“Not your girl, not your problem,” Hawk said.
“Just seems impolite,” he said.
“You hunt your way, we’ll hunt ours.” I meant it, but I still felt like an asshole imagining Cassie wet and shivering on the wall.
My dick got hard again thinking about warming her up, feeling her tits smashed against my chest, tugging on the chain between her thighs before I knelt at her feet, before I buried my face in her?—
“I hope you kept your hands to yourself.” The excitement in Vigo’s voice made it clear he wouldn’t actually mind if the Bullshad touched our girl because then we could fuck with the Bulls, and Vigo thought fighting was as fun as fucking.
“Didn’t touch her,” the guy in the middle said.
They sauntered past us like they had nowhere to be. It was the opposite of the way we worked the tunnels, as evidenced by the fact that Vigo was skipping ahead, obviously as eager to get back to Cassie as I was.
And for all his hard-assery, Hawk must have felt the same because he broke into a run, letting out one of his war cries as he raced ahead to keep up with Vigo.
I broke into a run behind them and we traveled through the purple light, in and out of the shadows between bulbs. And then, up ahead, I saw Cassie, as pale as a ghost, her skin wet and almost translucent, the silver chain Hawk had looped around her neck catching the shards of light from the bulb that glowed above her.
And the Bull was right, she was freezing, her body shivering in the chains around her wrists, bare feet standing in a shallow puddle that had pooled on the tunnel floor.
Her eyes widened when she saw us coming, and I wondered if she was shivering from the cold or because she was scared.
Either way, I was surprised to find that I didn’t like it. Hunt girls signed up to be toys. Any discomfort they felt was their part of the bargain, a small price to pay for the risks we would take if the girls won.
Risks to our lives, and even more dangerous, to our freedom.
The other teams took the same risks, the possibility of doing time a small price to pay for the freedom of the Hunt.
But Hawk, Vigo, and I? We’d rather be dead than locked up.
So yeah, usually I didn’t feel sorry for the girls. We were all adults. The girls knew what they were signing up for — the consent form made that clear — and so did we.
But I don’t know, man, seeing Cassie shivering and cold like a half-drowned kitten made me suddenly ashamed. I wanted to pull her off the wall, take her home, give her a bath and tuck her into bed, let her sleep while I chose some toys from the playroom to use on her milky body.
“You’re… you’re real assholes,” she said, her teeth chattering. “You know that?”
“The whole tunnel knows now,” Vigo said, approaching her with something like curiosity. He tore off his mask, leaned in, and kissed her hard on the lips. “Hmmm, yummy.”
She tried to pull her head back, but there was nowhere to go with the tunnel behind her.
I stepped closer, taking a spot on her other side, pressing my body to hers. Her skin was cold as ice, but I’d been moving — running — and deep down I hoped to transfer some of my body heat to her.
I tucked a piece of her wet hair behind her ear and laid one of my hands on her cheek to tip her head in my direction. “Don’t worry, mouse. You’ll be warm in no time.”
14
CASSIE
I was sandwichedbetween two of the Hawks, and now that his mask was gone, I saw that the one on my right had spiky blond hair, his eyes an unusual shade of gray-green that made me think of sage or eucalyptus. An unexpected smattering of freckles dusted his nose and cheeks, and when he licked his lips the silver stud in his tongue glinted in the purple light.
He tugged at the chain around my neck, and I gasped as it pulled on my left nipple.
“See,” the hawk on my left said, “this is going to be fun.”
My mind was on overload, trying to keep track of them: the masked man pacing in front of me on the tunnel floor, the blond hawk toying with the chain attached to my body, the blue-eyed one stroking my cheek with his thumb as he nuzzled my neck with the silver beak of his mask.
It was unexpectedly erotic, unexpectedly exciting to be toyed with by the faceless man, his features hidden behind the terrifying bird mask, but it only lasted a minute before he pulled at the mask and dropped it onto the floor.
“I want to kiss you.” He said it matter-of-factly, and I swallowed against the twin lumps of fear and desire that rose in my throat.
