Page 30 of Hunted

And of course, he didn’t give a single flying fuck that it should have been me instead.

My attacks grew sloppier as my wrath soared, but no matter how many times I swung, it still wasn’t enough. He had me on my back, pinned beneath his obtuse frame, in front of everyone in two minutes flat.

Someone whistled like they were impressed.

Fuck them, too.

And just like that old poem, I raged—raged against Beckett’s elbow across my throat trying to choke me out—and I did not go gently into his forcible good night. Instead, I thrashed and jabbed, even stooping so low as to wedge my knee into his balls, but Beckett seemingly had all the patience in the world and the skill with which to restrain each of my offending limbs systematically.

“Ughhh!” I roared, trying again to dislodge him.

And as I wriggled, it dawned on me that my very large, very attractive instructor was lying on top of me. His hips were wedged between mine, and I panted beneath him. I flushed at the traitorous sensations, at his proximity—and at the thoughts it prompted, unbidden.

Well, mostly unbidden.

Apparently, the same occurred to him.

“Van,” he barked.

Somewhere out of my periphery but close enough to be loud, Evander ordered the initiates out. “Alright, class dismissed. Go and eat something.”

Neither Beckett nor I made to move, not even when my classmates began whispering about us on the way out.

“Addie—” Ethan began, but Beckett cut him off.

“Out, Taylor.”

He was a hair’s breadth from violence with that lethal expression and that downright murderous tone. But I didn’t think it was aimed at me right now.

Eth took the hint. The doors swung closed behind him, and then we were alone.

Dangerously, blissfully alone.

Begrudgingly, I had to admit that his eyes were beautiful up close. They were fractured jade and mountain forests. They were Scottish Highlands and the sun-drenched waters of Valle Versazca—and they were staring at me with such intensity I could have sworn he was seeing through me. All the way down to my broken, blackened, death-magnet heart… and that was the thought that undid me.

Tears pricked my eyes, but I refused to let them fall. They gathered in the corners, threatening to spill like traitorous little wenches, but I would not be the first to look away. In that, at least, I would not concede.

“Let it out, Ice Queen,” he murmured, so softly the words brushed against my cheek like a caress. “I know what it’s like to lose people you care about⁠—”

“You think that’s what this is? Me losing someone for the first time?” I spat the words like acid, but he didn’t even flinch. “I have lost everyone. Death has claimed all the people I care about, and yet, it never claims me.”

“Is that what you want?” he asked, surprising me. “To be put out of your misery? To die? Because that can be arranged.”

Beckett rolled off me and rose to his feet in one smooth, silent movement. With his back turned—foolish, arrogant move—he retrieved something off the floor beside the sparring mat while I debated the merits of jumping him from behind.

“Beck—” Evander said from behind me.

I startled, having been entirely focused on the beast before me, I hadn’t realised there was one at my back. I guess the professor had stuck around to watch whatever show his bestie and I were putting on.

Beckett silenced him with a sharp look. Something metallic clicked in his hands, and gods help me, I knew that sound.

Was he really going to do this? Here? Now?

I stood quietly, even more slowly than he had. Taking a deep, steadying breath, I rolled my shoulders back and glanced at the young, attractive-in-that-wealthy-yet-rebellious-kind-of-way tech instructor, and waited for what was inevitably coming. The lenses of his wire-rimmed glasses flashed, reflecting the LED lighting, as he flicked a soft, swooping lock of honey-brown hair out of his face.

I guess he wanted to see what kind of mess my brains would make, unobstructed.

A soft, self-deprecating laugh slipped past my teeth.