Ansel's Game (Shifter Fever Book 1)

by Selena Scott

  She craned her neck to catch sight of their faces, but it was too dark in the abandoned subway tunnel. Suddenly, they stopped, in complete unison with one another. The tunnel was so dark that Lucy couldn’t see the end of her own nose. But in the darkness something glinted, like moonlight over a lake.

  “On the count of three?” one asked and the other one shook his head, checking his phone.

  “They’re ready immediately.”

  “Wait, what? NO!” Lucy screamed as the two men lifted her clear off the ground and tossed her into thin air.

  She was nowhere. She was nobody. There was only blackness, expansion, compression. She was growing and shrinking at the same time. Maybe this was death.

  But then she had arms again, she felt them around her own ribcage. And she had legs, she could feel those too. She felt something strong and warm against her. Heard a heartbeat against her ear. Felt the solid step-step-step of someone who knew where they were going. Something smelled good. Like freshly dug earth and baking bread.

  She opened her eyes and they ached all the way to the back of her head. She blinked the blur out of her eyes and realized she was cradled in someone’s arms. Someone’s gigantic arms. Like serious python arms. She tilted her head back and saw a black t shirt, the bottom of a sharp jaw, a buzzed head, and just a glimpse of a diamond earring…

  Lucy lost her shit. With a war cry that would have made Xena proud, she scratched out at her kidnapper, catching him on the neck. Kicking her legs wildly, she beat her fists against him as hard as she could. After a few furious seconds she realized he hadn’t even broken stride. She felt like a toddler throwing a tantrum, dwarfed by his size and manner. She turned her face toward his chest. Well, let’s see if he could ignore this.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Amos held Lucy a little further from his body as she kicked and punched and screamed. He couldn’t take her warm body writhing around against him. Her dress was even thinner than it had looked on the television screen and as she threw herself around, it was working its way up her thighs. He refused to look down.

  The minute he locked her in her chambers, he was gonna have to take a private moment for himself.

  She sagged for a second. He hoped she’d tired herself out. King Dalyer would not think this was cute.

  Amos, on the other hand, definitely thought it was a little cute. Watching her try to get out of his hold was like watching a kitten try to fight a black bear. She was just so fragile and little. So delicate like a-

  “Fuck! Did you just bite me?” Amos was caught completely by surprise and bobbled her, losing his grip.

  Taking her opportunity, Lucy slid down his body, stomped his foot with her high heel, and took off running.

  Amos pressed his hand to his chest, checking to see if she’d drawn blood. Damn. That had hurt! So why the fuck was he at half mast? Shaking his head at himself, he figured she had enough of a head start. She was about 200 feet away from him at this point. Coming up fast on the fortress doors.

  He beat her there and lazily leaned his back on the gate. She pulled up short, realizing he had cut her off and looked around wildly for another exit.

  “This is the only way out,” he said.

  Her ice blue eyes snapped to his and he felt it like an electric shock straight to his groin.

  “That’s what you’d say no matter if it were true or not,” she snapped.

  He shrugged. Pretended that hearing the husk her voice had taken on from screaming didn’t affect him.

  “Of course.”

  “Soooo. In that case,” she said and turned to sprint in the other direction.

  She’d gotten approximately four steps before he was standing in her

  path again. His feet planted and his arms crossed. She turned yet again but this time his arm darted out and gently looped her waist. She tried to scratch him again so he grabbed her by the wrists and whipped her arms up over her head. She tugged away from him and it drew her very full breasts up and almost out the top of her dress.

  He dragged his eyes up to her parted lips. He licked his own, felt

  himself pulling her a little closer. But when he looked up at her brilliant blue eyes, he saw fear in them. Mortal fear.

  He sighed. “What if I promised I would never hurt you.”

  She glared up at him, anger joining the fear in her eyes. “Stop lying

  to me.”

  “I’m not lying. I’m promising.”

  She stopped tugging and looked up at him, thoroughly confused.

  He thought of how important she was to the King. How much the royal line completely and utterly depended on her.

  “What if I swore that I would never let harm come to you. That I’d die for you if it came to it.”

  He felt the air change between them and knew that the rawest of the

  fear was leaving her. It was replaced with racing thoughts, a desperation to understand what the hell was going on.

  He continued on. “If you can accept that promise then I can start

  explaining where you are why you’re here.”

  “And you’ll let go of me?” she asked, her eyes big and gentle and, God, was she weepy? Shit. He really didn’t’t want to see her cry.

  “I’ll let go of you,” he agreed.

  “Ok. Then in that case, I believe you won’t hurt me. I accept your promise.”

  He held on to her for another second. Just the briefest of moments. He didn’t want to let go of her. He wanted to touch her more. He wanted to see if the skin on her neck was as soft as the skin on her wrists. He wanted to lift her up again the way he’d carried her from the portal. With her pressed so firmly into him. Her beautiful face against his chest. He wanted to have a reason to keep on holding her. But he didn’t have a reason. She wasn’t his to touch or hold. She was the King Dalyer’s. From the moment the Oracle had tracked her down in the human realm, she had become King Dalyer’s most important possession.

  Amos’s stomach curdled slightly at the thought. He settled for swiping his thumb across one of her wrists, just once. Committing the feeling to memory.

  The second he loosened his grip she yanked herself away from him. Growling, he chased after her, tiring of the game.

  “What the fuck, little hatchling.” He growled deep in his chest and snared her wrists again. “Quit doing that.”

  She yanked at him. “Well, promising not to hurt me pretty much makes it a no brainer for me to keep trying to escape.” Her eyes sparked with an internal fire and he realized that she had never been close to crying before. She’d been playing him. And he’d let himself be played.

  This was ridiculous. He was one of the fiercest warriors in the entire dragon realm. The freaking KING trusted him above all other people. And here he was unable to get this tiny little human from one room to the next. Fed up, he bent down and tossed her over his shoulder. He strode across the great hallway and toward the King’s chambers. Amos was careful to hold her in such a way that she couldn’t bite him again.

  “Hey!” she screeched. “You said you wouldn’t hurt me!”

  “Am I hurting you?”

  Her staunch, irritated silence told him that he wasn’t.

  “I didn’t promise not to restrain you. And actually I’m keeping my promise by not letting you escape from the fortress. It’s not safe out there for you, hatchling.”

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  (Shifter Fever Book 1)