"Tell me you don’t want me Syn, make me believe it and I'll open the fucking doors and let you out now."
My gaze locked with his, as his dangerous golden fire searched mine. He'd hear the hesitation if I lied, I sensed he'd know it in this form. His smile was beautiful, his eyes rimmed in obsidian caressing his golden depths. I considered backing away from him and running but I wasn’t sure where to run.
"Ryder," I murmured watching as he moved closer, his head still tilted as he closed the distance between us.
"I promise to be gentle," his mouth pressed against mine, his tongue pushing against my lips demanding entrance as he invaded it. I melted against him, his kiss stealing my mind and taking my will as I took his mouth and allowed him to continue. When he broke the kiss, I held on to him. Not because I wanted to, but because my legs had stopped working along with my brain. I gasped as his hands held me pressed tightly against him. "That's why I brought you here Syn, because you need release and you would never give up this tightly controlled self-image you have of yourself without it being this way."
What the hell did he mean by that? I liked control, I didn’t like unknown factors and right now I was inside of one. I stepped backwards and watched as he followed me step for step until I was pressed up against the solid wall of glass. "I'm not that girl Ryder. I don’t want to become food for anyone, or a plaything."
He stopped and narrowed his eyes sharply, "Who said this was about that Syn? This is about making you lose control," his hand reached up and tilted my face until I was staring up into his inhuman eyes, "I want to see you wild, see who you are inside," his finger drifted up from my navel to my heart, "Inside here. Not what you pretend to be for everyone else."
I snorted, "I don’t pretend to be anything that I'm not Ryder, this is me."
He smiled and licked his teeth slowly, "No, this is the battered five year old who doesn’t want to be afraid. The same one who watched helplessly as her parents were murdered. She's afraid to be hurt, or getting attached to something she might care too deeply about and lose one day. This is the hurt little girl that got a little too cocky on an assignment and lost her first love. You're afraid of losing, of paying the cost again because beneath it all you're scared. You're afraid that you might like it. But once in a while you need to let go Syn. You need to live."
"I'm not that five year old, she was helpless. I will never be like that again," I choked, fighting back tears. I hated that he could read me like an open book, as if he had a window into my very soul. I could feel him inside of me, touching, opening up pages and reading me easily.
"No Syn, you’re a beautifully skilled killer. One who shows no emotion and yet you wear your bleeding heart on your sleeve. Everyone else just failed to see it. But I do. I see you."
I was about to tell him off when howls erupted around us coming from the Fae close to the stage, the female announcer was back. She was wearing some kind of cloak. The only thing visible was her ringlets of brown hair and ruby red lips.
"It's time to hunt my beautiful brethren. We honor the Horde King and give him strength tonight, in hopes of his swift return back to us," when the last word came out the room erupted into a mass of guttural screams.
I shook as the room began spinning around me with the realization of what was happening. I knew Ryder was watching as everything fell into place inside my head. I should have known, should have been smarter and shouldn’t have let him distract me. I was in a room filled with several different castes of Fae.
"The Wild Hunt," I whispered breathlessly afraid to be right, afraid that if he said yes, then I'd been brought here by him to be hunted and claimed as his prize in a fucking contest filled with skilled hunters.
His head tipped slightly as his smirk tugged at the corners of his mouth, he removed his hands from me and started undoing his cuffs before removing the jacket and deftly worked the buttons of his crisp white shirt to reveal his wide span of sinewy muscles with his brands pulsing on his skin.
I shook my head in disbelief, this wasn’t happening to me. "He's missing, why honor him?" I offered hoping it would stop this, but knowing it wouldn’t.
"Why indeed Syn," with his shirt undone, he shook easily out of it and handed it to Zahruk who had come up behind him right on cue as always. The other men from his group once again circled us, but Ryder didn’t stay. "Have her ready and make sure she knows the rules gentlemen."
I watched him walk away as his men closed in around me. I was shaking from the mere rumors of this event. I was so stupid, how could I have missed it? A club of Fae, on Samhain! How fucking stupid was I?
Zahruk handed off the dress suit jacket and the shirt along with it. He nodded at Dristan who left and returned swiftly carrying a glass of red liquid, "Drink Synthia, it will help steady your nerves."
"Get me drunk and then make me run?" I asked through chattering teeth.