Page 86 of Alluring Darkness

RAINA

Three muscular men block my path. Slowly closing the front door behind me, I stop there in the hallway and sweep my gaze over them before arching an eyebrow.

“If I had known that I would be met by such an esteemed welcome wagon, I would have prepared a more dramatic entrance,” I say.

Rico, Kaden, and Jace look back at me with hard eyes. As usual, Kaden is twirling a knife in his right hand while Jace is resting a baseball bat on his shoulder. They’re flanking Rico, who is standing in the middle with his arms crossed. Even though Rico is unarmed, his entire body is still pulsing with threats. Even more so than the other two.

Their entrance hall is rather wide, but so are the three of them. Especially when they’re standing side by side. In their current position, they’re blocking the entire hallway, leaving me stranded there in front of the door.

I adjust the duffel bag I have slung over my shoulder while I shoot them a pointed look. But right before I can spit out the snarky remark on my tongue, they at last speak up.

“If you do anything to hurt Eli,” Rico begins, his voice low and dripping with threats, “and I meananything, we will hunt you to the ends of the earth.”

“And then you will die screaming,” Jace adds, a vicious grin on his lips.

“And begging for the sweet release of death,” Kaden finishes.

For a few seconds, I just look back at them in silence. Then a laugh erupts from my chest. While trying to suck in a breath between the fits of laughter, I point between the three of them. “Did you rehearse this?”

My stomach lurches as Kaden yanks my body sideways and slams me up against the dark wooden wall. I hit it hard enough to rattle one of the paintings to my right, and my breath escapes my lungs in a huff.

With his left forearm pressed against my collarbones, he raises his other hand and slowly traces his knife down the side of my face. Violence and a terrible coldness, like a merciless black sea in a storm, pulses in his eyes as he locks them on me.

“Careful with that tongue,” he says, his voice seemingly devoid of all emotion. “Or someone might decide to cut it out.”

“Careful with those threats.” I let a smile tinted with insanity spread across my lips. “Or someone might slip poison into your coffee one morning.”

A muscle ticks in his jaw, and he increases the pressure with his forearm, pushing me harder against the wall. I glare back at him. But before things can get out of hand, Rico places a hand on Kaden’s shoulder and gives it a firm squeeze.

After another second of staring me down with those cold eyes, Kaden drops his arms and steps back. I brush my hands down my shirt and adjust my bag again before starting forward.

However, before I can take so much as a single step, Jace plants the top of his bat against my chest and shoves me back against the wall.

Irritation flashes through me as I shoot them all an annoyed look. “Was there anything else?”

“If you hurt Eli—” Rico repeats.

“You’ll hunt me down and torture me to death and blah, blah,” I cut him off and then flick my wrist in a nonchalant gesture. “Yes, yes, I heard you the first time. Also, did he not tell you thatheis the one who wanted me to sleep here?”

“He did,” Rico admits.

“Great. Then you already know that this arrangement makes sure that both of us get what we want. So trying to hurt him now would just defeat the point of that, don’t you think?”

All three of them look back at me in grudging silence, as if they know that I’m right but don’t want to admit it.

“Excellent.” I give Rico a brisk pat on the cheek. “But it is adorable when you all act like mother hens.”

Stunned surprise pulses across their faces, probably at both my words and my actions. It gives me a second to move before they can react, and I use it well. Slipping past them, I hurry down the hallway.

“Good talk,” I call over my shoulder as I start up the stairs.

I’ve only just placed my hand on the door to Eli’s bedroom when a furious voice splits the air from downstairs.

“Raina!”

Footsteps, fast and angry, pound against the steps.

I’m about to open the door and escape into Eli’s room when it’s shoved open instead, forcing me to jump back to avoid being hit by it. The move makes me lose precious seconds. I glance between Eli, who is scowling at me from the door, and Kaden who has now appeared at the top of the stairs.