HE SANK INSIDE ME, AND I didn’t care who we were.
I didn’t care that he didn’t have a condom on, or that our time had an expiration date. He drove into me like a man possessed, and it felt so fucking good, I didn’t care about anything else.
Except killing River.
“Hey,” André barked, grabbing a handful of my hair.
My focus snapped to heated brown eyes. I didn’t beg. For anything. But this man who was willing to risk his life for me, who was driving into me like he gave a fuck whether or not I lived, he made me want to beg. “Harder,” I pleaded.
“You with me?”
I didn’t know how he read me so well, but he did. “Yes.” Now I was.
He thrust deep then settled his weight on me. “Give it up,” he demanded.
“Give what up?” I didn’t have anything worth a damn except my head.
“Say it,” he growled, inadvertently grinding against my clit.
Oh my God, he felt so good. “Say what?” I reached for his hips and thrust mine up.
“Why you need a killer.”
I stilled. Wasn’t it obvious? “I don’t want to die at a stranger’s hands.”
His face contorted with disgust and disbelief, then his expression twisted with anger, and he forgot to swear in Spanish. “Jesus fucking Christ.” He pulled out, pushed himself off me and put his dick back in his boxers. “Are you fucking serious?”
“If it comes down to it.” That’s why I’d chosen to live with Candle. That’s why I’d worked for André and Candle’s ruthless friend, Talon. They were my security blanket. Men willing to take a mercy shot.
André shoved off the bed, and incredulous anger made his voice even more abrasive. “I’m not killing you.”
He would. If it boiled down to a choice, I knew he’d take the shot. He’d been a sniper. He knew hard decisions. “You would if I asked.”
He dragged his hands over his head. Then he sucked in a breath like he was trying not to fucking throttle me. “First of all, I’m not having this conversation. You’re not dying on my watch.” He leveled me with a look I was sure his men would’ve backed down from. “Second, this shit ends now. If you have some sick fucking deal with Candle to pull the trigger under any circumstances, call it off.” He snatched his cell off the nightstand and threw it on the bed next to me. “Right fucking now.”
I glanced at the phone. Half of me was marveling at the speed with which he’d put two and two together, but the other half was pissed as hell at his dominant bullshit and self-serving attitude.
I crossed my arms. “You have no fucking clue what it’s like to live with a bounty on your head.”
“Yes, I do,” he snapped.
I snorted. “Right.” Fucking prick.
“The second I took out my first target downrange, I had a price on my head. All snipers do,” he ground out. “The enemy didn’t just know my name, they knew my fucking rank, height and build. They knew my distance preferences, my spotter’s wife’s name and my fucking nickname. They didn’t just want me dead. They wanted me tortured, splayed and dragged through the streets. But guess what?” He didn’t wait for me to answer. “I still did my job, every damn day, because my men counted on me. So, if you’re gonna pull that bullshit about a mercy shot, find some other asshole to buy into your fucked-up brand of crazy.” He shoved his legs into his pants. “I didn’t take you for a fucking coward.” He picked his boots up and walked out.
Stunned, I sat there for a second.
Then I got mad. Irrationally, self-indulgently mad.
Naked, my tits bouncing, I stormed down the stairs after him. “Bounty or not, you had a whole goddamn army behind you!” I yelled at his back.
“Marines, not Army. Get your fucking military branches straight if you wanna insult me.” He shoved his boots on without even looking at me.
“Oh, excuse me,” I fumed. “You had soldiers protecting you. How many were deployed with you? Thousands?” I dripped bitter sarcasm.
He spun and got in my face. Looking pissed as fuck, he lowered his voice to a lethal warning. “Listen up, because I’m only gonna say this once. The Army has soldiers. The Navy has seamen. The Air Force has airmen. But the Marines? We. Are. Marines,” he growled.
The distinctive sound of a garage door opening filled the house.
André didn’t even hesitate. As if reaction times were drilled into him, he grabbed his 9mm off the coffee table.
“Upstairs, now,” he barked. “Get dressed and lock the door.” He didn’t wait to see if I listened. He was already moving toward the garage stairs.
“André—”
He spared me once glance. “Not now, Kendall.”
The use of my name stung. And as I looked at him, gun out, ready to take a bullet for me, I realized what a fucking bitch I’d been. “Be careful.”
He tipped his chin, but he still looked pissed as hell at me. “Go.”
I didn’t know who else besides Neil had the code to get into his garage, but I didn’t want to be standing around naked to find out. I ran upstairs and locked the master bedroom door before scrambling for clothes. Digging through the few things I’d brought, I hesitated.
I hadn’t thought about my clothes for years. Once I’d moved in with Candle, I’d paid attention to what the women in the club wore, then I took it up a notch just because I could. No one was dictating what I wore anymore, and Candle never said shit, so I figured I was good. I had no sense of fashion. The shifts I wore growing up were nothing more than that, a shift of cloth meant to be a dress that was probably River’s version of easy access. None of us wore underwear, and it was never an issue until I’d gotten my period.
A memory flared, and I sucked in a breath.
The cramping in my lower stomach intensified as I crouched in one of the small gardens and pulled weeds. Setting the errant shoots on my lap, I saw it. Fresh blood soaked my dress between my legs and I gasped.
One of the women I was working with, Persephone, looked over. She took in the stain forming between my legs, and for a split second, her face crumpled before she hid it with a smile and held her hand out to me. “Come, Decima. This is a joyous day. Let us go see River.”
“No.” Panic consumed me. I’d been hiding the fact that I’d gotten my period for months now. I knew I didn’t have much more time before one of the women questioned me. I was fifteen, and my sixteenth turn around the sun was next month.
“It is all right. You are fine. This is as it should be. Come, let us go see our holy one.”
I wrapped my arms around my aching stomach. “Why?” I’d heard rumors why.
Her smile widened, but tears filled her eyes. “You are a woman now. He will want to know.”
Before I could run back to our building and find my birth mother, Persephone stood and grabbed my arm. Locking her fingers in a death grip around my wrist, she yanked me to my feet.
“No.” I reached for an excuse. “I cannot let anyone see my soiled clothes.”
She tsked, dragging me down the path. “It is a joy. Do not be selfish. You will share this great news.”
My head down, tears started to fall, but not before I saw all the women look at my dress then look away as if I were as vile as the sinners outside the compound. “No, please,” I begged. “Not now. Let me see Alathena first.” Not that she would help me, but maybe I could hide.
Persephone laughed. “Do you not think Alathena wouldn’t immediately bring you to our holy one herself?”
I didn’t know what my birth mother would do. After fifteen years of sharing living quarters with her, she was as unpredictable as the wind. If you were not one of the brothers calling in the evening, she had little time for you.
Desperate, I asked her to let me go again. “Please, Persephone. Let me right myself.” I didn’t want to see River. After last month and what he had done to Tarquin, I hated River.
“Nonsense.” She shoved me up the step and pushed the door open to the main building as she called out for permission to enter. “Entrance humbly requested, hunter. I bring a newly formed sapling for River.”
Dread washed over me like the hundred-pound weight of the sick blanket the women buried you in if your lungs coughed. “Please,” I whispered, trying to tug my arm back.
Her fingers dug into my flesh as one of the young hunters stepped to the entrance.
Hero barely looked down his broad chest at Persephone. “He is in chambers.”
Persephone held my arm up and indicated my dress then spoke in a super sweet voice I hadn’t heard before. “My apologies, Hero, but I have Decima, and she will need… attention. Should I bring her to the men’s chambers and let them decide?”
I jerked my arm back when she mentioned the building no child was allowed in.
Persephone smiled and grabbed me again. “As you can see, she is reluctant.” She lowered her voice. “She may be a dissident.”
Hero cut his cold, unfeeling gaze to me. “You. Inside.” He barely stepped back.
Persephone squeezed my arm so tight, fingermarks would form. “Do not fight them,” she hissed in a harsh whisper before pushing me inside.
I moved past Hero, but my shoulder brushed against his chest. The memory of Tarquin’s screams from last month after he had been hauled away for giving me a spring daisy were still fresh in my head. I shrank back in horror from Hero. “I’m s-sorry.” I was not allowed to make advances toward men, nor they toward me.
Hero’s angry glare cut to me, and I sucked in a breath. He was beautiful like a sunrise, with his golden hair and blessed features. All the women spoke of him. With shameful smiles and hushed giggles, they made silly wishes of forever love. I’d never done anything except avoid the hunter and his cold stare. But suddenly closer to him than I’d ever been, my heart beat in an erratic pattern I didn’t recognize, and my womb ached beyond the monthlies defiling my body.
Scared, confused, my tongue betrayed me. “I m-m-meant no disrespect.”
His scowl increased. “Can you not speak?”
I filled my lungs and prayed for a voice. “Yes, my apologies, hunter. I am merely nervous.” Addressing him by his title was a risk.
His gaze quickly cut away but not before I saw something shift. “Stand in the corner.” His tone softened marginally. “Wait.” He strode across the bare space to the inner chambers and knocked on another door. A rifle strapped to his back, a handgun in a holster at his waist, hunters were the only ones allowed to wear clothing made off the compound. Fatigues covered his tall frame, and until this very moment, I’d had nothing except humble respect for his dress. But seeing the zip ties, knife and other items on his person that I’d never paid attention to, a new kind of fear filled my chest and choked my throat.
The door cracked, and I saw another hunter, but it was River’s voice that filled the chamber. “What is it?” he demanded. “I said no interruptions.”
“New sapling, sir,” Hero stated.
“Who?” River barked.
“Decima, sir.”
Until that very moment, I did not realize Hero, nor any of the hunters, knew my name. We all knew their names. Especially Hero. He was the tallest, broadest hunter, and I’d always assumed it made him good at his job.
River’s tone took a turn. “My daughter, Decima?”
We were all his daughters.
“Yes, sir,” Hero answered.
“Send her in.”
I drew my soiled dress into my muddied fists and begged the sweet Lord not to make me do this. “No,” I whispered to the unrelenting walls, but Hero was already coming at me.
With an angry scowl, he glanced at my hands and his nostrils flared. “Drop your arms.” Then, just like Persephone, he took my wrist and dragged me toward the inner room.
Before I could draw a breath to calm my threatening heartbeat, I was standing in front of a rough wooden desk with no less than half a dozen hunters behind me.
With eyes the exact same color as mine, River smiled. “Decima,” he purred.
Spots crowded the edges of my vision as fear and anger took control of my breathing. “Yes, sir?” I forced words out because you never not acknowledged the holy one, not if you wanted to live.
His head tilted and his shrewd eyes took me in. “Your hair is long, your face is fresh, you look beautiful on this glorious day, child.” He smiled. “Or should I say woman?”
The five-letter word filled me with dread. “I-I…,” I stammered. “I am still a child, sir.”
“Not for long.” River dropped the smile. “But as you can see, I am busy, child.”
His reversion back to child made me hate him more.
“I do not have time to take care of you,” he continued, as if everything he was saying made perfect sense. Glancing at Hero, he tipped his chin. “Hero is going to tend to you. For the next week, you are his charge.”
“Sir—” Hero interrupted.
River held a hand up to Hero but kept his eyes on me. “You will obey him, respect him, and mind him. You will do exactly as Hero says or he will report it to me. Understood?”
A week? I bit back tears of anger. “Yes, sir.”
River turned to Hero. “You will still man your station. Cover any gaps before tending to her.”
“Yes, sir,” Hero bit out.
“Theonides.” River glanced at one of the hunters. “You are on door guard until Hero returns.”
The older hunter stood. “Of course, sir.” He moved toward the outer chamber as Hero took my arm again.
Right before the door, River called to him. “Hero, after you tend to her, you may educate her. I will be along to finish the job when I am done.”
Finish the job? I dared to glance up at Hero in sheer panic.
His jaw locked, his nostrils flared and anger colored his cheeks. “Yes, sir.” He ground the words out.
I squeaked like a field mouse as Hero dragged me out the door, my feet tripping over themselves. “What is he going to finish?”I dared to ask, but my stomach knotted as if it knew.
Three of his long paces across the compound, and Hero practically yanked my arm out of its socket. “Stop resisting,” he snarled in a whispered hiss. “You will draw even more attention.”
“He-he’s not to-touching me, is he?” Trying to control my stammer, I sucked in a breath, but no air filled my panicked lungs. “I’ll run.” I would hide. I would do what I had to.
Ignoring me, Hero dragged me over to the supply building and barked at the attendant. “Monthlies,” he demanded.
The elder behind the half door didn’t even react. His weathered face impassive, he merely nodded and disappeared. A few seconds later, he held out one of the well-used canvas bags we made on the compound for carrying items.
Hero snatched it out of his hand. “Thank you, brother.” Except there was no graciousness in his tone.
I didn’t have time to ask him what was in the bag or appeal to him for a gentler hold, because he dragged me clear across the compound and around the wash building, and suddenly we were in forbidden territory.
Horror filled my head and spread through my veins as I managed to dig one bare foot into the ground. “No!” Panic consumed me. “I am not allowed here.” This was the path to the men’s quarters.
Hero halted and his tall frame that had grown over the past year from boy to man loomed above me. He had only taken eighteen turns around the sun, but he may as well have been River’s age for the sheer size of him. “Quit being so naïve, Decima.” He looked down at my dress in disgust. “You are a woman now.” He kicked one of the doors open on the backside of the men’s quarters and shoved me inside.
I stumbled and fell on the step up, scraping my bare knee across the rough wood floor. Blood seeped and my panic grew into fear. “I’m… I’m sorry.” I frantically wiped my skinned knee with my dress. “I will clean it up.”
Sucking in a breath of impatience, the hunter stared down at me. Then he shocked me and softened his voice. “Are you hurt?” he quietly asked.
His sudden change in tone disarming me, I stupidly took liberties and begged. “Please, do not make me do this.”The second the words left my mouth, I knew I had made a mistake.
Anger contorted his face once again. “Get up and get inside,” he growled.
Terrified, I barely noticed the single room with a bed, a chair, and a washroom to the side. Retreating to the corner as he slammed the door, I tried to curl in on myself, but I couldn’t take my eyes off him. In the few seconds between asking me if I was all right and me asking him to not do whatever he was about to do, I saw something. More than hunter, more than the face of River Ranch, something close to compassion had shown through. Searching his face, wishing it to come back, I stared. If a being could be more beautiful in anger, Hero was exactly that.
The second he slammed the door shut, he was removing his weapons and placing them on the only shelf attached to the rough wooden wall. After his weapons came off, he stripped his shirt, and I fought a gasp as I quickly looked away. “Wh-what are you doing?” Oh please, Lord, forgive me.
This time, he didn’t have an angry comeback. His heavy boots moved across the floor, and his voice dropped as he stepped up to me. “Arms up,” he commanded, his tone suddenly weary.
River’s warnings still burning my ears, I lifted my arms, but even had I not been instructed, something told me I still would have done what Hero asked.
He pulled my dress over my head with surprising gentleness, and the humid air of the room hit my naked body. I covered my breasts that had grown bigger in the last year.
“No,” Hero ordered, his voice growing deeper, harsher. “Drop your arms.”
I squeezed my eyes shut and did as he said.
“Open your eyes, Decima.”
My name touching his lips in barely a whisper, I did as he said.
Blue eyes stared down at me. “You no longer hide from men.”
“All men?”Oh, Lord, no. I did not want to be like Alathena.
“Yes.”
“Please, not River,” I uselessly pleaded, swallowing back bile.
“If we ask, you show us your offerings.” Hero bit out the word we as if it were an unholy curse.
I sucked in a breath, fighting tears. “Offerings?”
Without warning, he grabbed my breast and pinched my nipple. “These.”
I gasped, then a sensation took hold between my legs and I knew instantly I would take my own life before I let the man who had created me touch me like that.
As if Hero knew my body, he touched the hair that had grown between my legs, then he pressed a thumb against a spot I never knew existed. “And this.”
Dizzy, suddenly panting, I dared to grasp his strong arms. Unholy words bled from my mouth. “I never want River to touch me like this.”
His sharp inhale of breath flared his nostrils and for one heart-stopping moment, he said nothing. Then his blond hair fell over one of his blue eyes, and he held his hand out. A thin cylindrical paper-wrapped item lay in his hand. “Before breakfast, before lunch, before dinner and before curfew—” His voice broke and he swallowed. “I am going to put this in you.”
I glanced at the tube, not understanding. “What is that?”
“This is going to catch your blood. It needs to be changed four times a day, but you do not do that.” He stared at me as if he had regret. “I do.”
My heart flew into my ribs, and I took a step back. “You can’t… no.” Pieces of protest my only barrier against him, I wished for his soft voice to return. “Please….”
He tossed the thing on the bed and grabbed my arm, but his firmness ended there. Gently pulling me to his chest, he held me until my breasts touched his bare flesh.
I gasped.
Searching my eyes as if asking a question, he waited.
Confused, afraid, I said nothing.
His rough fingers coasted the length of my arm. “Use the sink, wash between your legs, then come to the bed.”
Something beyond fear happened to my body, and I started to tremble. “Please,” I shamelessly begged one more time. “Do not let him touch me.” I didn’t care about the doctrine that all River Ranch women belonged to the holy one. I no longer cared about the strict rules and threats of punishment for disobedience. River Stephens had become a monster to me and although I didn’t understand it, instinct told me a hunter had become my only chance at survival.
Hero’s jaw locked and without a word, he ushered me into the bare bathroom with only a sink and a toilet. Grabbing the one washcloth off a hook, his movements rough, he wet the cloth and briskly wiped between my legs. Then he threw the washcloth in the sink and led me back to the bed.
My bottom hit the edge, and my legs dangled at an awkward angle. I pulled them together, but his large hand pressed against the inside of my knee.
“No. Spread your legs.” He didn’t reach for the white tube he’d tossed on the bed. He reached for his belt and undid it.
“What are you doing?”My voice shook and fear clawed at my throat. “The… the… the tube. You said you were going to….” As I saw his manhood spring from his pants, I couldn’t finish the words.
“I am taking you first.”
Male voices downstairs kicked me out of my memories, and I snatched a dress out of the backpack and threw it on.