Page 15 of His to Hunt (The Owner’s Club #1)

Fourteen

BECKETT

She walks beside me in silence, wearing my shirt, still bare underneath. Still aching. Still full from what we shared in the darkness.

Her hair is tangled with twigs and leaves, thighs streaked with dirt and sweat and cum. She doesn't look at the others as we move through the trees, doesn't speak, doesn't stumble, but I feel it—the weight of what we just did clinging to her skin like smoke.

When we reach the edge of the forest, I nod once at the man stationed at the threshold. His eyes flicker between us before he steps aside without a word. They all do. No one stops me when I lead her across the stone path. No one asks because no one wants to know what I'll do if they try.

They know what it means when a woman walks out in a man's shirt, when she's marked and protected and no longer up for fucking debate.

She's not a question anymore. She's a Possession. Mine.

But I haven't forgotten what she is—the girl who didn't belong, the girl who looked back at me like she knew the stories and came anyway, the girl whose eyes found mine in the forest before she ran. The girl who lied to get through the gates.

And now she's in my world, which means I get to ask.

I don't speak until we're inside, past the gate, past the corridor, past the eyes and the rules and the others who'd kill to know how she got in and who she belongs to now. It's just us in a private room with walls thick enough to keep secrets.

She stands in the center, clutching the hem of my shirt like it's armor. She's quiet, wide-eyed, still trying to catch her breath.

"Are you going to turn me in?" she asks, voice barely above a whisper.

I cross my arms, studying her. Somehow her mind is in the same place as mine. On our dilemma. "That depends."

"On what?"

"On whether you tell me the truth."

She lifts her chin slightly. "And if I don't?"

"Then we have a problem," I say, my voice low. "And I don't think you want any more problems tonight."

I step forward, close enough to catch her scent – forest and sweat and something uniquely her. Close enough to taste the lie I know she's still choking on. Then I speak, soft and lethal.

"You weren't invited. You didn't belong. And you knew it." Another step. "You slipped through a gate meant to keep things like you out."

She flinches, a barely perceptible movement, but I catch it.

I catch everything about her.

"What would you have done?" she challenges, a spark of defiance cutting through her fear. "If you were desperate enough? "

I drag a finger beneath her chin, lifting her face toward mine, my grip just tight enough to remind her what she let me do in the dark, what she asked for with those breathless pleas against my skin.

"You stepped into the lion's den." A pause. One breath. Then, "So tell me, little thief—who the fuck are you, really?"

The question hangs between us, heavy with implications. She stands there, silent, the rise and fall of her chest the only movement.

My shirt hangs off her like it was made for her body and not mine, slipping off one shoulder to reveal the marks I left. Her legs are bare, her mouth still swollen from where I kissed her, fucked her, marked her.

And now I want her truth. Not all of it, just enough to know how deep the damage runs.

She shifts her weight, glancing down at the floor. "It wasn't me who was invited," she murmurs.

"I know." My response is immediate, certain… impatient.

"I stole someone's invitation," she admits, fingers playing with the edge of my shirt.

I take a slow step forward, circling her like the predator I am. "Whose?"

She hesitates, teeth catching her lower lip, and that pause tells me everything. It wasn't just anyone. She didn't climb her way into this world—she came from it.

The sharpness in her spine, the silence she knows how to wear, the look in her eyes that says she's seen what happens when men like me stop pretending to be civil. She was born in this power; she just wanted to escape it.

"Tell me," I demand, more quietly this time.

She swallows hard. "Does it matter? "

"Everything matters. Especially in here." I gesture to the room, to the world beyond its walls. "Especially with me."

"I used a name they'd recognize," she finally says. "It got me through the gate."

"And you came here… why?"

This time, she doesn't lie. "To survive."

"Survive what?" I press, circling her slowly. "Or who?"

She tenses but doesn't answer, her eyes following me as I move around her. I let the silence fall again between us, not because I have nothing to say, but because I want her to feel the weight of her own honesty.

"You thought coming here, surviving the night, and walking away with $250,000 would save you."

"I knew it would," she replies with surprising certainty.

I hum, continuing my slow circle. "So sure of yourself."

"I had to be," she responds, fingers clenching at her sides. "Uncertainty gets you killed in places like this."

"Is that what they taught you?"

Her eyes flash. "No one had to teach me that."

I drag a finger down her arm—slow, purposeful—watching the shiver that follows my touch. "You didn't flinch when you walked in that ballroom. Didn't ask questions. Didn't need guidance. Didn't look lost among the masks and the rules. You stood out, but from your confidence, not your fear."

I pause, letting my words sink in. "You've been in rooms like that before."

Her lips press together in resistance.

"Haven't you?" I demand, leaning closer.

"Yes," she admits finally. "I have."

I step closer, lower my voice. "You knew what you were doing."

"And what exactly was I doing?" she asks, chin lifted in challenge.

"You're not some reckless girl from nowhere. You were raised in this. Polished. Dangerous. The kind of woman who knows better and walks into the fire anyway."

She doesn't deny it. She just stares at me, something shifting in her gaze—something like recognition. And I know I'm right.

"So what now?" she asks, voice steadier than it should be. "You've caught me in a lie. What happens to liars in your world, Beckett?"

The sound of my name on her lips sends an unexpected heat through me, a current that runs straight to my cock. I lean in, my voice a whisper over her skin.

"Careful," I murmur. "Keep looking at me like that, and I'll start thinking you're a threat."

She meets my eyes—steady, wild. "Maybe I am."

I grin, slow and dark. "Oh, baby. I hope you are."

"Don't call me baby," she says, but there's no real fight in it.

"What should I call you then?" I ask, fingers trailing along her collarbone.

She shivers but doesn't pull away. Instead, she leans in slightly, an unconscious response that makes my blood heat.

I step back and take in the sight of her—long legs with their constellation of scrapes, full lips and dark lashes and stubborn chin.

She doesn't glow. She burns. And she walked into a world of chaos and thought she could walk away.

"Your name," I say, voice lower now.

She swallows, hesitates for a heartbeat, then, "...Luna."

It hits harder than it should.

I tilt her chin up with my thumb, holding her still. "Luna," I test it on my tongue, watching how her pupils dilate slightly. "Is that another lie?"

"No," she whispers, a tremor in her voice. "That's the one true thing I have left."

"You don't even realize what you are, do you?"

She exhales. "What am I?"

I smirk. "Dangerous."

"I'm not the dangerous one here," she counters, eyes locked on mine.

"Aren't you?" I ask, thumb brushing her lower lip. "Walking into this place knowing exactly what it is? Knowing what men like me do to girls like you?"

She scoffs.

I step closer, pushing my body flush against hers, my voice dropping lower. "Too fucking pretty for a room full of monsters. Too wild to belong to anyone."

She tries to look away, but I hold her still, my grip firm but not cruel.

"And what does that make you?" she asks, voice barely audible.

"The monster who caught you," I say, something possessive unfurling in my chest. "And now that I've got you?"

I lean in and whisper the truth against her mouth.

"I'm never letting go."