Page 42 of Alluring Darkness
“Maybe someone is already trying. I heard that someone tried to shoot Eli a few weeks ago.”
My heart thunders as I wait for his response. Even if he was the one responsible, I doubt that he is just going to confess that to me after only a few minutes of knowing me. But maybe he will let something slip. Some kind of thread that I can keep pulling at until I find proof that Connor is innocent.
“Yeah.” Anton huffs out a laugh. “Too bad it failed.” A scheming glint creeps into his eyes as he looks down at me. “And you’re not going to follow their lead and try it too. At least not with how terrible your aim is.” There is a smile lurking on his lips as he jerks his chin towards the targets. “Do you want me to show you how to hold it and aim properly?”
“Oh God, yes, please.”
He holsters his own gun and then raises my arms so that I’m aiming towards the target again. After adjusting my fingers, he explains what I was doing wrong with my grip and how it affects the bullet trajectory. Then he moves up behind me.
My heart lurches as he presses his muscular body against my back and then reaches around me to grab my arms again.
“Like this,” he says.
But I can barely concentrate on his instructions, because every time he speaks now, his breath dances over my neck and caresses the shell of my ear.
“Raina?” he says. “Are you listening?”
“What? Yes.”
“Then what did I say?”
“Uhm…”
He laughs, sending his warm breath dancing over my skin again. “I was saying that when you aim, you need to—”
The area around me goes unnaturally silent as Anton abruptly stops speaking.
Then a dark voice cuts through the air like a blade.
“Get. Your hands. Off her.”
I snap my gaze towards the sound of the voice, and find Eli Hunter standing right next to us looking like the devil himself. His golden-brown eyes burn like hellfire and violence rolls off his body like dark waves.
Anton has gone stiff as a board behind me, and he slowly takes his hands from my wrists and spreads his arms wide.
That’s when I notice the gun that Eli is pressing against his temple.
My stomach flips. Jesus Christ, is he going to shoot him in the head for just showing me how to hold my gun?
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” I snap as I step away from Anton and whirl around to face Eli fully.
“You do not touch her,” Eli grinds out. Still holding the gun to Anton’s head, he sweeps hard eyes across everyone around us. “No one touches her. She belongs to me.”
“I don’t belong to anyone,” I snarl.
But Eli isn’t listening to me. He just drags those rage-filled eyes of his back to Anton. “This is the only warning you get, Petrov. The next time you put your hands on her, I will put a bullet in your brain.”
Anton clenches his jaw, and anger flickers in his eyes as well, but he says nothing.
“Got it?” Eli demands.
“Yes,” he forces out.
“Then repeat it back to me.”
Fury flashes across Anton’s face, and he grits his teeth again, saying nothing.
Eli shoves the muzzle of his gun harder against Anton’s temple, forcibly making him tilt his head to the side. “Repeat it.”