Page 75 of Seduced in Ink

“Where’s Madison?” he asked without preamble.

They each gave him a look and then glanced into the corner. A look of shock crossed their faces.

“What?” he asked, his adrenaline pumping.

“She was in the corner. We just left her in the corner. She was feeling lightheaded. Oh my God, where’s Madison?” Maeve began, her voice going high-pitched.

Others started to turn towards them, and Aaron did his best to look over everybody’s heads, trying to find her.

But he couldn’t. There was no sign of her.

“Maybe she went to the restroom. Or back to your room for something,” Mark began.

“I’ll go check. You go look for her here. And then we’ll meet back here in five minutes.”

“She’s fine. She’s fine,” Maeve said, repeating the words over and over again. “She wouldn’t have gone out in this.”

“Did Madison tell you about Guy?” Aaron asked, trying not to panic.

“What do you mean?”

“He hurt her,” Aaron growled out.

“What?” Maeve said, her hand going to her throat.

“I’ll talk to you about it later. But, yeah, he hurt her. We need to find Madison right now. She wouldn’t have just gone off like this.”

“I’m sure she’s fine,” Mark said, giving Aaron a look. Aaron understood. He didn’t want Maeve to panic. And he wouldn’t add fuel to the fire.

No, he would simply let all the panic slide through him.

Because while he couldn’t fucking find Madison, and it terrified him, she had to be okay.

If she wasn’t?

He had no idea what the fuck he would do.

Chapter 18

Madison dug her heels into the mud, doing her best to pull away from Guy. He only tugged on her arm harder, nearly ripping her limb from its socket.

“What are you doing? Let me go!” she roared over the din of the pounding rain and thunder.

“Stop fighting. This will all go easier if you come with me.” Guy tugged her harder, and she cried out, tears forming. He was so much stronger, and the fact that he had a kitchen knife in his other hand, one that he had threatened to use but hadn’t yet, worried her more.

She had been sitting in the corner, trying to see where Aaron was, when someone came around from the blind spot in the room and put their hand over her mouth.

She hadn’t had a chance to scream because as soon as she realized that she was being pulled away, it was too late. Guy had her outside almost immediately, the roar of the rain masking any sound that she might have made.

Now, he didn’t bother covering her mouth but was practically dragging her down the side of the mountain towards wherever he planned to go.

“Why are you doing this?” she asked, fear crawling over her skin. Nobody was out here to hear her scream, just like before. She didn’t know how she was supposed to get out of this. How was she supposed to save herself?

Even if a storm weren’t hurting everything and making it already far too dangerous, she wasn’t sure they would make it out of this. She wasn’t sureshewould make it out of this.

“Why? Because I have to. You’re supposed to marry me. And nothing’s going off the way it should.”

“What? I’m not going to marry you. This isn’t going to work out. If you just let me go, we can forget any of this ever happened.”