arched, his patience hanging on by a thin wire.
He wanted me to fight him? Fine. I was the one with a weapon, not him. And his hands were busy propping him up against the wall in his human-formed cage.
I lashed out with the blade, only to have him jump backward a beat ahead of me reaching my target. The end of my knife only grazed his bare abdomen, his lips pulling into a feral smile.
“Good choice,” he praised. “More.”
This man was insane.
Certifiably nuts.
Maybe the whole royal thing was a lie? Some fucked-up fantasy he’d created for himself in the middle of wherever the hell we were located. The geography I understood was region based; they didn’t explain where the breeding camps or other destinations were. Just the regions and capitals.
Ryder fell into a crouch, his expression inviting me to play.
Rather than turn him down, I went for it. If I could injure him even a little, it’d provide me with an opportunity to escape. And if nothing else, it would tell me what I was up against.
I considered throwing my dagger at him—I’d taken an entire course on knife fighting—but I didn’t want to lose my only weapon.
Instead, I darted around him, trying to reach his back, but he spun with me, reached out, and snagged my wrist. I whirled in an attempt to escape him, my instincts taking over. Except his grasp caused me to twist in a way that forced me to drop my knife.
Fuck.
I should have thrown it.
Alas, there was no time to correct the error. Ryder was already coming for me, trying to find a way to subdue me.
He brought my arm up behind my back, but I used the momentum to my advantage to spin and tried to take out his knee. Ryder dodged me, his counterattack hitting me square in the sternum.
Shit, he’s fast.
Silas had been my primary opponent at the university. Sometimes Rae. And neither of them had anything on Ryder.
He moved with a precision I would have admired had I not been the subject he sought to cut down.
I escaped his hold once more and ran toward the weapons rack. He chuckled behind me, then cursed when I found a pair of throwing stars. I aimed both at his torso, only to watch him avoid them with a crazy backbend that should not have been possible.
It shocked me so completely that I stopped moving, just to be yanked down onto the mat a second later by his much stronger body. I tried to dislodge him in the way I’d been trained, but he captured my wrists in one hand and pulled them over my head. Then he put his opposite palm at my throat, his gaze thoughtful as I squirmed beneath him.
“That was cheating,” he informed me, his breathing far more even than my own. “I gave you one knife. You lost it.”
I inhaled a gulp of air before replying, “You didn’t say I couldn’t grab more.”
His lips curled. “I suppose I didn’t.” He cocked his head to the side, his thumb brushing the pulse on my neck. “That wasn’t a horrible performance, Willow. Better than I anticipated, actually.”
That didn’t appear to be much of a compliment. Not that a compliment was warranted. How long had I lasted against him? One minute? Maybe two?
I nearly growled in frustration.
Then his hips settled between mine, and my frustration morphed into something else entirely. Heat spread through my veins from the point where our groins touched, my heart hammering an unsteady beat in my chest.
He has me pinned in a helpless state with no option but to comply.
And he’s turned on.
My throat went dry with the realization. I’m completely at his mercy.
“You need to eat more, Willow.” His dark eyes radiated with a hunger that rivaled his growing arousal below. “It’ll help with proper muscle growth and fill out your curves.” His gaze dropped to my mouth, and then lower to the fabric covering my heaving chest.
I wore his clothes—a plain white shirt and a pair of boxer shorts. Neither left much to the imagination, especially as I felt myself dampening at the apex between my thighs.
He’s a hunter, I thought, inhaling sharply. A vampire. A predator encased in a mirage of perfection.
And right now, all that perfection was pressed up against me, his muscles resembling a brick wall above me.
His dark eyes finally returned to mine, the knowledge in his depths stealing my ability to think. He could smell my reaction to him. He