Basically I accidently deleted this entire book! So the reason you got so many notifications is because of all of the issues I was having. Now it appears to be fine! It was very scary!!
Please vote if you enjoyed!
* * *
"Nobody knows the trouble I've seen..." I gloomily clunked the crystal glass in my hand filled halfway with water once against my cage bars, creating a single clink. "Nobody knows the--"
"I told you to shut your mouth or else I would take your water away. What part of that didn't you understand?" Hunter barked from across the room, not bothering to lift up his head from what he was doing. His voice alone was sharp enough to shut me up and he knew it. For a few seconds at least...
What Hunter was doing, by the way, involved a journal, a pen, and very angry facial expressions.
Let me break it down for you.
I was in a cage.
There I sat like a helpless animal: sitting Indian style at the bottom of a dog cage, two sizes too small, and a cold, uncomfortable metal, with my left elbow resting on my knee and my head propped up in my hand. It was the only position I could stay in the crammed amount of space that I had, and it sucked donkey balls. My neck was seriously cramping up, it was pretty damn cold in the room, I was still dirty and covered in blood, I was starving...and he wanted me to be quiet.
Yeah.
If only the bottom of the cage was a Tempurpedic mattress, then maybe I would have been quiet.
I swiped my finger over the bottom of the cage, rubbed my fingers together, and sniffed them. Alright, at least it was a clean cage...
I sniffed my fingers again.
Kinda...
I looked up from the metal cage towards the dark-haired man curled over a large mahogany desk, writing in, yes, his journal. The exact journal I had found in his bedroom the first time I was in his house, might I add. The one with a mysterious drawing of a girl. Except this time, we weren't in his house. We were somewhere else. Somewhere freezing cold, where there was a constant nearby sound of running water, and the floors were stone. It was a large area without any dividers between each room. A kitchen. A living room. A dining room. A bedroom. A...cage room.
There were a couple pieces of furniture. A bed, a desk and chair, many lush red couches arranged in different parts of the room, a fridge... Everything was different shades of red and black. On the ceiling dangled the biggest chandelier I had ever seen in my life, lighting up the entire room with a slight golden glow all by itself. Wherever we were, which was so far I had pinned down as inside of a cave, reminded me of a big apartment, except freezing and no homey feeling to it what-so-ever. This "house" reminded me of a set on a movie, where every item was picked to perfection so that the audience can make a connection to the characters, yet fake-feeling when you got up close and forced. Hunter was one of the lead actors on this particular set.
A cell phone rang. Hunter cursed under his breath. He reached into his dark jeans, and lifted the phone to his ear, briefly darting his blue eyes in my direction. "Hello?" His features hardened significantly. "Nacho. Just the screw up I was thinking of. Tell the Pack to stay out of here for now, they can crash at my house, but make sure they don't break anything or it's all on you." Hunter raised his voice. "Yes, that includes you, idiot! No, you're not out of the pack. This isn't some girly clique, you'd be dead already if I wanted you dead!" Hunter leaned back in his chair. Realizing I was staring at him, gave me a wink that unfortunately made my girly parts squeal with aliveness.
You'd be dead already if I wanted you dead.
"I'm not angry at you, Nacho. God, would you quit crying, you're a grown man!" Hunter peeled his gaze from me and pinched the bridge of his nose. "You know I hate the waterworks. Just...stop. I'm giving you another chance, next time I'm crushing your skull in. I understand that he had a machete against your throat and the only thing you could do was tell him everything. Of course this is me! Am I not allowed to be nice once in a while? Fuck you, I'm a nice enough guy."
I snorted with laughter, earning a blue-eyed glare.
"Later." Hunter pocked his phone. He snarled a little at me, which oddly enough, came off as sensual, before returning back to his journal.
What was the reason why I couldn't pinpoint the exact location of where I was? Well, when Hunter had tied me up, blindfolded me, and stuck me in front of him on a motorcycle, the last thing I was concerned about was where we were going. I was more concerned with the fact that a man who was blind most of the month, was driving on a motorcycle with me, and the only thing close to a seatbelt that I had on was one of his arms draped fairly loosely around my waist.
Did I mention he was riding the bike with only one hand? Honestly, screw where we were going, it was a miracle I hadn't soiled myself once the whole ride.
"Dear Diary," I projected loudly from my tiny cage, dramatically reaching out to the ceiling through the bars of my cage. "Today, I let my brother get staked, and kidnapped him and his innocent, very attractive student, who I can't seem to ever call by her actual name." Hunter picked his head up a bit as I continued, visibly annoyed. "I then sent my brother to a "better place" and tied up the attractive girl in a chair. Don't worry, she was as uncomfortable as possible. Furthermore, I pretended to be my brother, so that I could trick the attractive girl into telling me more about my arch nemesis. Or so I say. I say many things I don't mean. I'm a compulsive liar. Oh, and I'm a serial killer who puts a smiley-face mask on in my free time and murders people. Does that make me a bad person? Ex-oh-ex-oh, Stevie Wonder."
Hunter slammed his palms down onto his desk, knocked his chair back, and crossed the room to my cage in a matter of seconds. I shrunk back as he reached through the bars of my cage, gripping my glass of water. Our fingers slightly touched, an odd sensation vibrated electrically where skin met skin. We froze. We locked eyes.
"Hand it over," Hunter growled roughly, blue eyes emptying like a hourglass until they were pitch black.
"No."
"I told you to be quiet, you disobeyed that order, now hand the water over."
"But I'm thirsty, Masta'!" I screamed theatrically, trying to sip from the glass. In the process of fighting over the glass, water splashed all over Hunter's face. "Oh..."
Hunter wiped a hand slowly down his face, visibly fighting back his anger as he plucked the crystal glass from my hand. Eyes on fire, he crushed the glass in his hand, sprinkling its shards on the ground, and then viciously stomping on them with his boots, kicking some of the pieces to the side.
"Message... received," I said, as he further pulverized the remaining shards of glass. "So, listen...was that, like, my last glass of water? Because I am actually thirsty... I could start choking or something. I read somewhere in an article, that some girl was trapped in the woods without any water, and she was so thirsty, that she swallowed that little punching bag thing in the back of her throat... Either that, or she drowned. I've never read articles word for word, to be quite honest..."
Annoying was good. I knew that Hunter was staring down at me in front of the cage, probably contemplating whether or not to rip my head off. If I had any chance of surviving that night, Hunter had said I had to cooperate. My plan was to get the hell out of the cage, then go on from there. That meant being annoying. So there I was, examining my nails after my irritating fiasco, as if they were the most fascinating thing in the world, hoping that my captor was steaming from the ears.
Face still dripping with water, Hunter snatched the collar of my filthy shirt and brought my face close to the bars. He was so close, and so clean, that I could smell the spicy remnants of soap on his skin. I probably smelled like deer droppings, whereas he smelled like sex and magic.
"I know what you're doing," Hunter whispered, cocking up a dark eyebrow. "You're trying to piss me off so that I get you out of this cage. You want to be free, so that you can...what? Knock me out? Pin me down?"
"Scrambling your balls and shoving a stake into your chest sounds sufficient enough."
Hunter chuckled loudly at that, enough to rattle my cage, and then tugged my collar harder with his paw-like hands until my forehead painfully hit the bars. "Let me point out the obvious, since there's clearly a lot of air between your little brain and your skull. I weigh almost three times your size. I'm taller than you, stronger than you, faster than you, and my usual appetite is equivalent to eight of you. One wrong move, and I'll crush you with my pinky. What possible advantage do you have over me?"
"Breasts."
"Excuse me?"
"My boobers? Bonkers? Bikini Stuffers? My butterballs? My Dueling Banjos? My Twin Goblets of Woman? Honkers? Love mellons? My nippleoons? Tahitis? Zingers...?"
"You're going to use your t*ts against me?"
I pretended to ponder that for dramatic effect. "Perhaps."
"Have you been planning this for a while now?"
"I've pinned you as a boob-lover."
"I'm more of an ass lover."
"Or a murdering psychopath."
Hunter's harsh scowl slowly cracked and shook until his mouth finally fell into a wide, wicked smirk, which then morphed into booming, cackling laughter. Still humored, he moved his mouth closer to mine, making me involuntarily lick my lips a little. "Regardless of my preferences, I'm liking this escape plan of yours. Very creative," he practically purred. "However, it won't work. I've had my eyes on a much bigger and better prize ever since I saw your sweet little body resist VOID."
"What do you mean?"
"Well, why do you think you're here?" Hunter wondered. "I'm going to sample your blood, send it to some friends of mine, and find out once and for all if you're completely resistant of VOID. Then, I'm going to make a counteractive drug to VOID and run Vladimir out of business."
"Unless I use my boobs against you."
Hunter threw back his head and laughed again. "You're amusing, I'll give you that. But I could have twenty women with the same rack of yours on their back in twenty seconds flat."
"That's a lot of endurance."
"I rebound fast."
I started to think of Antarctica to keep my cheeks from flaming up. "But they'll never have my melted chocolate eyes or my heartwarming smile," I pointed out, flashing him a grin.
"Or that little mole on your butt that looks like a heart?" Hunter winked at me and my jaw fell open. How did he know that?! "Your plan will not end well for you. I'm an Alpha. Chicks with big breasts dig the Alpha."
"And the motorcycle, your dark hair, your scars, and the fact that you keep to yourself a lot. Also that thing you said you can do with your hands because you're blind is pretty appealing..."
"Exactly--"
"Let's not forget the fact that you're a heartless and evil and appear to have some redeemable qualities deep down inside because even though you're a killer, you're still capable of having nicknames of endearment towards me--"
"The point is, I suggest that you find another asset to stuff in my face."
"Not necessary."
"Oh? And why's that."
"You want me," I sang, just like as he had sang to me back at the cell. "You can have a trillion different women with the same body as mine, but you'll always want the quirky, sarcastic, loud Pepper Ballard in the end. I'm one of a kind, admit it."
In a matter of milliseconds, Hunter's blue eyes lit with some sort of sapphire fire as they torturously dragged down my face to my lips, my neck, and then ultimately, fell on my new handy-dandy hybrid-enlarged Love Melons. Hunter gripped a bar of the cage with one hand, his other hand gripping my collar even tighter, firmly pinning my face to the inside of the cage. "I'll admit that I find myself drawn to your... Chi-Chi's, but if there's one thing I've learned to put a muzzle over the 90 years of my existence, it's my dick." He let go of my collar. I fell backwards at the abrupt change in balance, landing hard on my butt. "You lose, kitty-cat. It's over."
"It's not over yet."
"You have no idea," he said cryptically.
As Hunter sat back into his chair a minute or so later, running a hand back and forth over his black hair. He wrote some more in his journal. There was some sort of plan brewing in his crazy skull that was torturing me by not revealing itself. Hunter leaned back, stretching his long, muscular body, making his t-shirt ride up the strip of tightly coiled muscles along his tanned abdomen. Suddenly, a pained look waved over his face. Shoulders trembling, Hunter threw open drawer in his desk and took a small object out. His back was turned to me for a while. All I could hear were his rough, almost violent breaths.
"Hunter?" I whispered.
His palm smacked against the desk so hard that it was a miracle the wood hadn't cracked in half.
My heart started to pound.
It was then used the key I had sneakily stolen from Hunter's pocket, quietly opening the cage lock. Hunter jerked into awareness as the lock opened with a soft pop. It was then I saw the needle on his desk.
A fang-filled grin suddenly morphed Hunter's entire handsome face, so large that I thought his stubbly cheeks would split open. It was horrifying.
"What... the... truck," I said.
He had taken VOID.
Hunter eyes were an insane color of blue, so bright and neon that they pulsed with energy. He didn't make any move to get up, just stared at me as if I was the most fascinating thing in the world. That only made my heart pound harder. This was the side of Hunter I had been waiting to see. The pitiless one. I felt like a deer caught in headlights, unable to move as it looked at me. As it licked its lips. As it stalked towards my cage in slow, calculated steps.
I rapidly locked myself back into the cage and shifted back against the far end of the small prison. The only thing separating me from a cold-blooded killer was a metal dog cage.
At least the cage is locked, I thought.
Hunter ripped off the metal-bared door right from the cage, tossing it to the side. I pressed myself against the farthest end of prison from him, eyes wider than a full moon.
"Come on out, kitty-cat," the monster growled. "Don't make me come and get you."
"I don't taste good!" I shouted back. "I'm a... vegetarian! Haven't showered in days! I'm as gross as it gets! My head looks great the way it is. I'll never stick my hands in your back pockets to steal your keys again! You don't want to eat a dirty neck, do you? What if you get a bacterial infection! Gross1 And really annoying! One time I had to use this ointment--"
Smiley gripped me by the ankles, making a high pitched squeal I didn't think existed within me unleash itself. Hunter yanked me out into the open, still smiling. I think it was more the drugs that made him look so happy than the fact that I was obviously about to piss myself. I fought against his large frame as he held me in a death grip, half-carrying, half-dragging me towards an unknown place. At one point, he tangled our legs together and pinned my arms behind my back to get me to stay still, and the press of his sinewy, warm legs between my own brought a sharp chill down my back. The connection between us was undeniable, yet neither of us had said a word about it. The position he had put me in left me only my mouth as a weapon. There was nothing to bite, so I screamed. Finally, after screaming many vulgar things into his gorgeous, overly-happy smiling face, Hunter pinched me hard on the back of my thigh and I stopped. His smile slowly fell. I still wasn't familiar with the effects of VOID but he seemed to have control of his facial features now. He told me gently to give up and let him carry me.
I shook my head, tears burning my vision. I refused to move out of this position, even if I was pressed hard against a serial killer. He was going to take me to a torture chamber or something for unlocking the cage, I just knew it.
Somewhere in-between me trying to bash him in the crotch with my knee and rip out his throat, I managed to get my hand free and slapped Hunter so hard in the face that I heard a crack, and on his cheek remained a pink hand print. He deserved it for all of the lies he had told me. The stubble on his cheek was rough against my palm.
"I can't wait to stake you," I hissed at him.
Stunned for a moment from the slap, and maybe my words, the monster had thrown me right over his shoulder like I weighed lighter than a feather, hauling me across the room kicking and screaming. He was clearly done playing games, at least for the moment.
"Damn you, Guide Dog! Put me down! Put me down! I'm not your rag doll! Put me DOWN!"
Just like that, I was put on my feet, and a door slammed in my face. I tried the handle. Locked. I whirled around, facing a massive bathroom with a shower big enough to fit a small army. Had he been taking me to the shower the entire time?
"You have ten minutes to clean yourself, then you're going to tell me everything you know about Vladimir. If I smell any blood or dirt on you when you get out, I'm cleaning you myself, and I won't be gentle."
He can scrub me all he wants, anywhere he wants... I heard Conscious vaguely whisper. She wasn't as loud as usual. I think even she was getting a little bit afraid of Hunter...
I said a little.
***
Please vote if you enjoyed and leave your thoughts in the comments!! This book is crazy, right??
I had a really stressful last couple of hours because I accidently deleted this book! So glad it's back!
Twitter and Instagram: Katrocks247