“Are you going to get into bed, or are you just going to stare at me all night?” He said flatly with dead eyes.
I was leaning against the sofa before the bed, twisting the silk hem of my nightdress between my fingers, wondering if I had completely lost it. I wasn’t used to such tenderness, such care, such attention. And the last way I’d ever think Sebastian would treat me was tenderly. An uneasiness skittered across my bones at his gentleness. How he seemed to cradle bits of me when everyone else had only thrown me about not minding if I cracked. I was already damaged anyway. It was only expected that I broke.
His care put me on edge. I couldn't understand it. And he was supposed to be the enemy, right? He was supposed to hunt me down like a predator. I should have been nothing more than prey to him.
I took a slight step back.
And it was enough to make him still.
“What are you doing?” His tone grew deeper. A warning intertwined through each word.
My breath caught as I recognized what flashed before his eyes. Fear. I took another step back, and he sat up straighter. Why was he afraid? I didn’t like that. What was hidden within his fear? Where did it come from? And what did it mean?
Another step, and he was standing.
He was only in his fitted black sleep shorts.
Every muscle tensed, poised to strike.
I took another step back. He matched it automatically, his control lost to primal instinct.Was this cruel of me?
“Charlotte,” he ground out. “What the hell are you doing?”
You wouldn’t hurt me.
My words from last night rattled about my head.
He was supposed to hurt me.
I was his prey. He was the predator. That was all I had known. What my world embedded deep within me. I was taught to kill vampires on sight. I was taught they would do the same to me. That was my life, a life among demons. How could it be any different?
I ran.
I shrieked at the growl that tore through the air. I moved my legs as fast as I possibly could, flinging open the door and barreling down the dimly lit hall. My feet slapped against the cold marble. He was silent behind me, which was only more terrifying. How someone as giant as him could be silent should not have been possible, maybe it was another one of his abilities. A silent hunter.
It was well into the night. The halls were quiet save for my ragged breaths and pounding steps. I eyed each closed door, not wanting to risk checking if they were unlocked. He was close behind. I knew he could have already caught me by now. I shouldn’t have even made it out of the room. He was playing. That primal part of him needed the chase.
I slipped through a darkened threshold. It was a sitting room. Only the faint silver glow of the moon highlighted the shadowed shapes of the room. I held out my hands in front of me, grazing them along the furniture that could take me out if I wasn’t careful. A low growl reverberated against my bones. Sebastian entered the room, sidestepping slowly. His eyes fixed on me under a hooded brow.
There he was. The hunter. That was what he was supposed to be.
And he should stalk me. He should near closer with calculated precision, with that hunger in his eyes.
An arrangement of sofas and chairs separated us. We circled them. He matched every step I took. My chest tightened at the idea that he could lunge at any moment, he was certainly poised to. Iglanced around the room. There were no other doors, and I wouldn’t have time to open a window. I was trapped.
I stepped to the side. He neared closer. We were bridging the gap, closing the distance. Just as he was at arms length, I bolted in the opposite direction. I threw down a heavy armchair right as he was about to intercept me. He leapt over it. I squealed at his proximity, at how close he nearly came to capturing me.
I ran down the hall once more. My lungs burned, but I wasn’t ready to give up just yet. Giant double doors stood tall at the end of the hall. It was a dead end, and I had to go through them, no matter where they led to. I prayed it wasn’t someone’s bedroom.
I burst through the doors to find another massive corridor lined at either side with rows and rows of towering bookshelves. A library. I had to force myself to keep moving, to not take in the expansive magnificence of it all. The arched ceiling was dotted with exquisitely jeweled chandeliers and appeared to be painted with a mural that I couldn’t quite make out in the dark.
I chanced a look behind me and nearly fell to the floor along with the blood that drained from my face. He wasn’t there. I slowly turned back to the empty corridor before me. Each step brought me to a new intersection between the aisles of shelves. He could be at my left or my right. Each turn of my head sparked another surge of electricity that burned through me. And the dreadful silence pressed into me from every angle.
My mouth opened, a stifled squeak escaping as I silenced the scream. A shadow moved down the corridor, peering out from one of the aisles. He wanted me to see him. And before I could gather what little bravery I had left or wonder what I had gotten myself into, I screamed at the arms that wrapped around me in an ironclad grip.
I kicked and flailed my legs wildly, digging my nails into his arms. He grunted as he tightened his grip. I managed to reel my elbowback as hard as I could, getting him in the stomach. He growled but released me, and I took off again without looking back.
I turned sharply down an aisle, and right as I cleared it, a hard wall came at me from the side, knocking the breath out of me. This time he was not letting go.
