Hunter (Revenge & Legacy Book 1)

by M. C. Cerny

  Hunter

  Revenge & Legacy Series

  M.C. Cerny

  Contents

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  Preface

  1. Elizabeth

  2. Elizabeth

  3. Adam

  4. Aaron

  5. Elizabeth

  6. Adam

  7. Elizabeth

  8. Aaron

  9. Adam

  10. Adam

  11. Elizabeth

  12. Adam

  13. Elizabeth

  14. Elizabeth

  15. Elizabeth

  16. Elizabeth

  17. Adam

  18. Elizabeth

  19. Aaron

  20. Elizabeth

  21. Adam

  22. Elizabeth

  23. Adam

  Prey - Chapter One

  Books by M.C. Cerny

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  Preface

  This is a dark romance retelling of Hades and Persephone. Nothing is at it seems. All is dark, and all is NOT fair in love and war.

  P.S. I did mention this is a dark romance, right? So in lieu of traditional trigger warnings, you know yourself best and may proceed with caution.

  Elizabeth

  Four years later and a wedding

  “Power is not given to you. You have to take it.” Beyoncé Knowles-Carter

  I spent the last four years at an all-girls boarding school. The Sisters of Mercy, more like purgatory, nestled between the Canadian border and Lake Champlain. Adam Huntley stranded me on Isle La Motte. An island with one bridge and seasonal access. He shipped me north as close to the Canadian border as he could without validating my passport. I think he was secretly afraid I’d find a way across the border once the injuries in my feet healed. There wasn’t a hateful word strong enough to describe how I felt about that man, despite his strong jaw, patrician nose, and eyes so intense he made the nuns contemplate sin on the rare occasion he visited.

  Four times in four years.

  I spun the promise ring on my finger feeling the jagged edges now smooth, given the time I had to get used to this…situation.

  Over time, I listened to my peers prattle on about the happiest day of their life. Pending nuptials. Unrealistic fantasies. Most were arranged by their parents, the odd guardian or two, even a Russian oligarch. We never heard from the girls who left the Sisters of Mercy with stars in their eyes and hopes filled with flowers, pearls, lace, and fanfare. Maybe balloon arches, and evening fireworks, or a silly bet placed with their loving and doting fiancé.

  Since the island had restricted internet access, it had been a great unsolved mystery, until today.

  Today, I nursed a hangover, and an ulcer the size of Lake Champlain downing pink chalky shit to keep from throwing up the mimosa I’m not of legal age to drink. I dry heaved in the car. In the bathroom. In the basket next to the confessional amid tittering smiles of my hair and makeup team thinking I was excited for the night to come.

  Or possibly pregnant.

  Apparently, eighteen-year-old virgins were a novelty.

  The thoughts circling my head like a toilet bowl made me ill.

  Sequestered away with a bunch of nuns in the woods, I might as well have been in a Victorian novel. For the longest time, I thought my biggest threat had been bears. Boys were banned from the campus as well as my access to them – teaching staff included. I didn’t have friends at school, mostly because of the whispers of being Adam Huntley’s ward, now bride. I should have known. The biggest threat had always been the same. The man himself.

  I felt like the bride of Frankenstein and after reading so much fan fic in the dark on a stolen ereader passed around like more men than Mondays…well, I kind of wished there was an alternative ending to my story–but there wasn’t.

  I avoided the staff of wedding preppers who speculated I might be knocked up by the dark prince. A baby. That was so far down on my list of things to avoid like the plague. I had ninety-nine problems. A baby wasn’t going to be one of them. Survival mode didn’t allow for anything else and if I could have gotten my hands on some birth control, I would have been popping it like Skittles.

  The flowers smelled cloying, as if anticipating a funeral. I finally had a strand of pearls perfect for clutching. The shiny perfect gems of clam spit choked me. The lace itched like pins and needles. The only fanfare happening were the silent screams inside my head, and definitely no cheap balloon arches. There wasn’t enough alcohol and opiates in the world to get me through today. None of my schoolmates from the last four years had been invited. Adam didn’t think they were worthy enough. It didn’t matter anyway since I didn’t have a single thread of contact left.

  Adam.

  Arrogant.

  Asshole.

  Adam.

  It always came back to him. The man who would be my husband in just a few short hours. The man who waited until my eighteenth birthday to send me an iPad with the Wi-Fi password, limited internet, a selection of interesting books to read, along with a box of inappropriate toys to prepare me for today. Did you ever see a shocked nun’s face after being caught googling anal play and butt plugs on the school’s moderated internet network?

  Yeah, me either until about a month ago.

  My knees were still sore after saying about a thousand Hail Marys.

  Never let it be said my education wasn’t well-rounded.

  I didn’t know what the shiny purple plastic item was supposed to be until I searched the browser. I was shocked. Mortified. Oddly curious, but I would deny that to the death. I stuck it back inside the box and let it collect a month’s worth of dust under my bed. Small mercies, I had a private room.

  Adam’s hostility grew with the five-hour car ride back to New York when I pitched a fit getting inside his death trap helicopter. I might have won that battle and I secretly preened when he dropped me off at a posh hotel, locked the door and threw away the key for two solid weeks before the wedding.

  For the first time in my life, I was grateful to be unwanted and found lacking. I missed my long walks on the rocky beaches of Lake Champlain, and waking up alone and safe in my single dorm room. It’s amazing what I took for granted in the last four years thinking and hoping he’d just forget about me. If I could stitch my eyes closed and never lay eyes on this man again it would be a blessing. Sure, there were a lot of rules I had to follow, but I didn’t have to worry about fulfilling a four-year-old promise until now.

  The door slammed against the wall of the church’s bride room making me jump in my dress. Twenty pounds of lace and beading jolted with the threat of unraveling. My hand rested over my stomach hoping I could keep it together a little longer.

  “Where is she?” My vapid attendants scattered like mice dropping hair brushes and makeup leaving me with the cat hunting its prey. I was a poor substitute for Cinderella. There was no golden light of hope in me. No songs to get me through. I was all darkness and despair. I moved behind a useless chair for protection against him.

  On a deep breath, I forced a smile and clenched my hands behind my back.

  “Adam…you know it’s bad luck to see the bride before the wedding.” Cajoling him nervously did nothing as he stalked me f
rom the mirror’s reflection. He paced looking me up and down. I beamed through the bile rising behind my lips. His tuxedo, blacker then nightfall made him look like a dark prince ruling over us all, but I knew the truth was much closer to something derelict and demonic straight from hell. You’d find no fairytales here, and the only happy endings were hand jobs in back alleys, if eavesdropping on Adam’s bodyguards held any truth.

  “I control my luck, Elizabeth.” He seemed extremely bothered by something and I didn’t ask. My husband-to-be wasn’t big on clarification.

  Adam believed his own words while I lived it in fear, suppressing a shudder from my body. I swallowed back something cute to say, something I knew he wouldn’t appreciate. I sank down in the chair frozen like stone dabbing my lipstick, watching him from the corner of my eye. I may have looked like a common brown sparrow, but inside beat the heart of a hawk. My eyes tracked his movements in the mirror. He turned me into a predator, lying in wait for the moment to strike.

  It killed me inside waiting. He paced with unsettled energy. Survival meant never taking your eyes off the hunter. No matter what Adam Huntley did to me, I would beat him at his own game and deny him the very essence of my soul. He thought I was his new shiny toy, but I vowed right then to become the thing of his nightmares.

  I cleared my throat, my mind blanking out the darkness so I could proceed placating the beast. “What do you need, Adam?”

  I reminded myself to remain passive. This wasn’t the time to argue back. The last thing Father Morely needed was a bride with a busted face in front of three hundred of Adam’s closest friends and associates, none of whom would come to my rescue because I had always been, and would always be, his property.

  “You. I need you Elizabeth.” His voice didn’t match his body language, but my body was primed. Years of training to respond as scared harmless prey ingrained in my muscles and bones.

  “You have me, Adam. Always.” I smiled back watching him pace the confines of the stone room and stained glass windows.

  “Do I?” His paranoia was palpable and bitter like the sour champagne in my drink.

  “Of course.” I turned to face him. Reassuring him was the only way out of this. I swallowed back the acid bubbling up. It was a miracle I didn’t have a permanent ulcer from all this stress and bullshit.

  He leaned in speaking softly against my ear. “Did you know, today is my birthday, darling.” Dread filled me like lead, pumping slow and heavy in my veins and bones.

  I slow blinked licking my dry lips. “It shall be the happiest of days then, my almost husband.” Craning my neck back, all I could see was the darkness lingering in his eyes. Adam was half mad.

  He sniffed and then made a chuffing sound. His cue, changing the direction of our talk.

  “You know, if I find out you’ve been with anyone, and I mean anyone, you will regret the day you played with me on a rooftop.” The cold words could have frosted the windows. Instead, they left me exposed and raw.

  I was about to deny his accusation, but he placed a gentle finger over my lips smearing my nude lipstick.

  He shushed my reply with an evil smirk on his face.

  “You know there are four things you can never get back.” He said, his green eyes blazing. He said this before, years ago, only telling me one thing.

  I swallowed back the unease and answered. “The stone. The stone you throw cannot be returned.” In the folds of my dress, I turned my promise ring over and over reciting the first of these four things.

  He nodded in agreement. I waited for more.

  He tapped my cheek with his finger.

  “The second are words. You can’t take back words once they are spoken.”

  Regrets were a funny thing. I regretted every morning I woke up realizing this was no dream. There never was, and never would be a happily ever after for me.

  My future had been cast and at the whim of a wild man. I flung his hand away from my face.

  I hissed standing from my seat. “You’re a psychopath.” My heart fluttered and a tear leaked from my perfect makeup.

  He stalked me until my back hit the wall. His hand circled my neck slowly stroking the column of my throat peppered with pearls pressing in against my pale skin. He shook me one handed with his paw of a hand, stopping my visual examination of his character. The musty scent of the church made me ill and I blinked my eyes to clear the tears.

  “Elizabeth,” he said in that disappointed tone, his brow furrowed. I let out a breath I’d been holding onto for far too long. “Psychopath?” He queried. “And after all that money I spent on educating you.” He made a tisking sound. “I expected a broader vocabulary, a better dissection of facts.”

  “Then you shouldn’t have sent me your spank bank in a box.” I growled, shocked I said anything at all.

  He stared at me before laughing out loud.

  “I prefer creative. After all, I made you.” His fingers found a loose bit of hair and tucked it back behind my ear, almost too gently for my tolerance.

  My chest nearly caved with the release of air trapped inside. This was the reason I put a cage around my heart. Protection. Survival.

  “In your own arrogant image, I’m sure.” I muttered, my heart pounding like his helicopter, ready for takeoff.

  Ignoring my sass, he paced the room again.

  He turned, pointing a finger at me. His manicured nail more lethal than a bullet.

  “You play me baby, and I’ll make sure you fly with broken wings.”

  His threats were real. I witnessed enough of them on the rare holiday visit to not question him.

  Ever.

  “Never, Adam. I’m yours.” I backed away to the chair sinking down. Anxiety kept me subdued as I forced my body to bend to his will accepting him. Part of my soul died, but it was a sacrifice for the greater good I hoped to achieve. Round and round I spun my ring pressing my finger into one of the few jagged spots left. Just enough to feel the spike of pain, enough to ground me.

  His hands fisted, and he shook them a moment before releasing his grip shaking them out. A grin spread over his insanely beautiful face. “God help anyone who fills your cunt with his seed, because I’ll rip out the fetus and make you watch.”

  The image left me weak and disgusted. I had no doubts what he was capable of, but even that was the most heinous thing he’d said to date. I couldn’t image bringing an innocent baby into this. I wouldn’t do it, I end it before it got far enough along, and that was the kindest thing I could do knowing what I did of this man.

  “A-Adam.” Bile touched the edge of my lips. He was deadly serious, but he had nothing to worry about, letting anyone touch me, get close to me even on a social level terrified me more than anything. Another reason I didn’t have friends. The Ice Queen of La Motte was a title I relished with my peers.

  He sniffed and chuffed.

  “Your brother is here.” He changed the topic with lightning speed as he examined his cuff links like I was a bother and not a bride.

  I steeled my expression to remain neutral. Of course, Eddie was here. He probably brought Fiona with him. It was the one highlight I hoped for.

  Cautiously, I stated the obvious. “He’s on leave this month.”

  “Did you invite him?” My lips pursed pressing the now smudged long-lasting matte finish lipstick against the top and bottom of my lips. I would endure any punishment he dished out to see my brother and Fi. If all I had were minutes, I’d suck him dry as I learned from my brief foray with internet porn to spend it with them.

  I started with begging and figured things could escalate naturally.

  “Adam, he’s my only family, of course I invited him.” He stalked behind me placing his hands on my shoulders squeezing them painfully until tears pricked my eyes. Again. The mirror reflected red finger prints under the silk, satin, and lace. The promise of punishment for my defiance.

  “I’m your family now.”

  He was mad, insane, and easily injured by the suggestion he wasn
’t anything to me. He took the whole make sure you’re with someone who treats you like a priority and not an option to an entirely different level. My intro to psychology class would have said needy, unstable, and the dreaded p word I dared not repeat. A veritable field day diagnosing him.

  Psycho. Psycho. Psycho.

  “Yes, yes you are my family.” His hands circled my neck pressing against my pulse points leaving me light headed. My heart felt like it would explode right then from the stress of holding back a response.

  I shut my eyes hoping my vision cleared and he’d be gone. All this time was nothing more than a horrible dream, some awful thing created by eating a heavy sandwich from the bodega too late before bed. If only it could have been something so simple.

  Adam leaned down, his face cheek to cheek with mine, baby fine coarse hairs missed by his electric razor abrading my skin. Our eyes locked on one another, mine blue, and a grey-green storm of turbulent waters were his. His one hand clenched and opened in the air while the other danced over my throat tentatively touching me. My nostrils flared in the mirror, the only part of my body capable of involuntary movement at the moment. He’d not been this close before, at least not like this in a cross between hate and something else I couldn’t identify.

  Hadn’t been ready to acknowledge.

  Desire for me?

  Too twisted to contemplate, I shoved the idea far down, clear across the globe.