You can leave, Cassie. Just tell them you changed your mind. They’ll let you go, if only because you’re Bram’s little sister. They don’t want you here anyway.
The man with the clipboard handed it to the blonde who’d said the rules didn’t sound fair. She looked at it, hesitated, then signed whatever was attached to the clipboard.
He advanced to the girl with black hair, then the second blonde, then the brunette standing next to me. It was like being marched to my death, except in reverse, death marching toward me wearing a hawk mask and enough ink to graffiti a skyscraper.
I could smell him, an intoxicating mix of sweat and worn leather, cold air and iron, and I was surprised to feel desire pool between my thighs.
What the actual fuck?
The brunette signed and the hawk advanced until he was standing right in front of me.
He held out the clipboard, his dark eyes lit like burnished gold behind his mask. I had the sudden urge to pull it off his face, to reveal the truth of who he was, to see him as a man instead of a beast.
I took the clipboard from his hands and read the typed form.
I consent to be hunted.
I consent to be stripped.
I consent to be marked.
I consent to be owned.
There was other verbiage too: language about the duration of the Hunt (twenty-four hours), about the cost to us of losing (residing with the winning team for ninety days as a “personal assistant”), about our prize if we won (“a single demand, details TBD”).
Then there was the boring fine print: the organizers of the Hunt weren’t liable for injuries, blah blah blah.
Like any of us were going to end up in court.
This wasn’t a company picnic. This was the Hunt.
This was Blackwell Falls.
We kept our secrets in the family, and few secrets were as guarded as the Hunt.
Still, I didn’t blame them for making us sign. It was an extra layer of protection in case somebody got stupid.
I looked up to find the man in the hawk mask staring at me. “Last chance, little rabbit.”
There was a challenge in his voice, and I took the pen from his hand, signed my name, and handed him back the clipboard before I could change my mind.
“I’m not a rabbit.”
“Then let’s play.”
5
CASSIE
The manin the hawk mask handed Titus the clipboard, then stalked back to the other side of the room while Titus dropped a heavy wooden bolt over the door leading to the Orpheum, like we were in some medieval castle and he was barring the door against a rampaging beast instead of locking us in with a whole bunch of them.
Then he crossed the room to the digital clock and unlocked the door underneath it with a set of keys he withdrew from the pocket of his jeans.
Darkness yawned beyond the door, and a wash of cold wet air blew into the room from the tunnels.
I shivered. And not just because of the cold.
I hadn’t thought much about the tunnels themselves. I’d been too preoccupied by the Hunt, the prospect of being chased by three men who would do god-knew-what if they managed to get their hands on me.
