“He’s not your fiancé.”
“Yet.” It wasn’t as if I wanted to bring up my arranged future engagement, but Jay needed a reminder. Despite our mutual loathing, he was my twin brother’s best friend, and if he ended up with a knife to the neck, my brother wouldn’t be happy.
“He’s not here. I saw him with Cara back at the manor. They seemed very cosy.”
“Good for them.” If Jay thought he could get a rise out of me, he was mistaken. This was an arranged betrothal for political reasons. My own father had married the daughter of the head of the now defunct Lewis Firm in order to strengthen both his position and gain access to resources the Thorpe Syndicate never had before.Soon, it would be my turn, whether I liked it or not. I would never have chosen this life for myself, but in our world, you toed the line, or you’d face the consequences.
And the consequences of refusing the arrangedmarriage? They didn’t even bear thinking about. This deal was too important to everyone involved.
Of course, it wouldn’t do for my future fiancé to be seen in public with other women when our arrangement was so public, but the things that went on in private were a different story. The patriarchy was alive and kicking in the little corner of the underworld I inhabited, and while people turned a blind eye to the men fucking around with other women, their wives and significant others were expected to remain faithful.
If rumours were true, my future fiancé regularly enjoyed the company of beautiful women, and I had no desire to join their ranks. The best I could hope for was a platonic marriage. Sex couldn’t be that good, could it? I’d never slept with anyone before, never evenkissedanyone before, and I wasn’t particularly interested. The only person I’d ever been attracted to was cruel and unfeeling, and I wasn’t masochistic enough to entertain those thoughts. Except…there were those nights when I was alone in my room, unable to sleep, and I wondered…abouthim.
I always hated myself for it the next day.
“Don’t you care?” Jay’s voice was low in my ear, his muscles flexing as his arm tightened around me. “Don’t you care that your future fiancé is?—”
“It’s an arranged marriage. I. Don’t. Care,” I said flatly, cutting him off.
He growled out a frustrated sound. “Why are you going along with this?”
“What?” Yanking myself out of his hold, I spun around, staring up at him. Our faces were hidden behind our masks, but I caught a glimpse of his eyes, darker than usual as he looked down at me. “You think I actually have a choice? You know my family. You know how important this deal is to thesyndicate. You know how many years my father’s been working on it.”
Jay exhaled sharply. “It’s not like you to roll over and give up. I thought you were stronger than that.”
Fuck you, Jayesh Attwood. “It’s not weakness. What do you think would happen if I suddenly decided I didn’t want to go through with the arrangement? You’d be buying flowers for my funeral.”
He stepped closer, his chest brushing against mine. “Your family wouldn’t do that to you. Your dad has never laid a hand on you.” His voice dropped. “Has he?”
His low, deadly tone made goosebumps erupt over my skin. I swallowed.
“No, but you know what my father’s like. If I scorned the family, he’d take it out on someone innocent. Maybe even on my brother. At the very best, I’d be banished, and I’d never be allowed to see Ryker again, and Iknowthat wouldn’t be punishment enough in my father’s eyes. I don’t even know what the Volkovs would do if I disrespected them like that.”
“King would help you.”
“Ryker. King’s a juvenile nickname that feeds into the delusions of grandeur our father has for him. And why do you care about my life, anyway?”
He straightened up and took a step away from me. “I don’t.” His voice was hard.
I sucked in a shuddering breath. “Good. Now, go away. Find a desperate girl who can overlook your personality defects.”
He laughed darkly. “I think you’re forgetting why we’re out here. I’m the hunter, and you’re the prey. Why take part if you don’t want to be caught? You’re not even supposed to be out here.”
“I took Liana’s place, not that it’s any of your business. And look at my mask. It’s red. That marks me as a hunter.”
“You think you can fool me.” His voice lowered. “I saw your mask when you entered the woods. It was blue.”
“I made a modification.”
“What you made was a fucking mistake. You shouldn’t be out here.”
“I can handle myself. It’s not your problem.”
One second, we were facing each other; the next, he was behind me, holding me securely with his hand wrapped around my throat. His fingers tightened in warning, sending a delicious shiver through me. It was difficult to ignore my body’s reaction to being so close to a gorgeous man who was fulfilling one of my secret fantasies, but the fact that the man behind me was Jay made it easier. Letting my body go limp and compliant against him, I waited for the few seconds it took for his grip to loosen, and then I twisted myself down and around with a sharp motion, breaking his hold. Holding down the button on my torch to activate the mechanism that would cause the knife to slide free, I brought the serrated blade up in a quick swing, pointing it at his chest. We were both breathing hard, and my hand trembled, but I kept the knife steady.
“I said, I can handle myself.”
A dark chuckle fell from his throat. “You wouldn’t dare.”
