My knee shoots up between us, aiming directly for the crowned jewels, but because the fucker is so damn tall, it takes almost a lifetime for my knee to connect. With my lack of oxygen, my idea of a devastating blow is more like a love-tap, butit’s enough to surprise him, and for just a second, his hand eases on my throat enough to suck in a desperate breath.
Rage sparks in his terrifying stare. “You want my cock, Menace, you better fucking beg for it.”
I spit at him, clawing at his arms and trying to bend his fingers away from my throat, but he’s too damn strong. Every inch of his body has been carved from the densest stone, and in comparison, I don’t stand a fucking chance. “What? Your little pin dick? Oh, trust me, Stone Blackthorne, no woman in their right mind is ever going to beg for that kind of disappointment.”
He roars in frustration, pressing harder into me, that wicked stare burning me alive. “You—”
Whatever insult he was going to hurl at me is interrupted when the conference room door finally gives way. The prisoners spill in like rabid animals, throwing one another into walls and shoving their way through the broken door to be the first to get their hands on me. Their putrid stares focus on me, and I realize in the blink of an eye that I don’t fear Stone half as much as I fear these men. He had his opportunity to take from me, but he didn’t. He’s no rapist. Even after seven years deprived of having his dick sucked, he didn’t even attempt to touch me. But these men, they sure as fuck don’t share those same morals.
They will destroy me. They will take and take until there is nothing left, and they won’t stop until long after I’m gone. I can’t go out like that. I just . . . fuck.
My body trembles as my gaze snaps up to Stone’s. “Please,” I beg, tears rolling down my cheeks as I desperately search for any signs of humanity within his dark eyes. “Please. Kill me before they get their hands on me.”
His brows furrow for just a second as if he’s caught off guard, but the moment the other inmates finally reach us, something snaps inside of him. It’s the most terrifying thing I’ve ever witnessed.
“DON’T FUCKING TOUCH HER,” he growls, the sound echoing right through my chest as he whips around with such force that the two men closest to us fly back against the concrete wall, one of them cracking his skull with a sickening thud. His body goes completely limp against the ground.
“Is he . . . Is he dead?” I gasp, but my question goes unanswered as Stone sets his full attention on the other men in the room.
He moves like lightning, and I watch in horror as he almost seems to smile. It’s as though the idea of getting to slaughter every one of these men has filled him with the greatest happiness.
He lunges at them, one after another, as the alarm screeches through the prison, eerily echoing through the long hallways. The men keep coming, their wicked stares locked on my body, but Stone is a fucking animal, taking them out one after another, but I don’t get it. Why is he protecting me? Why go through all this if he only wants to see me dead? It doesn’t make sense.
As they keep coming, I drop to the ground, trying to curl into a ball behind Stone as he snaps necks like glass.
Someone grabs the discarded chain off the ground and whips it toward Stone, but all it does is anger the beast as the chain bounces right off him. He steps away, putting space between us, setting his sights on the chain wielder. Without a single thought, I scramble across the blood-soaked ground, my eyes locked on my target.
Just a little bit closer, and I’ll be okay.
My knees slam against the hard ground, and I crawl like a fucking baby, climbing over fallen bodies as I inch closer and closer to the fallen guards. Two of them are already dead, but the other two were only knocked out. One has already been dragged from the room, and inmates are using him as a punching bag.The other . . . if I could only get to him, then I might stand a chance. A small one at least.
I scramble like my whole fucking life depends on it, and just as I reach for the guard, something grips my leg, yanking me back so hard that I fall. My head slams against the ground, my white silk cami catching on concrete rubble from the broken wall and tearing right through the center.
A blood-curdling scream rips out of me as I’m pulled back. Stone’s gaze whips toward me, distracting him just long enough for someone to break through his wild defenses and land a devastating blow to his perfectly carved face.
Blood spurts from his cheek, splattering against the wall as the asshole clutching my leg drags me back. Adrenaline pulses through my veins, and as my fight-or-flight instincts kick into top gear, I fight for my goddamn life, using my other leg to whip around and clock the fucker right in the jaw.
I hear an awful crack, and as the asshole roars in agony and releases his hold on my leg, another inmate shoves him out of the way, the one with some kind of homemade knife in his hand.
My eyes widen in horror, my heart beating like never before, and as he hovers over me with his shiv in hand, the terror grips me in a chokehold. A vile grin pulls across his lips, making my stomach sink. “Oh, I’m going to enjoy this,” he rumbles, just seconds before he lunges at me.
I scream and throw myself back, scrambling toward the unconscious guard, lunging for his discarded gun. With my finger over the trigger, I whip back, point, close my eyes, and squeeze.
BANG!
A warm spray of blood splatters across my face and forearms, and I open my eyes reluctantly, keeping the gun raised in my shaking hands.
His eyes widen as he clutches the wound in his chest, and not a moment later, he falls toward me, the shiv still clutched in his hand and angling right toward my throat.
I hastily shimmy aside just in time as the inmate slams against the ground, the shiv clattering right beside my shoulder as heaving breaths tear through my chest.
I killed a man.
Holy fucking shit. I just killed a man.
The alarms still blare through the prison, hammering in my ears, and with more inmates pushing their way into the cramped conference room, there’s no time to dwell on the body bleeding out beside me.
“GET BEHIND ME,” I distantly hear Stone’s chilling tone cut through the madness, and his order breaks through the fog clouding my every thought.
