Taken for the Hunt: A Dark Romantic Suspense Read online

  I can’t trust anyone.

  That thought runs through my head as I watch her make me a plate of food. Against my will, my stomach rumbles, and I look away when she glances up at me and smiles.

  I’m not going to eat whatever it is that she gives me, that’s for sure. Anyone who would willingly cut out their tongue just to live on this island and serve Marco and his three other little freak friends isn’t someone I can trust, but my resolve is tested when the woman hands me a plate.

  There’s grilled salmon, asparagus with garlic, and roasted carrots. The smell of the food is more than enough to make my mouth water and stomach grumble again and I have to swallow hard as I carry the plate over to the closest of the four tables and sit down, putting my half empty water bottle on the table next to the food.

  My chair pulling out on the floor makes a loud scraping sound, but it’s not like there’s anyone else around to be offended. The woman pulls a venetian blind down in the window, making it clear that I’m the last person she has to feed.

  There’s a jar with silverware on it in the middle of the table but I don’t move to get a fork or a knife. I’m not going to eat it. Marco can try all he wants to get me to eat so that I can be strong enough to train, but it’s not going to happen.

  After a few minutes, I push the plate away from me. The salmon has little crispy bits around the edge, which everyone knows are the best part, and I can feel my mouth watering. I want to eat it, but I want more to be off the island.

  Someone opens the door to the hall and I sit up, putting both of my hands in my lap. If it’s Marco, he needs to know that there’s no way that I’m going to be eating his food, no matter how good it smells.

  But it’s not Marco. It’s the asshole who drove when Marco kidnapped me and I scowl at him, considering if I’m fast enough to grab a fork and stab it into his leg as he walks by.

  But he doesn’t walk by. To my surprise, he grabs a chair from another table, spinning it around and then sits down next to me before pulling my plate close to him and grabbing a fork. Before saying anything, he takes a bite of the salmon, closing his eyes as he does.

  “Fuck, this is good. You know, we’re never really sure what Helen there is going to make, on account of the fact that she can’t talk to us, but she never disappoints. There’s just something about her cooking that is so fucking good.” His voice gets louder and louder, presumably so she can hear him, but I don’t move.

  He starts in on the green beans and eats half of them before pushing my plate back to me and dropping the fork on top. “You need to eat, Natalia. Marco thinks that you’re going to be his prize pupil, and he’s going to be pissed if you let him down.”

  I swallow hard and keep my eyes from my half-finished plate. I’m so hungry that it feels like my stomach is turning itself inside out and I want to grab the plate and just shove everything down my throat, but I won’t.

  Not here. Not with any of them around.

  “Cat got your tongue?” Before I can move, he reaches out and grabs my chin, jerking my head to the side. At the same time he uses his other hand to pry my mouth open. I gag and pull back, but he lets me go with a smirk. “No, you still have your tongue, lucky girl. Not too many of you on the island still whole, you know.”

  “You’re fucking crazy,” I tell him, leaning back in my chair to put a little distance between the two of us. “I’m going straight to the cops when I get the fuck off of your little island and you’ll all rot in jail. That is, if you’re not fried.”

  He chuckles and grabs my water bottle, draining it all in one go then screws the lid back on before tossing it to me. I catch it without meaning to, reaching out automatically and grabbing it like a football.

  “You won’t have a chance to get off the island if you don’t eat something, Natalia. Time is ticking.” He taps his fingers on the table. “Tick. Tick. Tick,” he says. Tap. Tap. Tap. “Hear that, Natalia? That’s the sands of time and they’re running the fuck out.” Tap. Tap. Tap. “Besides, nobody’s ever gotten off the island, rabbit. Nobody. How do you like that?”

  I don’t answer him. What he’s just said terrifies me but I don’t want to let him know that. If he knows how scared I am then he’ll know that he has power over me, and that’s something I can’t let happen.

  They already control my body. I don’t want to let them in my mind.

  He sighs, still staring at me before he stands up and glances at his watch. “They’re going to come for you in five minutes. Maybe it’s time to put away your pride and eat something, don’t you think?”

  With that he’s gone, walking silently from the room like he wasn’t ever here. I shiver, waiting until the door shuts behind him before I pick up my fork. The last thing I want to do is give any of them any satisfaction of me eating, but maybe he’s right.

  Even assholes are right from time to time.

  I eat as quickly as possible, barely tasting my food, just wanting to get it down as fast as possible. As I take the last bite, the door swings open again. I’m fully expecting Marco, or Becky, or even this asshole again, but the man who stands there staring at me isn’t someone I’ve seen before.

  He’s dressed head to toe in black with a huge rifle slung across his back. His hair is cut short and he has a thick beard. His cold eyes land on me and I can see a muscle twitch in his jaw as he watches me eat.

  “Natalia, it’s time for bed. Get up, leave the fork.” His voice is cool and commanding and I do what he says, tiny icicles of fear running up my spine.

  He has a tongue, so I’m not sure what his roll is here. “Who are you?” I ask as I walk up to him, even though I just want to crawl under a table and hide.

  “I’m your trainer,” he tells me, motioning for me to step out into the hall. “My job is to make sure that you survive long enough to try to make it off the island. Now, next time, eat your food, don’t let Zach take it. Get plenty of sleep. Work hard. I might be able to help you out.”

  “Like you’ve helped out all of the other girls?” I snap, still hungry.

  He whirls around to look at me and I take a step back, accidentally backing up into the wall. “You’re my first and if you don’t fucking survive, you’ll be my last. Get it?”

  Holy shit. I didn’t get it, but I’m beginning to think that I am now. Before I can respond, though, someone starts screaming.

  Chapter 8

  Marco

  Dale needs to learn to get a handle on his rabbit. She was screaming last night, loud enough for the sound to echo out of the building and roll down the beach, even drowning out the sound of the waves crashing against the shore.

  On this side of the island it’s sandy, perfect for a stroll or for speed training in the sand, which is one thing that Natalia is going to be doing soon, but on the other side of the island, imposing cliffs drop almost straight off into the sea.

  That’s where I’m headed now on a walk just to clear my head. I checked in on Natalia this morning to make sure that she ate. Zach had told me that the two of them talked and he told her to get her shit together and keep up her strength.

  I don’t like the idea of him messing with her or talking to her at all, but I’d bit my lip when he’d come to me to tell me that. It’s not that I think he’s going to try to take her, he has his own girl already in training, but Natalia is mine.

  I knew it from the moment I saw her in the restaurant that she was mine and mine alone. There’s no way that I’m going to let anyone get close to her, not even one of my best friends.

  The four of us have been through some shit together, but we all know to keep our hands off the other’s rabbits.

  My phone rings and I pull it from my pocket, absentmindedly thumbing it on before answering. “What?” I ask, a little irritated about someone interrupting my walk. It feels good to get out and stretch my legs before my training sessions start in an hour or so.

  The rabbits aren’t the only ones working with personal trainers. If they were, they’d have an unfa
ir advantage, and we like to make sure that the playing field is even.

  “She doesn’t walk to work out.” Natalia’s trainer, Owen tells me. “Do you want to handle it or should I?”

  I turn around so quickly that sand kicks up into my shoe. The tiny grains are going to be a pain in the ass later, but I hardly feel them rubbing against my skin as I run back to the building.

  “Don’t touch her,” I tell him. “She’s mine to discipline, you got it? If she needs to learn anything then I want to be the one teaching it to her.” I stab the phone off as I run, clenching it in my hand. My strides lengthen and I suck in the briny air, amazed at how open and fresh my lungs feel.

  Owen better not lay a fucking finger on Natalia. I knew from the start that she was going to need regular discipline, and I knew that I wanted to be the only one to do it. Normally I wouldn’t care if a trainer took things into his own hands with a rabbit.

  But Natalia isn’t normal. There’s something about her that fascinates me and I don’t want anyone getting close to her.

  I find them in the first workout room on the hall after I flash my fob to get into the building. Sand spills off of my shoes but I don’t care about brushing them off on the rug. That’s why we have a cleaning staff, so we can all attend to the morning important things during the day.

  Like Natalia.

  My cock hardens as I think about what it’s going to be like to teach her a little lesson. I use the fob to open the door and step inside, pulling it shut behind me. Natalia stands in the corner of the room, wearing the workout clothes Becky left in her room this morning, but her arms are crossed on her chest and her jaw juts out as she looks at me.

  “What’s going on in here?” I ask, my eyes locked on her. She has bright spots of color in each cheek and tilts her chin up to look me dead in the eyes. I can’t remember the last time any woman did that and I stalk across the room to her while I wait for her response.

  “We were about to — ” Owen begins, but I cut him off.

  “I wanted to hear from Natalia,” I say.

  She hasn’t moved. If anything, she’s somehow standing even more still than she was. The defiant look on her face is a total turn-on and I have a strong feeling that she would change her attitude if she had any idea how much it made me want to fuck her.

  “Why aren’t you training? Don’t you want to have a fighting chance of getting off this island?” My voice is low and angry, but she doesn’t flinch. Most other rabbits would be falling apart by now, tears springing to their eyes, but not Natalia.

  Interesting. All that means to me is that she’s going to be more fun to break later.

  “Nobody gets off the island,” she finally says. “Zach told me.”

  Fucking Zach. He knows better than to make the women afraid. The last thing that we want is for them to not want to play the game, because then where’s the fun in that?

  “Nobody yet,” I tell her, baiting her. I want to see the look of hope on her fact that I know she’ll have, and then I want to crush it. “But that doesn’t mean that someone won’t. You, maybe.”

  Natalia shakes her head. “No, I can’t,” she says, her voice a whisper.

  I think for a moment that I catch a gleam in her eye, but I’m sure that I’m seeing things. There’s no way that she’s that tricky and is just trying to make me feel bad for her, right?

  Time to change tactics.

  “You will work out,” I tell her, closing the gap between us and grabbing her neck. Her eyes go wide when I give it a gentle squeeze but she doesn’t reach up to claw at my arm. Most women would. Most would be willing to start begging right now if that was what it took for them to get away from me.

  “You will train, you will exercise, you will eat healthy. You will do everything I fucking tell you to do, Natalia, and you might — you might — have a chance at getting off this island in one piece. If you don’t try, don’t eat, don’t train, then I will take you to the cliffs and throw you over the edge right now, I swear to god, just test me.”

  There it is again — the spark of something in her eyes that makes me think that maybe Natalia isn’t as stupid as I think she is. It’s gone, though, when I squeeze harder. I’m going to leave bruises, but I don’t give a shit.

  She belongs to me, and the sooner she can admit that, the better off we’ll both be.

  “Leave us,” I say to Owen. I don’t have to look over my shoulder to know that he’s going to do exactly what I tell him and, in just a moment, I hear the door beep as he lets himself out.

  “Now,” I say, dropping my hand from Natalia’s neck, “I want you to get past me. Get to the door, Natalia.”

  She eyeballs me, obviously trying to see if I’m joking. “It’s locked. I can’t get out.”

  “No, but you’ll win a surprise, how about that? You want a surprise for being speedy, Natalia? You want to see if you have it in you? Then fucking try.”

  “I hate you.”

  “Great. Hate me. Just fucking do something to survive,” I tell her. I don’t want to think that I was wrong when I saw her and chose her. I saw something in her, a fight that I knew I wanted to put out.

  I just didn’t think that it would be this fucking easy.

  “To the cliffs, then,” I tell her, reaching out for her arm. She’ll kick, and scream, and beg, but in the end, she’ll go over the cliff. If she can’t get her shit together enough to try to save her life then I don’t see any reason why she should live.

  I feel a pang of sorrow shoot through me, but it’s not just because I’ll lose her as a rabbit. Natalia is special, or at least I thought so, and I hate being wrong.

  But she doesn’t stand perfectly still for me to grab her. She suddenly steps to the right, spinning at the same time to get out of my way, her arms tucked in tight to her chest to prevent me from grabbing her.

  My blood pressure shoots up as adrenaline starts to course through my veins.

  She’s going to fight.

  She wants to live.

  Natalia is small and fast, but she doesn’t have the years of training that I do. She starts to run, pumping her arms, obviously hoping to make it across the room before I can catch her, but I chase after her, taking off with perfect form.

  My muscles scream out for me to grab her and take her down, but I want to play with her a little. After all, where’s the fun in the hunt if it ends too early?

  “Run, Natalia,” I say, reaching out and grabbing her hair. She has it pulled back and into a ponytail, giving me the perfect thing to grab as she runs. The blonde strands slip through my fingers like water, but I make a fist at the last possible second, trapping them in my grasp and jerking them back.

  She flies backwards off of her feet, letting out a strangled cry as she reaches out for something to grab onto. “No!” She cries, falling to the ground with a loud thud.

  I step over her, my blood pumping so hard that I can hear my heartbeat in my head. “Fuck, you look good down there, Natalia,” I tell her, dropping to the ground and pinning her down under me.

  I plant my thighs on either side of her and squeeze her, holding her tight so that she can’t get away. She thrashes and flails at me, but there’s not a fucking thing that she can do.

  “Do you see now why you need to train?” I ask her, reaching out and pinning her to the floor by her neck. Her eyes go wide, any bravado that she had before suddenly gone and she claws at my hand and arm, her nails raking through my skin and leaving angry red stripes behind. “Is this how you want it all to end?”

  She’s trying to breathe, bucking her hips up at me to get me off of her, her fingers tight around my wrist as she tries to push me off.

  There’s just one problem.

  She’s not strong enough.

  Chapter 9

  Natalia

  I’ve never been more afraid.

  My breath comes in tiny gasps and I can’t seem to fill my lungs. Every muscle in my body is screaming for me to get Marco off of me, but no matter ho
w much I push and buck, he only strengthens his grip on me with his thighs.

  His hand is around my neck, pinning me to the floor. While it may be hot if he and I were together and I wasn’t honestly afraid for my life, I’m terrified.

  What if he doesn’t let me up? What if he kills me right here and now and I don’t even get a chance to try to make it off the island?

  I honestly don’t think that I’m going to be able to survive this, but as a sharp light bursts across my vision, I realize that I want to give it my shot. I don’t know that I’m going to make it off the island, but I do know that nobody’s going to come looking for me.

  If I’m going to survive, it’s going to be because I survived, not because someone saved me, same as it has always been. Sometimes you just have to rely on yourself instead of hoping that someone else is going to come along and help you out, and as soon as I realize that, I seem to find an extra burst of strength.

  I want to scream at him but he’s crushing my windpipe, making it difficult for me to get even the tiniest breath of air. Instead, I do the one thing that I think is going to make him let me go.

  I try to punch him in the balls.

  Marco sees the punch coming and deftly rolls to the side, spinning off of my body but keeping his hand around my throat. His fingers are strong as he squeezes them into my neck but he’s at a funny angle now and I have a bit more leeway.

  Twisting my body away from him, I try to use that leeway to my advantage. Since he’s no longer straddling me, I can buck freely and I do, knocking him back from where he was sitting on his haunches.

  “Ball shots aren’t fair game,” he comments, letting go of my throat.

  But I don’t give a shit. I’ll rip his dick off with my bare hands if that’s what it takes for me to have a fighting chance of getting off of this fucking island. As quickly as possible, I scramble to my feet.

  The door is only twenty feet away. I can make it.

  I start to run, grabbing my neck at the same time. It hurts terribly and I have no doubt that it’s going to hurt for days, but I don’t give a shit how bad it hurts as long as I survive this.