Hunter - Blaire Drake Page 0,13

I felt it right through my body, and I couldn't catch my breath, but how fucking dare he?

“How dare you,” I breathed, fighting for oxygen. “How fucking dare you come into my house and do what you have!” I slammed my hands into his chest, but he didn't move. “Fuck, Hunter! What the fuck?” I pushed at him again and again but he was too strong for me. It was like flicking a brick wall despite the fact I had my whole body behind each shove.

His hands darted out and grasped my wrists to stop me. His grip was tight but not painful, and my skin tingled as the roughness of his palms rubbed against me. “How dare I?” His voice was deathly quiet. “How dare I? From the girl whose last words to me were “I'm pretty sure I'm going to marry you one day.” From the girl who fucking promised me she'd be mine forever then up and left without a fucking words twenty four fucking hours later, huh, Addy? How fucking dare I when you ran out on your family and everyone who loved you? How dare I when you broke my fucking heart and I cried for motherfucking days when I thought you were dead?”

“We had to go!” I didn't mean it to come out as a scream, but it did, and it was so raw it made my throat hurt. I tugged on his grip so hard he had to let me go. I squeezed my eyes shut as I ran my fingers through my hair. “You think we wanted to leave? Fucking really? I wanted to tell you where I was, but I couldn't. It was too risky. It wasn't a whimsical, last-minute idea.”

“Why?” he asked me hoarsely. “Why did you go?”

“He sold me!” I backed up and wrapped my arms around my waist. It still stung, even now, ten years later. He was my father, and I’d loved him more than life until that day when I realized I was nothing more than a disposable pawn to him.

Hunter stilled. The expression his face took on was thunderous, and the tension that threaded through his upper body gave credence to his nickname. He looked every inch the hunter he was. “He did what?”

“Oh!” I laughed, but there was nothing happy about it. It was bitter and sarcastic. “Your precious godfather didn't tell you that, did he? Your beloved boss didn't tell you that he got himself screwed up with the wrong family and sold me to cover his debt.”

He didn't move... still. He was like a statue, although I was sure his emotions were all inside. Like an inferno ready to explode. It was unnatural for a human being to be so controlled.

Was he even human anymore?

I didn't know. As I looked at him, looking exactly like a predator ready to strike for the kill, I realized this Hunter really wasn't my Hunter. He was a stranger, someone I should know but would probably never know in reality. The scars on his knuckles proved how dangerous he was, the callouses on his palms showed he wasn't afraid to get dirty in a fight.

Was there a real heart under there? I'd just seen a glimpse of it, I was sure, but was it a flash of feelings from the past or real emotion?

He didn't look human. It didn't look like there was a single scrap of humanity left inside his strong body.

He looked like he'd sold his soul to the devil.

Chapter Four – Hunter

Rage. It was everything.

I was trained to be unfeeling. To be permanently numb. There was no emotion in my job.

I was an assassin. Silent. Deadly.

If I felt anything, everything would go wrong. You couldn't kill if you cared. You couldn't take someone's life if you cared about the pain you were causing.

It's why Adriana was standing in front of me instead of lying on the floor in a pool of blood.

And fuck. She was standing there. A woman. A fucking woman. Tall, toned, more beautiful than I could ever remember her being, and in my eyes, she'd always been beautiful. Now, she was breathtaking. I didn't know if it was the way her dark brown hair tumbled around her shoulders or the way her large, sapphire blue eyes blinked at me from behind long, dark eyelashes. Maybe it was the way her soft lips drew together.

Maybe it was because she tasted like coca-cola and candy.

Maybe it was just because she was Adriana