Taken for the Hunt: A Dark Romantic Suspense

by Mae Doyle

  I can imagine the four women, all of them huddled in their beds terrified of what’s going on. They’ll all be scared, but Natalia will be terrified because she’ll know that we’re coming for her.

  “You excited?” Zach asks, swinging his arm around my neck and pulling me forward. “Are you going to watch from the window up here or come downstairs so that you can hear better?”

  He doesn’t wait for an answer and I don’t give him one. Instead, I just stumble along with him, my head spinning with every step. I’m trying to think of how I can get Natalia out of this, how I can save her, but I really don’t know if it’s even possible.

  We reach the first bedroom and Nathan bangs on it, probably scaring the woman in there half to death. “Wake up! You need to see what happens when you’re a naughty little rabbit!”

  The sound of his fist on the door echoes and reverberates. I feel like I can feel it in my bones and I shiver, stumbling along with Zach when Dale prods me forward.

  “Don’t get left behind, Marco,” Dale says. “You know as well as I do that you’re the reason this is even happening right now. Don’t worry though, we’ll get you a new rabbit soon.”

  I don’t want a new rabbit. I want Natalia, but I can’t save her up here, not when there are three of them and just one of me. I’m going to have to wait until we’re outside, wait until she’s running.

  Natalia’s going to be terrified, but there’s just no way that I can protect her up here. She’ll have to trust me, but I’m not sure if she can.

  We make it to the end of the hall and Nathan turns to look at the three of us, his eyes bright and triumphant. “Dear gentlemen, allow me to introduce you to our entertainment for the night, Marco’s rabbit.”

  He turns and flashes his fob, making Natalia’s door beep, then yanks it open before striding in.

  “Good morning, rabbit! Are you ready to play?” He asks.

  “Fuck off!” Natalia screams. I can’t see her, but I hear her yell at him. Without thinking about what I’m doing, I jerk forward, but Dale and Zach grab my arms.

  “This is for the best,” Zach tells me, a sick grin on his face. His fingers dig into my arm to hold me in place. “You don’t actually think that a rabbit could have feelings for you, do you? You’re thinking with your cock, Marco.”

  “It’s a sickness,” Dale agrees. “We’ll get you someone else to stick your cock into and then you’ll forget all about this stupid fucking rabbit.”

  It’s not true.

  I just can’t tell them that.

  I have to wait for the right time. Gritting my teeth, I hold still as Nathan comes back to the door. He has Natalia by the wrist.

  She’s dressed like she’s ready for the hunt, already wearing her black clothes. With her hair in a ponytail and a wild look in her eyes she looks just the same as she did when she tried to run away from me and get in the helicopter.

  I don’t know how she got changed so quickly. It’s almost like she knew that they were coming for her tonight.

  “I’ll walk, just let go of me,” she snaps at Nathan, who only laughs.

  “No, rabbit, if your pussy is as magic as I’m led to believe by Marco then I need to keep a pretty good eye on you. The last thing that we need is for you two to make a break for it.”

  She glares at me. Her dark eyes bore into me and I see there all of the hatred and anger that she had locked up inside of her from when I took her.

  I want to calm her, to tell her that I have a plan and that everything’s going to be okay, but there’s no way that I can do that right now, not with the three men with us. I can’t tell her that I’m going to do everything I can to save her.

  I can’t tell her that I’ve never felt this way about anyone before. That she somehow found the last fragment of my soul, the one that I thought was dead and gone, and has saved me.

  “Fuck you,” she says, spitting at my feet.

  Nathan laughs, obviously enjoying what’s going on. His cheeks are bright and he looks like a little kid who just was told they can pick out any puppy that they want. “That, my dear rabbit, is exactly what got you into this mess. Now, I’m going to turn this over to Marco, who’s going to explain the rules to you. Marco?”

  He looks at me, his fingers still digging into Natalia’s arm, obviously waiting on me to explain how this is going to go. I suck in a huge breath and close my eyes before opening them and staring straight at her.

  How the fuck am I going to let her know that I’m on her team? There’s no way that I can tell her to trust me, not in front of the guys, and the look on her face makes it pretty fucking clear that she’s ready to rip my guts out.

  “There will be a hunt tonight,” I tell her, my voice low. I don’t want to say these words to her. I don’t want to think about her running from anyone, especially from the other three men.

  I have to continue. “But I won’t be the one chasing you. Nathan, Dale, and Zach will all split up and hunt you. They’ll not work together, but rather compete against each other to see who can find you first.”

  I swallow hard. Each word hurts to say, like they’re made of glass and are cutting my mouth and throat on the way out, but I have to say them. Nathan already knows that I’m weak and, for the first time in my life, I’m afraid of him.

  I don’t trust him.

  He has to think that I’m going to go through with this.

  “You’ll have a five minute head start,” I tell her, trying to ignore the way her cheeks flush. She’s nervous, and rightly so. “And you’ll have a knife,” I say, gesturing as well as I can towards Nathan.

  Dale and Zach reach drop my arms, obviously realizing that I’m not going to run.

  Nathan pulls a curved hunting knife from the pouch at his waist and shows it to her, letting go of her arm at the same time.

  “If you can draw blood with that I’ll be damn impressed,” he tells her. “Now, let’s all head downstairs and take a deep breath. You awake, rabbit? Feeling good? We want quite the hunt tonight, so please don’t disappoint. It’s obvious that your cunt didn’t.”

  The three men laugh and Natalia looks at me, making eye contact for the first time. I want to tell her that I’m on her team, that I’m going to do everything I can to keep her alive, but there’s no way for me to communicate with her.

  “Let’s hunt!” Nathan cries, and Dale and Zach whoop and shout. Nathan grabs Natalia’s arm, forcing her down the hall in front of him and I follow, flanked by Dale and Zach.

  There’s no way for me to get her out of this.

  Not yet.

  Chapter 27

  Marco

  My legs feel like jelly as I walk down the flights of stairs, Nathan at my side, his fingers digging so hard into my arm that I’m pretty sure that he’s going to cut off circulation.

  I’m used to my legs not wanting to work right after a long workout, but this isn’t because I’m tired. It’s because I’m scared shitless, absolutely terrified of what’s going to happen to me when I get pushed out that door with nothing but a knife and a promise that I’ll be dead before I know what hits me.

  Cold fear sweeps over me, combating the adrenaline that I feel coursing through my body. I suck in a breath as Nathan opens the door to the beach and pushes me outside.

  My toe catches on the small patio outside the door and I pitch forward, splaying my hands out in front of me to break my fall. Sand sprays up in my face as I land and I close my eyes, but I still get some in my mouth.

  I stand, spitting it out, then turn around to look at the three men. Nathan stands in front, obviously thrilled with what’s about to happen. He’s grinning at me, but he’s not the man I keep looking at.

  I want to grab Marco by the shoulders and shake him as I scream into his face. I want to know what the fuck he was thinking letting this happen to me. He’s the one I trusted, the only man I’ve had feelings for in…forever, and for him to do this to me?

  That’s the betrayal that hurts the most.

&nb
sp; It’s fucked up that I can almost forgive him for taking me. He didn’t know me, didn’t know what I was like, and I wanted him from the moment I saw him.

  But now he knows me. I know him.

  And he’s going to stand by and watch as his three friends hunt me down and kill me.

  Bros before hoes, indeed.

  “Anything you want to say, rabbit? I imagine that you’re quite skilled with your mouth.” Nathan leers at me and I suddenly feel like I’m naked in front of him. It’s uncomfortable, like he can see straight through my clothes to my body and I shiver.

  “Fuck you. All of you.”

  “So eloquent,” he snaps, rolling his eyes. The two men standing next to Marco chuckle, but Marco doesn’t move.

  He’s staring straight at me, the same intense look from when we met on his face. If I didn’t know any better, didn’t know that I’m about to die, I’d think that he was trying to tell me something.

  “Feel free to beg. Cry. Whatever,” Nathan says, but I shake my head.

  I’m not going to do any of that, not in front of these assholes. They’re going to get what they want from me, but I’m not giving them any memories for their spank banks later.

  “You’re no fun,” Dale says, pretending to pout a little bit.

  “You guys have a fucked up idea of fun,” I retort. “Tell me, did you all get molested when you were little? Is that why you’re so fucked up?”

  “At least we’re not stupid little whores like you, ready to open your legs for the first man who shows you any attention,” Nathan tells me.

  Marco is silent. I know that what I said probably hurt him, but fuck it.

  “At least I don’t have to kidnap people to feel good about myself.” It’s not my best retort, but I think that I’m doing pretty well considering.

  Considering what’s about to happen. My stomach flips.

  “You bore me,” Nathan tells me, unsnapping a pouch at his waist and pulling out a knife. It’s a hunting knife, possibly the same one that I saw the other woman carrying the night of her hunt, and my stomach twists again.

  The blade isn’t very long but has a slight curve to it. I suddenly get the urge to feel what it would be like to slip it up under Nathan’s ribcage, and I reach for it, but he pulls it back.

  “Let me explain. You can try to draw blood with it, rabbit, but there’s always something else that you can do with it, too.” Nathan caresses the handle of the knife before flipping it around in his hand and holding it out to me.

  “Something else?” I’m imagining trying to build a trap, create another weapon, work my way down the rocky wall to the surf with it.

  “Kill yourself, obviously. If the pressure gets to be too much for you and you don’t think that you’re strong enough to continue, you can always kill yourself. Just make sure that you scream when you do, okay?”

  My blood runs cold as my hand closes on the handle. It’s warm from his touch and I want to drop it, but instead I adjust my grip, holding it tight and drawing it in to my body.

  For a moment I wonder what they would do if I attacked them right now, but I know that’s a stupid idea. I might be able to get one slash in, maybe, and then they’d take me down.

  No, it’s better to try to do it one by one.

  “Run.” Nathan’s voice cuts through my thoughts and I look up at him.

  “What?”

  “Run, rabbit, run. You don’t have long before we start coming after you. Make it a good hunt, okay? I was really disappointed with the last rabbit. She wasn’t very fast or imaginative, but I have a feeling that you might be both. You’ll hear a gunshot when each one of us comes for you.”

  Once more I look up at Marco. His eyes are locked on mine like he’s trying to tell me something, but I’m not a fucking mind reader. Before any of them can say something else to me I turn and run, trying to put as much distance between us as possible.

  I know from watching Nathan that he’s a great tracker, so I need to make sure that he can’t just follow my tracks. The sand is packed harder down by the water, so that’s where I head, the sound of waves blocking out my footsteps and heavy breathing.

  I’ve trained for this for a few weeks, but I still don’t think that I’m ready. I don’t know the island as well as I’d like to, haven’t thought out where I could hide, don’t have a plan for what to do when one of them gets close to me.

  For a moment I consider running into the water and trying to swim away. I could at least get out into the ocean and hide there for a while, but I’d die out there without a raft, food, and water.

  Pushing the thought of escape from my mind, I loop back up onto the beach, picking my way through driftwood as quickly as possible. I should be able to keep my footprints hidden here pretty well and I move as quickly as possible when the sound of a gunshot stops me in my tracks.

  “No,” I whisper. “Not yet.”

  One of them is coming for me.

  Abandoning my attempt to hide my footprints, I start running across the beach as fast as possible. The moon is half full above me, casting some light onto the beach, but not enough to easily see what’s going on.

  I need to find someplace to hide for a bit because I think that they’re mostly going to be hunting by sound. If I can get somewhere safe then I might be able to ambush them.

  I might have a chance.

  I hit the woods at a run, not even slowing down when I hear the second shot go off. Two of them are now after me, making it that much more imperative that I find somewhere to hide.

  I feel like I can’t think straight. My head swivels back and forth as I run and each breath is only a tiny bit of oxygen. My muscles scream at me to stop, but I can’t.

  I have to keep moving.

  I have to hide.

  I have to survive.

  A third gunshot echoes through the silence of the night and I stop dead in my tracks for a moment, my heart pounding. I know that I need to move, I’m practically screaming at my body to run, but I can’t seem to get my legs to respond.

  I want someone to come and take care of me.

  I know that it’s stupid, it’s too much to ask, and it will never happen, but I’m being hunted by three men and I’m totally fucked.

  Chapter 28

  Natalia

  My pistol is heavy in my hand.

  Two men.

  Natalia’s being hunted by two men and now I have to save her.

  Even though I’m sure that I’ve just fucked everything up for myself and even though I know that there’s absolutely no coming back from what I’ve just done, I step over Zach’s body and walk towards the woods.

  He never saw it coming.

  Nobody would ever suspect a thing because we were all waiting on the third gunshot anyway.

  Nathan had been the first to go for her, and he’s the one that I’m most concerned about. He has a personal vendetta against Natalia, has hated her from the moment that I claimed her as my own rabbit, so I’m not surprised that it came to this.

  I want to make it up to her, and the only way that I can do that is to save her.

  Without thinking about the repercussions and how I’m going to come back mentally from killing my three best friends, I take off in the direction of the woods. I have a pretty good feeling that Natalia will have run for the cove. She loved it there when I took her there before, loved standing in the clear water and looking out at the ocean.

  She’ll head there, I just know it.

  It feels good to run and I cut across the beach, stepping quickly into the cover of the woods. I’m supposed to be waiting at the building, that’s the rule for when this happens, it’s what happened the only other time we came down this path.

  But I’m not waiting around for someone to kill the woman I care for.

  A thought crosses my mind that I might love her but I push it away, unsure of how to handle that idea. She’s amazing, all spitfire and passion, but still loving and kind, but that doesn’t mean I love her.

>   It does mean that I have to save her.

  Once I’m in the woods I slow. It’s so dark out that it’s impossible to track anything in here, and I hope that she’s realized that and has found somewhere to hide out for a bit. Each step I take is deliberate, driving me farther along on the hunt.

  My nostrils flare when I catch the scent of a person. For a moment, I think that it might be Natalia, but there’s something else to it.

  Aftershave.

  I freeze, closing my eyes and breathing deeply, trying to tell where it’s coming from. He’s close, whoever it is.

  Dale or Nathan.

  Both dangerous, but Nathan more so. He won’t stop at anything to end Natalia and I know that he’s the real threat. I have to get to him before he finds her.

  Off to my right there’s a soft crunch as they step on a fallen palm frond

  “Shit.”

  The voice is quiet but I’m still, my breathing so slow that it almost hurts, and I know right away who it was.

  Dale.

  He doesn’t deserve what’s coming to him and I feel a small pang of regret sweep through my body as I wait for him to draw closer. I built this, ending the lives of more people than I’d care to admit, including my closest friends.

  Another step, then another.

  He doesn’t see me, I’m too still, too quiet. I blend in perfectly with the trees and, besides, Dale doesn’t know this part of the island like I do. He hasn’t walked through these trees over and over, feeling like maybe he was trapped on this island.

  He has no idea what it’s like to map out a place on your heart.

  Another step and he’s right in front of me, his back to me. My knife is heavy in my hand, perfectly weighted, ready for anything, and I lunge for him, wrapping my hand around his mouth as I run the blade across his neck.

  It’s so sharp that it sinks deep into his flesh without resistance, but I wait until I feel his warm blood soaking down his shirt before I gently lower his body to the ground.

  “I’m so sorry,” I tell him, my voice so quiet that I only hear a murmur when I speak. I’m not sorry for killing him, not since it means that I’m one step closer to protecting Natalia, but I am sorry for bringing him along to this island in the first place.