Page 11 of Shattered King

His gaze slashed to me. “Shut the fuck up.”

I shut the fuck up. Nothing I could say at this point would make him let me go. I knew that much.

I thought about Josh, tucked up in that big double bed, so small and defenseless. God, what if he woke and got upset because I wasn’t there? Aunt Sara would be worried out of her mind. She’d agreed not to call the cops, but I didn’t know if she’d stick to that promise faced with the reality of me being MIA.

Oh God, Pierce would find out I was in the city. He’d go to my aunt’s, he’d find out about my son. I squeezed my eyes shut, tried to slow my breathing. I was on the verge of a panic attack. I needed a phone. Somehow, I had to convince Hunter to let me call her.

We drove for what felt like forever before we finally stopped. My neck hurt, I had a cramp in my side, and pins and needles in both feet. Hunter slid the keys from the ignition, then looked down at me. “You can scream all you like, no one will hear you.”

On that comforting note, he climbed out, came around to my side of the car, and pulled open the door. Un-cuffing me, he dragged me out.

The smell of earth and pine hit me before my eyes could figure out where the hell I was. Trees surrounded us—a forest. There was a small cabin a few yards away.

Hunter gave me a shove, pushing me up onto the front porch, opened the door, and crowded me inside. He flicked on the light, but I didn’t see much because he kept moving me forward until we reached another door.

“Get in.”

I did as he said, scrambling into the small bathroom.

He flipped the lid closed on the toilet. “Sit.”

“Hunter . . .”

“Sit the fuck down,” he barked.

I sat.

He attached the cuff, still dangling from my wrist, to a pipe below the sink, and I shot back to my feet, or tried too. “No. Please don’t . . .”

One minute I’d wrapped my fingers around his forearm, the next I was up against the wall. Hunter stared down at me, nostrils flaring, eyes hot, wild, absolutely terrifying. He pressed against me from chest to thigh, breathing heavily.

A cold tingle slithered down my spine, a gasp escaping when an unsettling warmth hit me low in the belly, tiny pulses of pleasure firing to life. It felt like my body was waking from a deep slumber, like one touch from Hunter had awakened those sensory memories, the ones I’d locked away. Things I’d tried to forget every day for the last three years.

But my body remembered. It remembered exactly how he’d made me feel.

What the hell is wrong with me?

Hunter hated me. It was all there, the betrayal, the anger, the disgust. No, I hadn’t just burnt that bridge—I’d decimated it then torched it for good measure. At the time, it had been my only option. I believed that still. If I allowed myself to believe differently, I thought I might actually go mad.

I’d always known he’d come for me. It was only a matter of time, and I’d known there sure as hell wouldn’t be a happy reunion.

An eye for an eye, babe. Someone fucks with me, I’ll fuck them back, harder. Always.

His words echoed through my head, words he’d said to me many times when I was his. That was the life he’d come from, a motto he lived by. I knew that and still did what I had to. Now I had to face the consequences of my actions.

I didn’t care about myself. The only thing that mattered to me was getting back to Josh in one piece.

Hunter leaned in so we were nose to nose, his cold eyes fixed on mine as he wrapped those long, thick fingers around my throat. He didn’t squeeze hard, but the threat was there, and the heat of his rough skin lifted goose bumps on my arms. “Do not fucking touch me,” he growled.

Swallowing painfully, I shook my head, since answering was out of the question. There was an entire forest just beyond the front door, plenty of places to dump my body. If I didn’t make it, at least Josh had my aunt. Right now, only Sara knew about my beautiful son, and I knew she’d take care of him. As long as she didn’t call the cops, everything would be okay.

I was under no illusion that Hunter would spare me because of our past.

I didn’t believe in magic, or fate, and if you actually thought about it, fairy-tales were some of the darkest, most fucked-up stories there were.

My prince certainly didn’t want to kiss me awake, rescuing me from three years of nightmares—no, he wanted to smother me in my sleep.

CHAPTER THREE