SWNOVELS Alluring Darkness: Chapter 12
I’m just about to turn towards the door when I notice Raina leaving her seat and striding straight through the crowd. Trailing to a halt, I narrow my eyes as I track her movements.
Surprise flits through me when she walks right up to Thomas O’Connell and his two friends. He’s one of the best hitmen in my year, so what the hell does Raina think she’s doing talking to him?
“You coming?” Kaden asks from where he has stopped and turned back to me a few strides away.
Without taking my eyes off Raina, I reply, “Meet me outside.”
There is a slight pause. Then he says, “Alright.”
From the corner of my eye, I can see my brothers head towards the door. But I keep my full attention on Raina.
She’s talking to Thomas and his friends now. I can’t hear what they’re saying from up here, but the expressions on their faces quickly went from surprised and befuddled to satisfied and interested once Raina started speaking.
They chuckle at something she says, and she tosses her hair back and places a hand on Thomas’s arm.
A flash of rage roars through me.
The crowd parts before me as I stalk down the steps towards them.
Does she really think that she can just do whatever she wants? That she can bat her eyelashes at anyone and everyone? No. She is not even allowed to breathe without my permission.
She doesn’t get to have friends or partners. She doesn’t even get to have casual fuck buddies. She’s not allowed to have anyone. Only me. Unless I say otherwise, she will only ever know my touch, my voice, my body, as I do whatever the hell I want with her.
Thomas spots me as I advance on them. But Raina has her back to me, so she just continues talking to the other two guys.
“Hunter?” Thomas says it both like a greeting and a question.
“Leave,” I order.
Raina whirls around at the sound of my voice while Thomas dips his chin in acknowledgement. He and his two friends immediately start to retreat.
After shooting me a scorching glare, Raina spins back to them and waves her hands. “No, wait, you don’t have to leave. I still haven’t—”
Her words are cut off by a yelp as I grab her and throw her over my shoulder.
For a few seconds, she just lies there on my shoulder as I start towards the door, as if she can’t believe what’s happening. Then reality apparently snaps back to her.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” She kicks her legs and pounds her hands into my back. “Put me down, you fucking neanderthal!”
People around us turn to look as I continue towards the door, but no one is stupid enough to try to intervene.
Raina keeps struggling to get free, but I easily hold her in place with an arm over her back.
“You fucking asshole,” she growls with impressive menace while she continues squirming on my shoulder. “I swear to God, I am going to—”
I slap her ass. Hard.
She sucks in a gasp. Stunned silence follows it. Then she snaps, “You bastard! Stop—”
“Stop acting like a brat,” I cut her off as I stride into an empty room on the other side of the corridor. “And I’ll stop spanking you like one.”
A truly vicious string of curses answers me while I kick the door shut behind us. Then I move over to the wall and set Raina down.
She immediately tries to move aside. I slap my palm against the wall next to her head, blocking her way with my arm. Trapped between me and the wall, she drags her eyes to my face.
I almost start slightly at the rage burning in those green eyes of hers.
“You had no right!” she screams, and gives my chest a hard shove that does absolutely nothing to push me back. “You had no right to interrupt our conversation like that!”
For a moment, I’m too stunned to reply.
For the first time since I met her, she looks genuinely angry. And not just angry. She looks furious.
She didn’t even look mad when I fucked her throat on the side of the road or after I spanked her ass in the middle of the canteen or when I humiliated her in the sparring room.
But now, because I scared off some guys she was talking to, she looks ready to tear my throat out. Why? Why would that be such a big deal to her?
Pushing aside the confusion for now, I raise my eyebrows and reply, “No right, huh?”
“Yes!” She shoves at my chest again. “But apparently, you’re too stupid to—”
I yank up my other hand and lock it around her throat. Taking a step closer, I press farther into her space. Her tits brush against my body as her chest heaves with anger. It sends sparks of electricity shooting through me and makes blood rush to my cock.
“Watch your mouth, princess,” I warn, leaning down so close that I’m almost breathing the words against her lips.
“Or what?” she retorts, glaring up at me.
“Or I might gag you.” I stroke my thumb over the side of her neck. “Or decide to fill your throat with something else.”
She shudders, either at my words or at my touch, and something flickers in her eyes. But I don’t think it’s anger.
“Would you like that, princess?” I push.
She bites the inside of her cheek, but only continues glaring up at me in silence.
“Which one?” I shift my hand so that I can draw my thumb over her bottom lip instead. “For me to shove my cock down your throat again? Or for me to force a massive ball gag into your mouth and secure it behind your head with a lock that only I have the key to, so that you can’t speak unless I allow it?”
Another shudder courses through her body, and her eyes shutter briefly.
I smirk. “Or both?”
She draws in a shaky breath.
My cock aches. Fuck, I shouldn’t have spoken all that out loud. Because now, doing both of those things, and more, to her perfect body is all I can think of.
Her chest heaves, and she stares back at me with eyes that burn with a whole host of emotions. Then she drags in a deep breath, and a wicked smile slides across her lips instead.
“Try it,” she taunts. “And I’ll kill you in your sleep.”
A huff of amusement escapes my chest. I shift my hand back down to her throat and give it a firm squeeze. “Threats, huh? You just watched me send one of the best hitmen in the entire senior year scurrying away with his tail between his legs after just one word from me, and you think threats is your best course of action here?”
“Yes, why is that?”
“Why is what?”
“Why is it that everyone backs away when you so much as glance in their direction?” She shakes her head, and genuine confusion swirls in her eyes. “It makes no sense. Everyone here is training to be an assassin. So why is everyone so damned scared of you?”
I raise my eyebrows in surprise. “You don’t know?”
“No.”
Releasing her throat, I take a step back and cock my head as I study her. “How can you not know?”
A hint of annoyance and embarrassment flickers across her features as she crosses her arms defensively and glances to the side. “My family didn’t want me to become a hitman. So I’m… not exactly familiar with all the politics in this world.”
For a few seconds, I just watch her in silence. Is this the reason why she doesn’t fear me like everyone else? Not because she somehow sees through all of my bullshit and doesn’t care that I’m violent and volatile. But simply because she doesn’t know.
Disappointment blows through me.
Once she understands how this world works, she will probably start acting like everyone else and stop challenging me the way she does.
A heavy weight settles in my stomach.
But if that’s the case, then I need to know, so I block out all of those feelings of disappointment and instead ask her a question that I know she will say yes to.
“Would you like me to show you?”