Total pages in book: 164
Estimated words: 156728 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 784(@200wpm)___ 627(@250wpm)___ 522(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 156728 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 784(@200wpm)___ 627(@250wpm)___ 522(@300wpm)
The hunter’s ring glinted in the moonlight—R.A.
She recoiled like a cornered animal when he took another step forward.
No exits. No room. Hedge walls. An endless night. Freezing rain. Unfathomable traps. This unholy place was without laws. Every inch of sophistication was a trick meant to stir a false sense of safety. A land that preyed on desperate souls with broken promises and broken men.
“Easy,” he said.
Another step.
His face hid in shadow, but nothing could disguise the power of his posture. Authority radiated from him in stillness, like a sheathed blade.
“You’re freezing.”
Daisy didn’t move.
He shrugged out of his jacket and held it out to her. “Take it.”
Trust no one.
He closed the distance, and the shadowed men behind him advanced too, tightening the circle. She whimpered, and he held up a stilling hand.
Breath punched from Daisy’s lungs in frantic bursts as panic bucked in her chest.
“Back up.” He never took his eyes off her.
The men took a uniform step back. He moved fast, catching her wrist in an unbreakable grip.
“No—” she choked, yanking back with everything she had, but he didn’t budge—didn’t even sway.
Unbreakable.
Daisy clenched her eyes shut and jerked back, smacking her shoulder against the rock.
“Stop,” he ordered, low and controlled. “I’m not here to hurt you.”
The jacket—warm and fragrant—draped over her trembling shoulders. Her fist balled between them, her eyes wildly searching his shadowed features.
“Stand up.”
It wasn’t a request. He pulled her up, but her legs folded as strength abandoned her.
He pulled her closer, and she shoved at his chest, weak and terrified. Her heart tripped into chaos when he refused to let her go.
“Relax,” he said, but she heard those words before.
Her body sagged when he overpowered her, panic swallowing her whole in a wave of darkness that took her away.
Chapter Nineteen
Capture
“Shit,” Jack hissed as her body folded against him, a marionette with severed strings.
He caught her before she hit the ground, one arm hooking beneath her knees, the other bracing her spine as her head lolled against his chest. Dead weight. Breakable as bird bones wrapped in bruised skin.
“Sir?” Cole stepped forward, rain slicking his tactical vest. “Would you like us to take it from here?”
Jack shifted her higher, moving his jacket to drape over her front and shield her from the eyes of men who had no business seeing what lay beneath. The fabric swallowed her.
When he looked up, Cole stood frozen, waiting for instruction. The two officers at his back stared as well.
One officer touched his ear and reported, “Medical team’s standing by at the grotto.”
Cole continued to stare at Jack, uncertainty bleeding through his stiff posture. “Protocol says—”
“Protocol won’t be necessary.”
Silence.
Rain fell harder, a steady tempo pelting the jacket that covered her limp body as he held her close. The passing storm needled Jack’s face, soaking through the fine wool of his waistcoat until the fabric clung to his chest like a second skin.
Cole exchanged a glance with the two remaining officers. “Sir, she’s injured. The lacerations on her feet alone—”
“Have medical supplies and towels sent to my suite.”
No one moved.
Jack turned in the opposite direction of the safe zone and headed toward the lodge. Toward the maze of hedges and fog that would swallow them both.
“Sir.” Cole fell into step beside him, boots squelching in the wet grass. “This is irregular.”
Jack was more than aware, but he had no explanation to offer so he kept walking.
The moment the two other men fell into step, Cole turned. “Patrol the perimeter until I radio further instruction.”
The two officers peeled off into the darkness as Jack navigated the labyrinth of gardens through the rain and shadows. He knew this property. Every hidden corridor. Every forgotten acre. Every shortcut carved through overgrown hedgerows.
Cole kept pace, silent now, though questions radiated from him like heat from a dying fire.
The tribute in Jack’s arms weighed nothing. Less than nothing, even soaking wet. His body heat might keep her warm, but it wouldn’t be enough to keep the tremors of shock at bay.
He knew those tremors all too well.
When they crossed beneath an arbor dripping with rain-drenched vines, Cole dared to speak again. “She went back.”
Jack’s molars locked but his stride didn’t falter. “I know.”
“She was at the footbridge just before the safe zone.” They ducked beneath a low branch. “Why would she go back into the maze?”
Jack’s arms tightened around her. He’d watched it happen on the surveillance feed, his breath catching as she stood at the threshold of safety, tears cutting through the dirt on her face, and then turned away.
She went back for a reason he couldn’t name. Didn’t understand.
But he’d seen Hadrian emerge from the fog like a phantom, and his blood had turned to ice water in his veins. His body moved before his mind caught up. Out of the chair. Through the suite. Down the stairs and into the darkness, sprinting through hedges as if driven by a compulsion so innate even logic couldn’t compete.