The gun clicked.
“One more word,” the man said quietly, “and your brains are on the lawn.”
He tossed Hadrian’s confiscated handgun to one of the shadowed figures without looking away.
They weren’t hunters. They were something else. Something powerful and terrifying. Above the law. All six of them moved as one body. Synchronized. Elite. Forceful. And armed.
Her throat had closed to a pinhole as her chest caved in, ribs collapsing like wet paper. Too fast. She needed air, but couldn’t draw a full breath. Heart hammering in her skull, she looked up at them, terrified of whatever they planned to do to her.
She couldn’t think. Couldn’t speak. The sky tilted as shadowed faces swam closer, mouths moving, their words drowning under the roar of blood in her ears.
Breathe. Breathe. Breathe.
She couldn’t.
Her fingers clawed at the slick, unmovable rock slab at her back as white noise swallowed her whole and panic pressed down on her chest like a boot.
What happens now? What will they do?—
“Put him with the others.” The hunter shoved Hadrian, and three men surged, slamming Hadrian into the wet lawn and cinching zip ties around his wrists and ankles.
He looked at Daisy and holstered his weapon at the small of his back. His stormy eyes glinted with uncontained rage as he took two determined strides toward her.
Her back pressed against the wet stone as she cowered and blocked her face with raised hands. “No!”
He stopped.
Three men in tactical gear hauled Hadrian up and dragged him from the maze, his protests shredding into the rain. Three men remained behind the hunter, their eyes like knives cutting into her.
Daisy shivered, her full body spasming uncontrollably. Hair plastered to her cheeks. Blood seeped from her temple to her eye, a warm contrast slithering down her raw, frozen skin.
The hunter’s ring glinted in the moonlight—R.A.
She recoiled like a cornered animal when he took another step forward.
No exits. No room. Hedge walls. An endless night. Freezing rain. Unfathomable traps. This unholy place was without laws. Every inch of sophistication was a trick meant to stir a false sense of safety. A land that preyed on desperate souls with broken promises and broken men.
“Easy,” he said.
Another step.
His face hid in shadow, but nothing could disguise the power of his posture. Authority radiated from him in stillness, like a sheathed blade.
“You’re freezing.”
Daisy didn’t move.
He shrugged out of his jacket and held it out to her. “Take it.”
Trust no one.
He closed the distance, and the shadowed men behind him advanced too, tightening the circle. She whimpered, and he held up a stilling hand.
Breath punched from Daisy’s lungs in frantic bursts as panic bucked in her chest.
“Back up.” He never took his eyes off her.
The men took a uniform step back. He moved fast, catching her wrist in an unbreakable grip.
