Page 55 of Alluring Darkness
“Not exactly,” I answer at last.
Her gaze drifts over our muscular bodies and the bats on our shoulders. I wait for fear to flicker in her eyes. It doesn’t.
Frustration wells up inside me.
What the fuck is wrong with this girl? Why is she never afraid of anything? If she had been a normal person, she would’ve been reduced to a trembling mess begging for permission to surrender long ago. But no matter what I do, I can’t seem to get this girl to break.
“Since you’re so bad at hiding, I figured we would help you train,” I continue when it becomes clear that threatening silence has absolutely no effect on her.
She flashes me a mocking smile. “How sweet of you.”
“We’ll give you a one-minute head start.” Using the bat, I point towards the forest behind her. “And then we’ll hunt you.”
“Sounds dreadfully boring, but okay.”
“How about we sweeten the pot then? If you can manage to stay hidden, we’ll leave you alone for an entire month. I won’t mess with you. Nothing. For a whole month.”
She cocks her head. “Huh.”
“But if we catch you…” I add, donning a vicious smile. “Then I will let my brothers fuck you.”
For the first time, a hint of surprise flickers in her eyes. And she raises her eyebrows as she says, “Your brother?”
I rake a deliberate glance up and down her body. “All three of them.”
It’s a lie, of course. I have absolutely no intention of ever letting my brothers touch her, but I’m trying to find something that will scare her. Something that will terrify her and make her finally wave the white flag of surrender. Something that will prove that she is just like everyone else, that she will break underneath the weight of my insanity and that she isn’t worth all the time and energy I spend thinking about her. Proof that I shouldn’t be obsessed with her.
Holding my breath, I wait for panic or fear, or anything that will give me the proof I need, to flood her eyes.
Two seconds pass.
They feel like a fucking lifetime.
Then a sly smile spreads across her lips as she flicks her gaze up and down the four of us. She licks her lips. Not nervously. Seductively. Fuckingseductively.
“I see,” she says.
I’m still so stunned by her ludicrous reaction that all I can do is to stare as she spins around and then takes off into the trees.
Branches snap underneath her white sneakers as she bolts into the forest.
Leaves rustle as another wind washes over the landscape.
I stare at the white skirt flapping around those perfect thighs of hers before she disappears from view.
“I thought you didn’t want us to touch her,” Kaden says. His voice is cool, neutral, but I can hear the hopeful undercurrent to his words.
“I don’t,” I reply simply.
A disappointed noise comes from his throat, but he doesn’t argue. None of them do. They all know me well enough to understand what I’m doing. To understand that I’m trying, by any means, to break the absolute enigma that is Raina Smith.
“That’s one minute,” Rico observes eventually.
Shaking off the strange emotions that had settled over me, I draw in a deep breath and adjust my grip on the bat. With the confusion gone, excitement fills my chest instead.
I grin. “Then let’s go hunt.”
Jace lets out a whoop as he takes off straight after Raina. The rest of us exchange a glance, and then spread out so that we will be coming at her from all sides.