who can vanish and not raise suspicion. And what better way to find that perfect person and learn everything about them than through interviews and background checks, Little Ghost.”
The first tear falls, and his eyes track the movement. It drips off my chin, the soft earth soaking it up.
“Why do you keep calling me that?” I mumble.
“You know why.”
My eyes squeeze shut.
Colten’s voice chills me to the bone. “There’s nobody to look for you, is there? Nobody who will notice you’re gone.”
He’s wrong. I may go weeks between checking in with my parents, but at some point, they will realize something is wrong when I don’t contact them.
Right?
Someone will notice. I refuse to believe that my parents are so out of touch with their own daughter—their only child—that they won’t wonder why she hasn’t called or texted.
Colten whistles, the sound vanishing into the night, disturbing my thoughts. What is he do—
A moment later, Rossco emerges, his black coat blending seamlessly with the darkness. He runs up to Colten, panting, happy, and entirely oblivious that this man is more of a predator than he is.
If teeth could kill, I’d bet on Colten. They would probably still look flawlessly white afterward.
Reaching into his sweatshirt pocket, he pulls out a leash that makes my pulse hammer. Colten bends down, hooking it to Rossco’s collar.
“Run.”
My voice trembles. “Wh—what?”
Standing to his feet, he grins. “You have about one minute until they’re here. I suggest you start running.”
Huh?
I reach for the leash, and simultaneously, he retreats a step. I grit my teeth. “If you’re letting me go, I want my dog.”
His low, menacing laugh rings in my ears, his green eyes piercing mine. “Yes, I’m letting you run, but you’re not going anywhere. My brothers find pleasure in the chase, and it wouldn’t be much of a hunt if I held you here, would it?”
I peer at him through watery eyes. “You’re taking Rossco and leaving me here with them?”
His eyes bore into me. “I can’t be here to witness what they will do to you.”
A tremor seizes my muscles, making my lip quiver. “Why? What are they going to do?” I whisper.
I flinch as his hand, the one not holding the leash, darts out and wraps around my throat, the pads of his fingers pulsing into the skin below my ear.
His sleeve hikes up further on his right forearm, revealing the ink embedded in his skin.
He tilts my head upward before I can get a good look at the tattoo, which looks like decaying leaves.
His voice is low, hot, and sticky, dripping down my spine. “Unlike my brothers, I don’t share. If and when you find yourself being punished by me, I will be the only one you submit to. I’m not as forgiving as they are.”
His hand withdraws from my throat, and his lips draw closer to my ear. My eyes flutter, his hot breath causing my legs to shake.
“I feel your erratic pulse, Taryn.” My name coming from his mouth weakens my knees. They’re barely holding me up. “You and I both know, as badly as you want to escape, your curiosity is desperately telling you to find out what we’ll do to you when you pull a stunt like this.”
His body leaves mine, leaving my brain and limbs a quivering pile of mush. Colten turns around, walking back toward the direction I came from, with Rossco trotting beside him.
His voice echoes through the orchard. “You’re wasting time, Little Ghost.”
I blink long and hard, inhaling a deep breath into my burning lungs before turning and running. Again.
But I barely make it one hundred yards when something whooshes through the air beside my head. Coming to a halt, I stare at the object that fell from one of the trees in front of me and crashed onto the ground.
Oh. My. God.
I’m unable to remove my eyes from the apple lying with an arrow straight through the flesh.
They were serious when they said hunting.