Taken for the Hunt: A Dark Romantic Suspense

by Mae Doyle

  I see it.

  He regrets this.

  “Let’s just have a good day,” I tell him. “Lead the way. Where do you want to start?” Before he can answer, I speak again, knowing full well that I’m probably driving him insane. “Why don’t you show me your favorite part of the island?”

  “My favorite part?” He asks, shooting a sideways glance at me.

  “Yep.” I nod, giving him a smile. “Your favorite part.”

  For a moment, he doesn’t respond, and I’m sure that I fucked up big somehow, then he sighs and shakes his head. “Alright, Natalia. My favorite part is all the way across the island, so let’s go.”

  A burst of excitement rises in me but I push it down as quickly as it appears and walk next to him, trying to remain calm. Part of me hopes that if I can get him to open up to me, I’ll be able to use that to my advantage.

  The other part of me sees the guy I saw the first time in my booth at the restaurant and just wants to make him smile.

  I know, I’m fucked up.

  As we walk, he starts to talk. “You’re on the gentle side of the island, where the beach slops down to the water and you can actually go swimming, but the first part of the island that I saw when I scouted this place is on the other side. There’s a thick jungle there that you have to fight your way through if you want to make it to the other side. I’ve cut a small path, and it leads to my favorite place.”

  I’m excited. Even though I can’t forget why we’re out here, it feels good to be in the sun again, walking with a sexy man. My feet feel light as I keep up with him.

  Ahead of us, the forest is dark and thick. It towers over the island and is incredibly foreboding, but Marco walks towards it like he grew up there and is comfortable there, so I follow, trying to ignore the feeling of ice starting to trickle down my back.

  Chapter 18

  Marco

  Natalia slows down a little as we draw closer to the forest. Huge palm trees tower over us, casting shade on the ground as they block out the sun. The sand is soft underfoot, making it difficult to keep your footing and move quickly through the trees.

  From time to time a bird squawks overhead and Natalia jumps, making me smile.

  “Tell me again why you like this place? It’s creepy as fuck. And how did you find the island in the first place?” She’s walking right next to me, hurrying to keep up with my long strides, so I slow a little bit. The last thing I want to do is wear her out so early when we have such a long and busy day of walking and exploring ahead of us.

  “The trees aren’t creepy,” I assure her. “Even if you think that they are, I’m sure that you’re going to like what’s on the other side.” She’s silent, carefully picking her way along the path with me and I clear my throat. “I found the island when I worked with a private real estate agent to buy something like this for myself and my friends.”

  That makes her stop dead in her tracks. “Wait. You really own this place? Like, the whole island? I thought that that was all a joke. How the fuck do you own an island?”

  I shrug and keep walking, making her hurry to catch up with me. “When you have the money you can buy pretty much anything,” I tell her.

  “But not everything?”

  Her question hits close to him and I have to remind myself that she doesn’t know my past. She doesn’t know that the one thing I can’t buy is love and that, no matter how much I’ve tried, it hasn’t ever happened. She has no idea that the woman I loved long ago died, leaving me with nothing but a shriveled up mess where my heart used to be.

  Most people would go to therapy to deal with their issues.

  I’ve done, well…this.

  “Not everything, but most things. This island, for example. My helicopter. The staff here. Their silence and loyalty. You can buy a lot of things when you want to and have the means.”

  “I still can’t believe they cut out their tongues for you,” she says.

  “You don’t have someone in your life you’d do that for?” I ask, keeping my tone light. I know that she doesn’t have a boyfriend, that much was obvious when I looked into her, but I still want to hear it from her.

  She shakes her head, her lips pressed tightly together and I don’t push it. Instead, I focus on the walk. We’re almost to the cove. Even though we still have a ways to go, I can feel the salt air blowing in from it.

  I’d seen this cove out of the window of the helicopter the first time my real estate agent brought me out to the island and I’d known immediately that I needed to have this place. It’s so calm, so relaxing, making it the perfect place to come visit when I’ve had a long day of dealing with the rabbits or handling problems with work.

  Even though I don’t go into the office but once or twice a year, there are always small fires to put out.

  Like she’s reading my mind, Natalia turns to me. “What do you do that you have so much money?”

  For a moment I weigh the pros and cons of giving her any details about myself, then I remember that she’s not going to make it off the island alive. “I run an international investment company,” I finally say. “We work with large clients around the world making sure that they come to us with a lot of money and leave with a fuckton.”

  She shakes her head. “I was busting my ass for shitty tips and you were turning a little money into a lot and living on a private island. It’s just my luck, isn’t it, that my first trip to somewhere like this would be my last?”

  There’s nothing for me to say to that, but right then we step out into the cove. The sun sparkles on the water, making it look like pieces of glass floating around us, and the sand runs smoothly down to the water’s edge.

  Unlike other places on the beach where the water is choppy and harsh, it’s almost completely still here and so clear that you can see straight to the bottom almost thirty feet out.

  “Holy shit. This is where I’d want to live if I had this island,” she tells me, kicking off her shoes and rolling up her pants. I watch as she walks to the water then wades in, gasping a bit as the cool water climbs up her legs.

  “What do you think?” The question is out of my mouth before I can stop it. For some ridiculous reason, I honestly care what she thinks about this place. I can’t believe it, but I want to hear from her that she likes it, that it’s gorgeous.

  I know that I can’t keep Natalia forever, but I want her to enjoy a few things before she has to die.

  Natalia doesn’t answer. She has her arms wrapped tightly around her body and is staring off into the distance like she’s searching the horizon for something. Without thinking through what I’m about to do, I kick off my shoes and follow suit so that I’m standing next to her.

  “What do you think?” I ask again, and this time my words seem to pull her from her trance. She turns and looks at me and I’m shocked to see tears running down her face.

  “Which way is my home?” She asks. “Is it that way?” She points straight out from the two of us. We’re so far away from land that she couldn’t see it even on the clearest day, but I nod.

  “That way, yeah. You can’t see it, though. It’s too far.”

  Natalia is quiet for a moment. Part of me wants to reach for her and try to comfort her as she deals with whatever she’s thinking about, but I keep my hands firmly at my sides. There’s absolutely no reason for me to reach for her, no reason for me to try to comfort her.

  She’s not mine to comfort.

  “I had no idea that there were places this gorgeous in the world,” she says, angrily wiping tears away from her face. “I mean, I saw pictures of them in magazines and saw them in movies, but I’ve never been anywhere like this. I never thought that I’d have the chance. Looks like all I had to do was get kidnapped so a bored billionaire could hunt me for sport.”

  Her words are bitter and even though she doesn’t turn to look at me, I know that she’s aiming every single word of hers right at me. Just like that, the feelings that I was having for her — the ones where I wante
d to comfort her and protect her — are gone.

  She built a wall between the two of us in just a few sentences and placed me squarely on the other side of it so that I can’t get to her.

  “This is the cove,” I say sharply. “You wanted to see my favorite place on the island, and now you have. Ready for the rest of the tour?”

  Natalia turns to look at me, pain written across her face. I’m not sure what she thought that she would accomplish by trying to make me feel bad, but it didn’t fucking work.

  She matches the cold and blank look on my face, her gorgeous eyes stony. “Show me. I need to know how the fuck I’m going to get away from you when you try to kill me.”

  I notice that she says try, not when I do kill her, but I let it go. There’s no reason to rub salt in the wound, not when the game was built specifically so that the hunters can’t lose.

  No rabbit can win, not even one that I think I’m starting to have feelings for.

  I watch as she stalks back to her shoes, shooting a nasty look at me over her shoulder. Natalia may think that she’s special, but special doesn’t mean shit on my island. All rabbits meet the same fate eventually.

  Chapter 19

  Natalia

  Marco walks so fast, his stride long and confident, that I have to hurry to catch up with him. I’m sure that I’m going to miss some part of the island, some little clue that will be useful in helping me survive the hunt, but I don’t complain.

  I don’t want to fucking talk to him.

  He’s a rich bastard with too much time and money on his hands. People like him are the reason that the world is so fucked up and as I follow behind him, taking the path back through the woods away from the cove, I feel myself getting angrier and angrier.

  “You know,” I snap, finally unable to keep my thoughts to myself any longer, “I bet that you killed ants with a magnifying glass when you were little, didn’t you? Did your mom not hug you enough? Or maybe you had an uncle who touched you, am I right? So now you feel like you have something to prove to the world by swinging your dick around.”

  Fuck, it feels good to tell him what I really think of him. He’s a bastard, plain and simple, doing everything he can to feel good about himself, even if that means hurting other people.

  He spins around, his eyes flashing. For a moment I’m scared and think that I’ve really fucked up, but then I remember that he wants to kill me no matter what. It’s not like we have a very good power balance anyway.

  “Is that what you think? I bought this island to feel good about myself?” He has an eyebrow raised, his mouth curled a little as he looks at me.

  “I think you have issues, yeah. Why else would you want to hunt women? You’re fucked up, with big issues, and you just can’t see it.”

  He laughs, a sardonic sound that actually makes my skin crawl. Until this very moment, I didn’t know that that was something that could really happen, and it freaks me out a little.

  “Because it’s fun! We hunt women because it’s fun, don’t you see that?”

  “You can’t get a date,” I throw back at him. “You get turned down left and right and nobody wants to date you so you take power however you think that you can.” I’m breathing hard, trying to stay as calm as possible, but it’s really fucking difficult.

  “I didn’t know you were a psychiatrist, Natalia. I thought you were just a dumb fucking waitress who couldn’t hold down a job.”

  That was a low blow and I suck in a breath. “I’d have a job if you hadn’t made me lose it,” I snap.

  “Sure, and I bet that it was just so fulfilling always asking people if they needed a refill. Didn’t you ever think that you wanted adventure? Something more from life than carrying platters to and from the kitchen?”

  “Of course I did!” I’m screaming now, unable to help myself. “But I didn’t want to be brought to an island in the middle of nowhere to be hunted for sport! Nobody fucking wants that!”

  “I think you do. I think you want to feel alive for the first time in your life.” He takes a step towards me.

  Without thinking, I step back. I don’t like him coming closer. Unfortunately, I don’t realize at the time that moving away from him is only going to excite him. He’s a predator, and it’s going to make him see me as prey.

  I watch in horror as his eyes narrow and I realize that I’m right. His prey instinct has just kicked in and I’m in the line of fire.

  “Marco,” I say, holding my hands up. “What are you doing?”

  I honestly can’t believe that this is the same guy I let fuck me yesterday. I’ve dreamed about his hands on my body all night and now I just feel dirty.

  “You think I’m a monster.” His voice is low and his face is slack. He looks dead, or at least dead inside.

  I take another step back and he follow, his steps larger than mine, easily closing the gap that I’m trying to build between the two of us.

  “No, no, I don’t,” I lie, trying to think of what I can say to him to make him stop coming at me like this. I’m terrified at the look in his eyes. The scary realization that he really wants to hunt me hits me like a brick and I suck in a breath.

  “You do. You’re just like all the other rabbits. I thought that you were different.”

  “I am. I am different, Marco, I promise. Just…let’s talk about this, okay?” My scalp prickles as my entire body prepares to make a run for it. I’m not sure how far I’m going to be able to get, not with him right on my heels, but I don’t have a choice.

  “Run, rabbit.”

  I don’t move. It feels like my legs have broken, like I’m stuck in the sand. My entire body feels heavy and slow, but the look on his face tells me that this isn’t a joke.

  “Marco — ”

  “Five.”

  “Marco, please, don’t do this.”

  “Four.”

  “You don’t want to do this!” My tongue is thick in my mouth and I swallow hard, trying to get some moisture down my throat. It feels like the sun has completely drained me of all moisture, like I’m a dried out husk just stuck in the sand.

  “I’m not joking, Natalia. Three.”

  He’s not joking. He’s not going to stop. The low-level panic that I had been trying to fight suddenly surges and I spin around, sprinting through the woods as fast as I can. Sand kicks up and into my shoes but I don’t stop.

  I trip over a piece of driftwood but manage to catch my balance at the last second.

  “Two!” His voice carries easily as he yells and I wonder for a moment if the people back at the building know what’s going on. If they can hear me. If anyone would give a shit.

  It’s not supposed to end like this. I run in a panic, not even paying attention to where I’m going. I just know that I need to get away from him. Halfway down the path I realize that I’m almost back to the cove and I dart to the right, leaving the path and tearing off into the woods.

  He’s going to be able to easily track me in the sand, but if I get out of the way then he might not have as easy a time. My head pounds as I run, each footstep sending a shudder through my body.

  Panic makes sweat break out all over my body. Even with the conditioning and training that Owen has been making me do, I’m not in the best shape yet and I get a stitch in my side. Gasping, I grasp it, trying to squeeze away the pain as I keep running.

  My pace has slowed but I refuse to stop and just wait on him to catch up with me. As soon as I stop to rest then I know that I’m fucked.

  I was far enough away from him that I didn’t hear him yell one, but the sound of something else reaches my ears. Against my better judgement I stop, leaning against the bark of a tree while I try to catch my breath.

  Whistling. The fucker’s whistling. When I close my eyes I can almost see him strolling calmly through the woods, taking his time as he comes for me. This is a game for him, but it’s life or death for me.

  Gritting my teeth, I shove off from the tree, trying to ignore the way it bites into the
palms of my hands. My fingertips still ache from where I cut them on the helicopter trying to escape.

  The trees start to thin and I panic, looking around for a good spot to hide. Once I get out onto the beach then there’s nothing that will stop him from being able to easily see me running. Adrenaline courses through my body and I stop, looking at one of the trees.

  It’s a little bit thinner than most of the others but still just as tall. Instead of standing straight and tall to the sky, it leans a little bit, giving me a shot of confidence.

  I can climb it. I don’t know what the fuck I’ll do once I’m up there but all I can do is hope that Marco won’t look up when he’s chasing me. I hope that he’s too caught up on finding me that he just looks straight ahead and it never crosses his mind that I might have climbed a tree.

  The whistling is getting closer.

  It creeps me out, making me wince and close my eyes for a second, then I open then and grab the tree, mounting it like a bicycle before trying to shimmy up it. My jeans catch on the rough bark, giving me enough friction to keep from sliding right back down.

  I’m hugging the damn thing, slowly working my way up when I stop to look down. Unfortunately, I’m just a few feet up, and it feels like I should be reaching the top of the tree by now. Sucking in a breath, I focus and climb more.

  Each tiny shimmy takes me higher, but each time I pause to readjust my hands I hear him whistle.

  It’s going to be fine.

  I just have to keep going.

  Then he grabs my ankle.

  Chapter 20

  Marco

  “Boo.”

  Natalia’s eyes fly wide open when she looks down and sees me grabbing onto her ankle. I don’t give her any time to react or try to kick out at me before I yank her, pulling her easily from the tree.