Page 54 of His to Hunt (The Owner’s Club #1)

Fifty

LUNA

The pain radiates through my shoulders like fire licking at my bones.

My arms stretch above me, wrists bound together, suspended from a steel beam that groans with even the slightest movement.

Cold seeps through the thin soles of my shoes, crawls up my spine, and finds the fracture already splintering my chest open.

But I refuse to make a sound.

I won't give him that satisfaction. Not now. Not ever.

The door scrapes open and I hear footsteps approaching.

Calm. Unhurried. Deliberate. As if I'm not hanging helplessly in some abandoned warehouse with dirt-stained walls and rusted chains overhead. As if this is all just... inevitable.

"Pretty little thing."

Christopher steps into view, his expensive shoes clicking softly against the concrete floor.

His eyes move over me methodically, taking inventory with that same detached cruelty I remember too well.

This version of him is worse than the one I thought I knew.

The mask of civility has slipped away entirely, revealing what was always lurking beneath the surface.

He stops directly in front of me, hands casually tucked into the pockets of his perfectly pressed slacks. Not a single hair out of place. His cologne wraps around me—something woodsy and expensive that can't quite mask the rot underneath.

"I thought maybe you'd cry when you saw me." He sounds almost disappointed, tilting his head to study my expression. "But no. Still full of fight." His eyes narrow slightly. "You were always such a fucking tease."

I keep my gaze fixed somewhere beyond his shoulder, refusing to meet his eyes.

He steps closer, close enough that I can feel his breath brush across my face. "That collar."

His hand rises slowly, two fingers hooking under the black velvet ribbon Beckett fastened around my throat. The one I've refused to remove, even when alone. The one that now feels like the last connection to safety I have left.

Christopher's mouth twitches—caught between a smirk and a snarl. "Do you even know what it meant when he gave this to you?" He leans in, words brushing against my ear. "It wasn't a promise, Luna. It was a warning."

I breathe deeply through my nose, focusing on keeping my expression neutral despite the panic clawing up my throat.

"Let me show you what real ownership feels like."

Without warning, his fingers curl around the velvet and pull sharply. The choker snaps free, tearing against my skin as the fabric gives way. He tosses it behind him like garbage, the delicate silver charm skittering across the concrete floor.

"That thing around your neck?" He spits at the floor beside him, the sound vulgar in the hollow silence. " That wasn't protection. It was branding. And I don't let another man mark what's mine."

He takes a step back, eyes traveling over me from head to toe, his jaw tight. The false smile he wore when he entered is gone completely.

"Do you have any idea what you put me through?"

My breath catches involuntarily. The audacity of it—how he speaks as if he's the wounded one, as if he's the one strung up and bleeding.

"I was promised you," he continues, voice rising slightly.

"You. Not your sister. Not some pathetic substitution in a prettier dress.

" A harsh laugh escapes him, entirely devoid of humor.

"I spent weeks preparing. Playing by their rules.

Waiting like a good little soldier while you let him put his hands all over you. "

He begins pacing, each step measured as he moves back and forth in front of me. Something in his expression shifts, fractures, like glass under too much pressure.

"You think you're the victim here? You think he saved you?" His arm sweeps wide, encompassing the dingy room with its rusted chains and concrete walls. "This is what your choices earned you, Luna. This is what happens when you take what doesn't belong to you."

He closes the distance between us again, breathing harder now. I can see it in his eyes—the self-righteous indignation of a man who believes he's been wronged.

"You made me do this," he says, voice dropping to something almost tender.

His head tilts as his eyes scan my face like he's searching for something.

"You used to smile at me when I walked into a room.

Remember that? Before he turned you against me.

" His voice softens further. "That was real, Luna. I know it was. "

His hand shoots out before I can blink, wrapping around my throat. He doesn't squeeze yet—just holds me there, his palm warm and suffocating against my skin.

"He got inside you, didn't he?" His other hand runs down my side, fingers tracing a slow, possessive path over my ribs, my waist. I clench my jaw so hard I can feel my teeth grinding. "He marked you from the inside out."

His grip tightens incrementally, and I gasp as my lungs suddenly struggle for air.

"I can fix that."

He pushes me back against the post, making the ropes strain above my head. His hand constricts around my throat—not enough to crush my windpipe, but enough to steal my breath in small, terrifying increments.

"You're going to forget him," he whispers, watching my face closely.

I shake my head weakly, stars beginning to dance at the edges of my vision.

"You're going to remember what it means to belong to me."

The pressure increases again, and my legs begin to buckle, my weight supported only by the ropes at my wrists and the tips of my toes against the concrete. My mouth opens in a silent plea for air, but nothing comes out.

"Shh," he soothes, thumb stroking the side of my throat even as his fingers continue their methodical constriction. "That's it. Just feel it."

He presses his body against mine, his hips grinding forward as his breath warms my ear. "Do you know what happens next?"

I struggle to speak, but my lungs are screaming.

"You learn."

Suddenly, mercifully, he releases me. I collapse against the restraints, my body dropping hard as I gasp and wheeze, the cold air knifing into my oxygen-starved throat.

"See? That wasn't so hard." He smiles, leaning in until his face is just inches from mine, his voice dark and hungry. "Say it. Say you're mine."

I stare straight into his eyes, gathering what little strength I have left.

"Go fuck yourself," I spit the words directly into his face.

For a moment, he simply stares, his expression unreadable.

Then his hand strikes my face with brutal efficiency. The crack echoes through the warehouse as my head whips sideways, skin burning from the impact.

"Wrong fucking move," he says quietly. Then a smile spreads across his lips. "Still, I've missed that mouth."

He steps close again, reaching up to tuck a loose strand of hair behind my ear with surprising gentleness, as if he hadn't just hit me hard enough to leave a bruise.

"We'll work on your obedience."

He circles me again—slow, methodical steps that remind me of a predator assessing its prey. His casual demeanor makes it all the more terrifying, as if hurting me is merely foreplay. As if the real pain is still to come.

"You can hate me all you want," he continues, voice smooth and reasonable. "It won't matter. I'm going to rebuild you, Luna. Strip out every piece he touched. Replace it with something better." He pauses behind me, his voice dropping to a whisper. "Something mine."

His hand suddenly grabs a fistful of fabric at my hip and jerks upward. The sound of tearing satin cuts through the silence as my dress splits along the seam, the material gaping open from thigh to ribcage, leaving my skin exposed to the cold air .

He doesn't stop there. His hands move to the top of my dress, gripping one of the thin straps and snapping it clean off. The neckline slips down, exposing the top curve of my breast, making me feel naked despite still being partially clothed.

"You don't deserve to wear anything he touched you in," he mutters, his breath hot against my neck.

I thrash against the ropes, fighting desperately despite the pain shooting through my shoulders.

His hand immediately grabs my jaw, fingers digging in as he forces my head back at a painful angle. "Do that again," he growls, face hovering beside mine, "and I'll make it hurt."

His eyes bore into mine, all pretense of civility vanished. "I'm not Beckett Sinclair. I don't need your consent."

His palm slides slowly over my stomach, a possessive touch that makes my skin crawl. "I remember this body. How these tits feel in my hands."

His hand moves upward, rough and demanding as he cups my breast through the torn fabric of my dress. I flinch, unable to suppress my body's instinctive reaction.

He squeezes harder, thumb rolling over my nipple with practiced precision. A breath hitches in my throat involuntarily, and I want to scream—not from physical pain, but from the humiliation. The shock of it. The violation.

His eyes flash with triumph. He felt it.

"Still sensitive. Even now." His voice drops, intimate and threatening. "That's good. You'll learn faster."

He leans in closer, his breath scorching against my cheek. "I don't care that he got a taste. I don't mind sharing and treating you like the whore you are. I'll still make you mine."

He shifts his position, pressing his body flush against mine. I feel the unmistakable hardness grinding against me through his expensive suit pants .

My skin crawls with revulsion. I try to twist away, panic flooding my lungs like ice water.

His hand on my chest tightens painfully in response. "You'll learn not to fight me."

"Sir."

The voice slices through the room like a blade, unexpected and abrupt.

Christopher freezes against me, his body going rigid.

"Get the fuck out," he snarls without turning around.

"You're needed, Sir."

There's a pause, heavy with tension, before I hear footsteps approaching. I can't see the newcomer from my position, but I sense another presence in the room.

Christopher growls something under his breath, his frustration palpable. "I'm not done with you." He steps away from me, but not before his hand snakes into my hair, fingers twisting painfully as he yanks my head back. His lips brush against my ear. "Next time, there won't be anyone to stop me."

His hand slides from my hair to my jaw, fingers digging in with bruising force until I can't move my mouth, can't turn my head. He holds me there, forcing me to stare directly at him.

"Look at you," he says, something like wonder in his voice. "Still pretending you're not mine."

And then, without warning, he kisses me.

There's nothing gentle about it—just the bruising pressure of his mouth against mine, his lips forcing themselves on me in a violation more intimate than any physical blow.

I jerk against his hold, twisting desperately, fighting with what little strength I have left, but his grip only tightens, knuckles pressing into my skin until I can't move, can't breathe.

I feel the first tear slip free, followed by another. I hate myself for giving him this victory, but I can't stop them .

He pulls back, chest heaving as if the act has excited him. "There it is."

He leans in again, his tongue dragging slowly along the track of my tear, collecting it like a trophy. "Salted. Sweet. Just like I always imagined."

I want to scream, but my throat has closed around the sound.

He steps back finally, and for a moment I think it's over. Then he reaches into his pocket and pulls out a length of ribbon—deep burgundy velvet, expensive and wrong against my skin.

With methodical precision, he ties it around my throat—tight, possessive, a perverse mirror of the collar he ripped from my body.

"A gift for Sinclair when he decides to show up."

With one last lingering look, he finally walks away.

The door slams behind him, the sound echoing in the empty space.

And I collapse—legs giving out completely, all my weight falling on my wrists as they tear against the rope, my shoulders screaming in protest. But I barely register the physical pain.

My breath comes in broken, silent sobs that rack my body.

I don't scream. I don't even cry openly.

But inside, deep where no one can see, I'm begging for Beckett to tear the world apart just to put me back together.

Because right now, I'm not sure I can do it myself.