Fiz chuckles low beside me, I give him a smack on the leg.
“The point, Elodie,” Caden says, and there’s the drop in patience I was waiting for, “is having the best prepared mental state for The Hunt that comes at the end of it.”
Some of the colour drains from her face. “The Hunt?”
He nods slowly, clearly enjoying the wash of fear sweeping over her expression. “The Hunt. Tapping into our primal form doesn’t end with no caffeine or pussy. We use our honed minds to hunt meat in the woods. Then, when we come back, we return to our usual modern, maniacal selves. We party, we drink, wefuck.”
She doesn’t react to this, only says, “What meat, exactly?”
Smart girl.
Caden lets a devious smirk cross his lips. “What do you think?”
Her chest dips in a sharp exhale. “You’re all sick. You’re the most fucked-up unhinged people I’ve ever met.” She shoots to her feet and goes to run away. Fiz and I are on our feet, but it’s Caden who catches her.
Grabbing her by the arm and swinging her back round, he sneers, “Where are you going, Elodie? There’s nowhere to run.”
“Let me go! You’re a bunch of sickos!” She thrashes in his grip.
He crashes her down onto the table, glasses and cutlery flying as her back smashes on top of it. He has her pinned down by the neck and, fuck, if it doesn’t make my cock twitch seeing herlike that. She struggles and squirms, scratching at his arm, but Caden’s vice grip on her throat keeps her from getting anywhere.
“Now you listen to me, sweetheart, ussickosare all you’ve got. And the longer you push us, the worse it’ll be when we finally crack. Do us both a favour, watch that fucking mouth of yours. I won’t tell you again.”
“I’m leaving here. You can’t stop me. I’d rather get mauled by your stupid dogs than stay here another minute!”
The fury clouding over Caden turns his eyes almost black. “Thosestupiddogs were easier to train than you are.”
“I’m not an animal to train! I’m a human fucking being and I’m sick of being treated like I’m something less.”
The crack in her voice at the end has me wincing slightly. All she’s ever known is what Cade’s doing to her now. I have to hold myself back from stepping in. It’s not that I care, I just have too much empathy today.
“When you start acting like a human and not some wild animal, you’ll be treated as such.”
El’s fist comes flying at an impressive speed and cracks Caden on the jaw. His head jerks to the side and he whips it back, a lethal calm I know too well sweeping over him. He swishes his tongue around his mouth for a moment and purses his lips. A glob of red saliva strings down from his lips and drops almost majestically onto Elodie’s face. She expels an outraged scream and frantically swipes at her face, trying to get rid of the blood now dribbling across her lips.
Then Cade hauls her up and out of the room, leaving the thuds of her kicks on the floor and her deafening screams as she fights him echoing in our ears.
I drop back down to my seat. “Fuck, man, this is turning into a right headache. I just wanted one nice dinner.”
Fiz goes back to his food, unfazed by what just went down. “He needs to whip her into shape. Beat her down a little and it’ll be fine.”
Something tells me it’s going to take a lot more than that to tame this wild little fox.
CHAPTER 13
ELODIE
It doesn’t matter how much I kick and scream and hit, Caden’s grip on my hair doesn’t weaken, it only rips some out. He stops once in a utility room with loads of drawers and cupboards and rifles through one drawer. I take the opportunity to swing my fist around. His other hand comes out of nowhere and grabs my wrist.
He yanks me close to his face. “Try that again,” he dares.
“Let me go and I will.”
His eyes gleam with temptation. “You definitely need a time out, little brat.” He releases my wrist to go back to the drawer.
I take another swing at him. This time, he rears his head back without so much as a glance in my direction.
“You’ll have to do better than that,” he says, and takes something out that I can’t see.
