Page 93 of Hunted

Valentin’s gaze moves over my face with unsettling precision… as if he can see the places I’m barricading. My skin prickles with the urge to move, to create distance, to remind myself my body still belongs to me.

‘You wish for more information.’

My head snaps up. ‘I do not.’

‘If you are that desperate for more,’ he continues, voice unhurried, ‘you may propose a new arrangement.’

A new deal.

Of course.

He treats knowledge like currency and consent like a ledger, and the horrifying part is that he’s not wrong.

I’m desperate. I just hate that he can see it. ‘I’m not desperate,’ I insist.

‘Mm.’

I glare. ‘Don’t “mm” me.’

His gaze flicks to my mouth.

I feel it everywhere. Bones. Belly. Pussy. The memory of his tongue against mine turns my anger dangerously combustible.

‘Admit it, little hunter. You’re beyond curious.’

‘I’m not⁠—’

‘You are,’ he corrects smoothly. ‘And you’re attempting to pretend otherwise.’

‘I’m tired, and I would very much like to go to bed.’

Fucking fuck it.

His gaze stays on me because he doesn’t even need to look at the bed to know we’re both thinking about it. Both imagining too much. Hands. Sheets. Sweat. Hard cock pounding dripping pussy until sense and sanity burn down together and we leap from climax to climax.

The silence stretches, heavy enough to press on my ribs.

‘If you want answers,’ Valentin says at last, ‘you will return to the Tower with me.’

The words are a cold slap, made stranger by the way he seems almost surprised by them himself.

My stomach drops.

The Tower. Onyx and obedience. Elevators that swallow you whole. Malachi’s eyes tracking me like I’m a problem waiting to happen.

I can’t go back with him now. Not with my head spinning and those two words lodged under my skin.

‘I’m not going anywhere with you,’ I say, bracing fear into backbone. ‘Not tonight.’

His gaze narrows. The room changes with it, predatory pressure gathering at the edges. ‘You will.’

‘I won’t.’

We lock there, and I feel the weight of his will against the room. Not the immobilising freeze from earlier, but a reminder.

He could. He doesn’t. And that restraint feels like a test.

‘Very well, little hunter,’ he says finally, which is not a concession. It’s recalculation. ‘If not tonight, then by morning. You will present yourself to me at breakfast.’